Memory
Memory it seems is and has always been the greatest of power differentials for humanity.
“For as long as I can remember” becomes a judicial call in judging others, in differentiating and socially sorting those who lack either the cognition for recall or who lack the capability for foresight.
Cultural memory, personal memory and then a burgeoning digital memory comprised of a myriad of providers that in a conglomerate know more about you, than you of them. That digital memory, that retention of computational power of a changed state, those binary loops of change recorded, retained and replicable is a powerful means with which to challenge the memory of humans.
In recent times combined computational power and retention of the changed state is what is threatening this very fragile era of the Anthropocene in what people claim is the collapse of an analog reality into that of a replicable, automated and inhumane Singularity.
The core question then is what will if mean for humanity if technologies take away our capacity to remember place? Will our human Memory Palace become a fearful void filled with dystopian nightmares, of science fiction and virtual realities reinforcing capitalist agendas as social factions?
The very same anti-ethical factions underpin plugins for the online game Minecraft which claims an ethos of community, a mirror for society made up of ‘blocks and adventures’ whilst others claim it is a ‘minefield’ for children who are being programmed and brainwashed.
“... With this plugin players group up in Factions. You claim land as your own and build your base. Factions is a self serve anti griefing system. Leaders control who can can edit their faction land. Factions is also about diplomacy and war. You declare wars and forge alliances. You fight over land and manage your monetary expenses.” - https://dev.bukkit.org/projects/factions
When we enmesh ourselves in virtual reality we are eroding our capacity to connect with place and if we do that, we erode our capacity to retain our culture. Country is our location map for memory and culture is that memory is based on place, not just an inanimate location. Ostensibly, memory constructed as a connection with Country is at the core of culture, to who we are as individuals, of our collectives, tribes, and families.
So the story that is being told here is that it is likely the human-computer experience will meld as a cyborg in networked virtual reality yet remains part of the natural environment, exploitative digitally enhanced regimes not separate to nature, rather as part of nature. A failure to recognize the inherent dangers of destroying natural environments is as much about the power of those who don't care and those who care enough to stop them.
