Corporate Antichrist and his minor demons - ForkLog: cryptocurrencies, AI, singularity, future

# Corporate Antichrist and his minor demons

The early internet began with enthusiasts and was built on the ideas of freedom, equality, and openness. It is thanks to them that a vast array of Open Source products has been created: content management systems, media engines, messengers, and much more.

The practical significance of open source ForkLog has already been discussed multiple times in materials related to copyleft and open source. Today, Anatoly Kaplan suggests talking about why it is important to return to the humanistic values of the early internet in the face of the “corporate Antichrist” and the crisis of the global financial system.

Release of funds and data loss

The spread of the internet initiated a global liberation of information. In turn, the emergence of Bitcoin called into question the monopoly of central banks on the issuance of money. Now anyone with basic technical literacy and a minimal budget can create their own digital currency and the necessary infrastructure for its use.

But while the process of releasing funds was underway, information was being intensely monopolized by large media system operators, most of which are owned by tech giants. Today, the internet user is not only limited in their ability to manage their data, but often does not even understand what is happening, while every action they take on social media makes the corporation richer, and usually deprives them of freedom.

At first, the discussion was simply about certain restrictions aimed at complying with platform rules, which seems logical. Then the user gradually lost the ability to choose the content they would receive on the social network. All thanks to recommendation systems, which have a rather dual nature. Later, the user was denied the right to watch or not watch certain advertisements, again based on recommendations.

This process logically evolves towards full verification with the provision of documents, photographs, and biometric data. A vivid example is the World project: you reveal your identity, provide your biometric data, and receive a nice badge or checkmark that confirms you are a real person. As a bonus, they also throw in a digital coin.

The corporation receives something more from the user: time, attention, content, data, and money for providing paid platform services. This is how a digital caste society is built. And it is quite ironic that leading tech visionaries, venture capitalists, and intellectuals have reinvented one of the most inefficient social systems, in which by definition there can be neither freedom nor equality, and with them, no future.

As the data liberation process has historically begun to consume itself, it is reasonable to assume that something similar will happen with blockchain systems, cryptocurrencies, and new digital currencies. And it seems to already be happening through regulation, the launch of ETFs, scam tokens from the president of a nuclear power and his “libertarian” colleague.

War to the Last Man

Corporations are moving towards complete digitization and the subsequent “cloning” of users. The more data you have about different real people, the more clones and their variations can be created. This is reminiscent of the blockchain game CryptoKitties, where you can breed cats and obtain new NFTs. Only instead of virtual cats — live people.

Thanks to AI-like systems, such clones will become nearly autonomous agents capable of fully participating in the economic cycles of digital reality. And humans will continue to supply these simulacra with new and new data — as a “smart” commodity serving “smart” products.

And if you think that the corporate Antichrist has prepared a warm place for you in a bright future, we have bad news.

The New Proletariat and Its Revolution

Modern society is in a state of complete readiness for a global revolution through the expropriation of the achievements of technological progress. The key factor here is not only the source code of software but also the basic architecture of processors and microchips. Without the complete liberation of all production technologies, it is impossible to overcome the caste system of the digital age.

The new proletariat has nothing to lose but their data. And the only thing holding back the revolution is the global financial system, which is in decline and disintegration. This process is developing gradually, but it cannot last forever.

The revolution will begin as soon as the financial system based on petrodollars and the constant waging of wars collapses, leading to a series of various dramatic events. This will include disruptions to global server infrastructure and will also result in significant restrictions on access to the open network in some places. You can read about how preparations for the localization of the internet are underway in different parts of the world here, here, and here.

But something much more important will happen. Billions of people will lose their familiar roles, pause their participation in economic processes, be distracted from their smartphone screens, and ask themselves a fundamental question: who am I? Old meanings and goals will disappear. At the same time, there will be a huge demand for a qualitatively new vision of the future.

Your personal Antichrist

What will corporations offer to society? Probably the same as the biblical Antichrist: security and comfort in exchange for the remnants of the soul. And this will be a very advanced Antichrist, focused on personalizing the user experience through AI systems controlled by corporations.

What can society offer as an alternative? Expropriation of the achievements of progress: socialization of technologies for the production of processors and microchips, full disclosure of the code of AI systems and related software.

Of course, all this is not a panacea capable of solving the accumulated social, historical, and economic contradictions. It is primarily a foundation on which one can propose fundamentally alternative models of the future.

Corporate transhumanists and singularity advocates paint beautiful pictures where the post-human has overcome its nature and lives in a utopian society served by machines. But upon closer examination, it becomes evident: all of this resembles more of an elitist isolationism, in the project of which there is no dialogue about the social system, education, or the political process of the future. Peter Thiel and his “neoreactionary” friends apparently sincerely believe that they will transform into magical half-robots and fly to Mars to have coffee and play golf with the scamming president and his thieving entourage.

In fact, the main narrative of corporate transhumanists continues the scenario of societal development initiated by corporations: a gradual phasing out of humanity as the need for it diminishes. They see themselves as at least post-humans, if not modern gods.

Rethinking the Approach to Interacting with Technologies

As an alternative ideological platform, the concept of technological awareness proposed in 2021 can be used in the following form:

"I am not my smartphone and my social networks
I am not my personal data These are just masks for my mind in different worlds Technologies are tools for my mind, helping it to transport me from one reality to another I exist beyond technology and reason I am the center of absolute will I define what my reality is at this moment This world is completely virtual — which means I can create and define my worlds using technology and mind But I am neither reason nor technology. I exist beyond reason and technology.

In 2023, ForkLog examined this concept in the context of gamification of the post-capitalist economy. Its idea lies in rethinking the principles of interaction with technologies in the digital age to minimize potential harm from the liberation of code and machines.

The disclosure of source code and production technologies, provided there is a stable moral and ethical basis, will allow humanity not only to defeat the corporate Antichrist and free itself from digital slavery but also to make a transition to a fundamentally different reality, overcoming post-capitalist depression.

Sabotage: do nothing and help Open Source

Open Source — a system of thinking in which human civilization is viewed as a whole, endowed with common interests. This distinguishes it from modern globalism, where the world is united only for the purpose of hegemons oppressing others and calling it a “profitable deal.”

Full disclosure of the technologies for manufacturing processors and microchips does not yet mean that anyone can create their own machines. In addition to knowledge, specialists and infrastructure for production are required. However, it is the secrecy of information that creates a monopoly and imbalance in the development of civilization. The expropriation of the achievements of technological progress requires a systematic approach.

And it's not just about direct action, but also about inaction, which remains one of the few ways of effective and non-violent protest. The inaction proposed in a more abstract context by a project like doNONdo is an effective weapon against the corporate Antichrist that has seized power in the offices. Inaction is a form of refusal to participate in the socio-economic system built by the corporation.

By putting aside all your gadgets and no longer spending time on the platforms of the corporate Antichrist, you no longer provide them with data and cease to serve them. This is the beginning of liberation — inaction as a tool of refusal to participate in the final enslavement of man and his consciousness.