abuse

“Reowwrrr!” Oni demanded. She hadn’t seen her owner in months and she was intent on letting him know she was not happy about the length of his absence.
“Reaaahhh,” Kirin returned. He removed his right sock and tossed it on her back. She complained. He repeated the move with his left sock. She shook the socks off and he leaned back. Before he could process the event, he felt his lap getting warmer, and she was curled up, eyes closed, purring, on her way to a nap.
Han took note of the interaction. His personality was, to say the least, robotic, and these kinds of spontaneous games were something he was still learning. Before Oni would let the droid pester her, it would have to earn her trust and respect. She was smart enough to know he was an automaton; their relationship was hollow.

friends

The droid silently floated over the cat. She looked unimpressed and licked her paw. A red dot appeared on the wooden floor. The cat jerked her head and stared at it. It began to move slowly, and then sped away, disappearing from sight. The cat was now attentive, her ears perked as her eyes darted, in search of the light. The dot reappeared, and she pounced. She lifted her paw to find nothing.
The cat was entertained, no doubt, but there was something missing. The droid’s computer was simply running a scheduled operation: routine maintenance work; household chores. The interaction was robotic, lacking chemistry, lacking soul. Han was a flying computer, and although a good computer, Oni — the cat — possessed something Han didn’t: emotions. Han could emulate them, but there was no true bond between the two beings. While Oni was entertained enough by the robot to not go insane while the homeowner was gone on one of his sporadic work trips, she missed him. Han was completely apathetic if the owner never returned. The chores would always be done.

decentralize

A new age of digital freedom is on the forefront. As the internet has connected people from across the globe and expanded their notions of tribe from ethnocentric groups into a new, more global culture, the reasoning behind old ideas such as nationalism may well be forgotten by newer generations. Decentralization seems to be the newest philosophical take on the petty trust and control issues of society. The idea itself is a simple one, dating to 1846, according to Merriam-Webster, though now made much more possible by fairly new technology.

With technologies such as Bitcoin, MaidSafe, and decentralized education, technology is moving more toward this direction daily. As Moore’s Law has held reasonably true, mankind will soon be faced with an unfamiliar new Zeitgeist, in which common sense and common ethics will out-weigh traditional, errant value systems, which often echo an embarrassing history. Philosophy may be the most noble spiritual practice of the future, as “because I said so” will never eliminate the need to ask “Why?”, but only repress it. Philosophy has long been thought of as a means to no end, but with computers, we may be able to build a logical framework of ethics, which can almost universally be applied, using the best ideas of thinkers of the past and of today. The key is that no judgment should be passed, other than what is objectively agreed upon by most parties as true. This is evident in the Bitcoin blockchain, which exemplifies the no-trust model.

The cancer of ancient power structures is obvious at an essential level. We can look at our lopsided resource management. The fuels we use, whether to power our machines, or to feed ourselves, are balanced toward a small pool of what has worked and funded centric economies. This is not logically what works best. For instance, instead of growing native plants and harvesting native resources, we follow social norms, farming a small number of resources which are common in the grand scheme, though detrimental to a holistic ecosystem. This is part of the capitalist “illusion of choice.” If we worked with nature, instead of attempting to control it to suit our closed-minded ideas geared for profit and reflecting archaic value systems, we would in fact profit much more, both in the short and long terms.

For instance, as anyone who has studied herbalism knows, much of what we consider to be weeds are in fact useful herbs. This type of thinking has been shed as the industrial revolution and modern medicine have encouraged the use of only a handful of resources; a result of western military-mindedness. In the names of civilization and modernity, religious dogma, laws, and regulations have cast stigmas on a harmony with nature that had worked for thousands of years. How ironic that to be “civilized”, mankind has shot itself in the foot in the modern era.

So, in seeking a more healthy future for ourselves and our planet, the irony is that we must return to old, tried-and-true ways of thinking, which we had abandoned in the establishment of modern empires. Of course, modern civilization is not without its lessons, not only in mistakes but also in progress made, which will be crucial for our future growth. Living in harmony with the Earth was crucial to ancient man, as it is to modern man. The difference is that in small tribes, this was an easier goal to achieve. As a humongous one-world tribe, the lessons of Mother Earth will be enforced by independently and almost universally agreed-upon rules governed by computers, rather than power-drunk men.

homecoming

He hadn’t been home in months. He missed his cat and his own bed. As he approached the door, his interface communicated with his home security system. The door opened slowly as music that complimented his jet-lagged demeanor began to play softly in the background. His cat waited calmly behind the threshold before he entered the room, aware of the invisible boundary which denied her escape. Then, with nary a warning, she pounced him upon entry, digging her claws deep into his uniform as if she were climbing a tree. Red warning flashes of physical assault sped across his interface, but they were dismissed as quickly as they had arrived by the conjunction of his bio monitors and the local link with his personal assistant droid. Combined, the conclusion was of no cause for concern. As the feline made her way up to her favorite resting spot on his shoulders, the synthetic skin that composed his garb absorbed the lacerations and re-formed; good as new.

A torrent of ideas flooded his mind. He switched his interface off. “I don’t need that thing to communicate with you, love,” he said, as he reached back awkwardly to stroke his pet. Her heart was racing and she was purring loudly, as if she had just avoided some near scrape with death. He took a seat on his couch.

His personal assistant hovered in the distance, waiting until its master’s shoulders dropped, indicating that he was ready to relax. When the coast was clear, the droid greeted him with a warm “Glad you are well, sir,” offering him a cup of iced English breakfast tea with a splash of lemonade and only a few ice cubes. “Thanks, Han,” he offered as he took the beverage and subconsciously grinned. “It’s the little things,” he thought to himself, as his cat jumped down from his shoulders to sit next to him, staring at him in the creepy way that cats do.

His muscles ached. The droid had disappeared for a moment, and now returned with mentholated body rub and a vaporizer pen loaded with cannabis extract. As he puffed on the pen, his mind filled in the gaps it had skipped over when it was caught up in living the events of the day. A few minutes passed before his thoughts came to a closure on the day’s misadventures, and he was met with blissful acceptance of the things out of his control. As he was processing all of this, the droid had been undressing him and massaging the salve into his skin. This was unnecessary of course, as his integrated cybernetic system was already at work repairing his damaged muscles.

He asked the droid for a triple shot of whiskey on ice. The music conformed to his liking all the while, generated from the complex data stream coming from his brain waves. He gently slipped off to sleep in his living room, only to awaken in his bed hours later.

refuel

His electric vehicle charging, he stammered into the filling station, legs stiff from the long drive. He approached the teller: “Y’all accept WC?”
“Only the major currencies,” the clerk replied, in a heavy accent.
“Thanks,” he politely returned, then stepped aside to do a few stretches.
Touching his middle finger to his palm, the traveller activated his Companion Interface. His inbox updated with a few dozen unread messages, which he ignored, for now. Through a series of muscle movements, he took care of some book-keeping — the reason for his query to the clerk — and checked on the status of his home and of his boarders, letting them know he was en route and providing them an update to his ETA.
He grabbed a snack and a beverage. His Companion Interface communicated the transaction without a word spoken, translating muscle movements into language, transferring funds immediately and verifying the entire exchange through a network of self-regulating, objective computers. His Interface also alerted him that his vehicle had been charged, and as his software was a bit archaic, notified him of the expected cost of the power. He dismissed the notification, as the singularity in alternative energy had now been reached, and there was now an increasing reserve of excess power for the needs of mankind and all his machines.
He switched off the Companion Interface as he exited the store. He enjoyed the silence as the synaesthetic effects of the Interface waned slowly over a period of several seconds.
Onward to trade his unique artisan goods with his pre-arranged partners.