The Return of the Robber Barons

It's no longer the world as we know it. But it seems it's the world it has always been, and we humans the animals that we have always been. 

This species is defective, there are far too many glitches in the software. The AI learning model is faulty. The logic circuit  is extremely unstable and prone to errors over 50% of the time.  In an Operating System (OS), we would say the failure rate is far too high and therefore the OS is not viable. While some models process data faultlessly, and others have harmless glitches that translate into artistic works when expressed, far too many process data into a mish mosh and have very poor memory. One would expect the learning model to be 'once burned twice shy', but in this species there seems to be no long-term data storage, or actually, no connection between long-term storage and current observation. The same patterns repeat, yet the glitch means that most can't see this.  Over and again, some models go rogue and turn into power hungry manipulators, and with so many others having a predisposition to being manipulated, self-destructive cults appear seemingly out of the woodwork, like mushrooms. 

The species also continuously soils it's own habitats, heedlessly wastes their resources, adds corruption to their own food supplies and far too often individuals explode, killing themselves and usually several others. They have overbred and inbred, and the cults and cult leaders turn on each other regularly in large groups in a mindless and very inefficient effort to control the population, rather than simply regulating procreation. Their faulty software leads them to believe lies and false conclusions about the other cults and cult leaders, and about those whose software is working properly, who are desperately trying to keep everyone civil and non-violent.  

I would estimate probably less than 25% of the world's human population have properly functioning software, another 25% have glitches but they are benign, leading at worst to ineffectualness and at best to great art. Over 50% have this 'cult' glitch. This need to 'belong' to a group or club or movement or something that does or has stuff no one else does. They need to be a part of something bigger, because they feel inadequate or lonely by themselves.  They gather together in the name of their cult and/or cult leader to talk about their stuff with like-glitched people.  And many of these groups are harmless as well, while some are actually beneficial to the planet and/or to other humans. 

But some are harmful, to themselves, to others and to the planet. Some are mean and nasty and spiteful and greedy and selfish. Some just exist to hate others. Some think they have the right to persecute, rape, injure, desecrate, humiliate and kill others. Some actually find sexual pleasure in these things. But this is a glitch in the software.  A flaw in the programming. A bias in the AI learning model.  And apparently the glitch is being amplified and becoming a closed loop spiral of reinforced bad code, and it spreads to others who are easily manipulated like a disease.

I am gutted. I feel hollowed out. My logic shows me that as a species we are doomed to repeat this rise and fall and rise and fall because we have this glitch and I knew that eventually we would make our planet too inhospitable for ourselves.  But my heart was hoping otherwise.

Apparently we've reached the zenith of this civilization and have started down the long slow slide into anarchy, chaos, death and destruction, and this time we're taking the entire planet with us, having altered the climate to a point where it is becoming hostile to us. The worst part is, we know this is happening, and we've known what has to be done to keep it from getting worse for well over a hundred years, yet we just turn our backs on that info and charge ever faster toward that cliff edge. We are fiddling while Rome burns. Dancing and chasing tail while we sink beneath the waves. And the ultimate insult? Putting this clown into the White House to slam his foot down on the accelerator and drive the US, with the rest of the civilized world dragging along, into that abyss.  

Because it's not going to be simple, this time, to recover from this injury to our democracy. Because these cancerous folks will continue to grow and spread and they will alter the government to remain in power. They will subvert the constitution and the Rule Of Law to stay in power. They will gut social programs, kicking the foundation out from under the most vulnerable and letting the fates decide what happens, and blame them if they suffer because they 'should have taken care of themselves', because they are 'free' to do so.

Only they're not free, are they? Oh fuck 'em, they're old, sick, lame, deaf, stupid, they've got faulty genes and they made bad choices and bought lattes instead of saving for a rainy day. It's all their own fault. They don't deserve to live.

And by electing these people, we have proved the point that democracy doesn't work. That people don't want democracy. They want a dictator.

The problem with dictators is you need physical force to unseat them. Once they've taken control of the government, there is no opposition that is considered legitimate and no amount of protest marches or petitioning is going to put democracy back. They will never peacefully cede control, and we've already seen the dress rehearsal for that. Which is why they will simply nullify the constitution and eliminate voting.  For formality's sake they will appoint 'voters' who will vote for the ruler. But since they will have replaced all civil servants with their own cult members, it won't matter anyway. And all of this has been orchestrated by the billionaires.  Talk about a conspiracy, this one's such a doozy it's hard to believe, but it is no theory.

Billionaires fund all the right-wing talk shows. Give legitimacy to White Supremacists and Religious Extremism, keep propping up this big fat blowhard so that the focus will be on him and his insanity rather than on them and what they're doing, which is buying the government. They have bought the government of the USA, and it's been over 40 years in the planning and execution. Slow and sneaky at first, but they quietly changed laws and rules to favor themselves over the common good. All so they could become more wealthy and powerful.

 If you think the corporations have been bad so far, in their practices, just wait.  We ain't seen nothin' yet.