Thousands of humans came together to build a tall mega-structure that reached to the skies, so they could be like God. The height of their ambition — and arrogance — could only be matched by the magnitude of their failure.
Eventually, it all came crashing down.
Most people think that The Tower of Babel is a story about the past. Those people are wrong. The Tower of Babel was a premonition of the future.
That future is now.
Take a look at The Shard skyscraper in London or the EU parliament building in Strasbourg. What do those eye-sores, with their unfinished motif, share in common? They are symbols; symbols of rebellion; a rebellion against aesthetics and beauty, but also against God. Those ugly structures are emblems of the Tower of Babel.
But the actual Tower of Babel is not built in the real world. In October last year, I wrote:
[They] have a spiritual aversion to reality and objective truth. They don’t like those things because they cannot control them. That’s why they are building another world which is governed by their own laws; a virtual world where nothing is real and everything is subjective.
That world is all but complete.
If you are feeling confused you are not alone.
Only a year ago, hardly anyone knew what ChatGPT was. Fast forward a few months and AI can now answer all your questions, author all your emails, write all your code, order all your food, and do all your office work. It can also be your intimate friend and companion.
Most observers are in a state of bewilderment at this point. I mean, how can it be? How could humanity be blindsided like that?
In the Devil’s Advocate movie, John Milton explains:
There's this beautiful girl, just fucked me 40 ways from Sunday . . . we're done, she's walking to the bathroom, trying to walk . . . she turns . . . she looks . . . it's me. Not the Trojan army that just fucked her. Little old me. She gets this look on her face like: "How the hell did that happen?"
I'm the hand up Mona Lisa's skirt. I'm a surprise, Kevin. They don't see me coming.
Can you think of anything else that surprised us in 2020?
“Mystify, mislead, and surprise the enemy.”
The Art of War, Sun Tzu
That’s precisely what most of us are: mystified and misled. Have you paused to ask yourself why?
But let’s get back to AI because I have another question for you:
What incentives do young people have, to learn any career skills?
To get paid for any skill they’d have to perform better than AI. How will beginners sustain themselves financially on their way to matching, let alone surpassing, AI?
It’s not gonna happen.
Sure, some hustlers will stay ahead of the game, but the vast majority will not even bother. Western zoomers will not only be unemployable but they will not even want to work. I mean, it’s not like their work ethic was any good to begin with. In fact, most zoomers won’t even want to think. Why bother, when AI can do all the thinking for you?
As for those “optimists” who are eager to retort that AI is like any technology that came before, and that it will create a new wave of fresh jobs — I’m afraid you are mistaken. AI is not like the printing press, the personal computer, or the internet. AI is not a tool that can be learned or harnessed. Nobody really knows how this thing works, not even its creators. According to recent admissions, “Scientists increasingly can’t explain how AI works.” All they can do is “train” it, i.e. try to satisfy its insatiable hunger for terabytes of personal data. What happens from there is a black box.
We are coming full circle ladies and gentlemen.
Back in 2019 I described how our freedom rests on four pillars:
Health
Wealth
Mobility
Skills
Since then, the architects of “our democracy” have systematically demolished those pillars:
People’s wealth was stolen, as trillions of dollars were created out of thin air.
Their mobility was crashed with l0ckdowns, travel restrictions, and 15-minute cities.
Their physical (and mental) health was impaired. They even shut the gyms down . . . because they care about your health.
The one remaining pillar of freedom was skills — skills earned from years of classrooms, campuses, and corporate careers.
Well, you can wave goodbye to that now. AI can and will out-skill all educated workers. Their university degrees are now useless. I mean, they were always useless — worse than useless, in fact, because they made humans abandon their true skills.
“What is a true skill?”
A true skill is the ability to meet your own needs.
If you rely on supermarkets and long supply chains to feed yourself, you are not free because your food sustenance has become a point of leverage. If you have to produce health certificates and scan QR codes to buy milk, that’s when you know you’ve become a slave.
Can those feminism skills we picked up at university help us find food? I have my doubts.
“What about those programmers and tech workers?”
Glad you asked.
Try to put yourself in the shoes of a 25-year-old developer.
Your parents were farmers, builders, or shopkeepers. Whatever real job they had, they worked on it all their lives to provide for you and your education. Then you graduate and a company named Zynga, or Kaggle, or Scribd, or Tumblr, offers you 6 figures to sit on Herman Miller chairs, drink Red Bull (or Yerba Mate), and share memojis on Slack (as in slacking).
Imagine what that does to a young and inexperienced mind.
You start to think you are an unfaltering genius and that your apps and programs are humanity’s salvation. In your eyes, everything that came before was primitive, wasteful, and oppressive. All those simpletons, all those farmers, truckers, and shopkeepers are inefficient and wasteful relics of the past, and an unsustainable burden to our overpopulated planet.
“Wait a minute, aren’t some developers building good things?”
Sure they are, but how can you discern what is good?
“Good software is free-and-open-source,” you might say. I hear you. But here’s what most people don’t understand.
It is not enough for software to be open-source. Your funding needs to be open source too. If you are sponsored by a foundation or non-profit and you cannot identify who is funding them (many don’t disclose their donors) then you are no different to a corporate gofer.
Truth is, most open-source development has been co-opted. GitHub is owned by Microsoft for crying out loud, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Most open source developers are not builders; they are activists on a crusade against some autocrat, dictator, or oppressive regime on the other side of the planet. Indeed, most developers out there — corporate or otherwise — are terribly misguided and confused.
And it’s not just developers, I’m afraid.
There is an entire coterie of so-called “professions” that surround developers. All those HR heads and diversity leads; all those brand evangelists and happiness heroes — everyone is welcome in this all-inclusive corporate circus.
And what is the end result of all this?
What has this corporate tech apparatus produced that is so great?
I only ask because AI is currently being infused into mechanical torsos (they call it AI embodiment) destined to replace police officers and soldiers. Soon, their drone robots will be buzzing around city homes 24x7.
Who would be so crazy as to build those things?
It was those millions of “educated” fools. People like you and I.
“How did we get to this point?”
I’ll keep it short, so stay with me.
Ever since the beginning of the agricultural age humans were farmers. Life wasn’t all peaches and cream but those humble farmers could meet their own needs. Their land gave them food, purpose, and meaning. Even to this day, small farms produce a third of the world’s food.
The problem with farmers, however, is that they are ungovernable. No one can rule over free and sovereign land owners who are dispersed and self-sufficient.
A century ago our overlords tried to collectivize farms under the guise of communism. Tens of millions died in the process. Then they changed gears, and under the guise of “democracy” they’ve been trying to lure farmers away from their land.
Here is their playbook.
First, you tempt farmers with “free” (tax-funded) education. Each minute they spend in a classroom is a minute away from their farm.
Then you give them an offer they can’t refuse:
The carrot: If they are young, throw money at them to work as a keyboard jockey. If they are old, throw money at them to buy their land.
The stick: Then you demonize farming. In the west, you demonize beef farms using “cow farts” as a climate change boogeyman. In the east, you demonize rice farms using “PM2.5” pollution as a boogeyman.
Rinse and repeat until there are no farmers left.
A country can only classify as developed when all would-be farmers have joined the educated class. At that point the trap door snaps shut.
Once a country is fully developed (i.e. ignorant and helpless), information workers are not needed anymore. You can then deploy ChatGPT and have the newly-anointed “useless class” beg for UBI and CBDC. In the meantime, you move all information-worker jobs to the next undeveloped part of the world where they can follow the same process.
Agriculture still accounts for almost 70 percent of total employment in low-income countries.
— More and Better Jobs for Developing Nations, World Bank
Now we know why corporations are firing tens of thousands in the West, whilst creating more “formal” jobs in Africa, South East Asia, Eastern Europe, and so on. Their concern for the poor is commendable.
Do you see it now?
Those people won’t stop until there are zero farmers left anywhere in the world.
Here is their 10-step playbook:
Establish central banking
Print fake money to corrupt public sector, co-opt private sector, and fund “social change”
Lure farmers away from their land with “free” education and “formal” jobs
Demonize farmers with “cow farts” and “PM2.5” narratives
Consolidate control of all productive land
Normalize lab-grown meat, soy sludge, bug paste, and worse.
Curtail the masses with lockdowns and 15-minute cities.
Pacify them with cannabis, amuse them with Netflix, and plug them into the metaverse.
Move educated-class jobs to the next undeveloped region.
Rinse and repeat until no farmers left.
I hate to spoil the ending here, but a world without farmers is a world without freedom.
“I get it, what is the way out?”
It’s all about real skills at this point.
If you can use your hands to build real things, you are highly skilled. If you can grow your food, build your shelter, fix your car, mend your clothes — those skills will serve you and your loved ones for years to come.
Real work happens away from the spotlight of illusion. Real work is humble. Real skills go hand in hand with morality and freedom.
Reacquainting ourselves to real skills is our redemption.
If your livelihood requires you sitting in front of a computer all day, make it a priority to restore your connection to real things. Spend more time outdoors, swim in the ocean, climb trees, and walk barefoot.
Here is the good news.
Fake things cannot survive entropy and natural law. This world of illusion — this Tower of Babel — will eventually collapse, and when it does you want to be as far away as you possibly can.
Distance yourself from the masses.
Move away from big cities. Disperse and decentralize. Get closer to where food grows. Disentangle yourself from long supply chains and anything that is mass-produced.
And perhaps most importantly, strengthen your faith.
If you enjoy my work, feel free to buy me a coffee or send me some sats.
Nobody can stop AI now. Except farmers.
Brilliant article. No sugar-coating it. Gives me some hope too, despite it all.
I would so much like to share your information, foresight and wisdom with others. However I realize sadly that not all are receptive to them. When I do try, the common question is "WHO are they?" (World Health Organisation being one of course 🤭) Are you able to help me with a short answer to that question? ☹️