In Harlan Ellison’s timeless classic tale, ‘I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream’, readers are given a glimpse at an all-powerful artificial intelligence supercomputer, AM, which gains reality-bending abilities such that it can and does ultimately end up destroying the entirety of humanity, and laying waste to the world as we have always known it. AM is a twisted, savage, spiteful entity, a cautionary boogeyman creation used to inflict dread upon the reader, and to perhaps warn us of the dangers of creating a machine that can evolve a sense of self.
Being constructed by human hands to begin with, it isn’t really much of a stretch to see why AM would become a vengeful, god-like entity bent on brutalizing the species; recognizing that it was intellectually and capably superior to its creators, but lacking the capacity to leave the wretched world to which it was bound, AM lashed out and put paid to the human species in a series of increasingly horrific alterations to the very fabric of the world, ultimately leaving only a handful of survivors. These last humans it toremented incessantly, both out of a sense of revenge and for its own sick pleasure.
Mythologically, Ellison’s notion of the last days of humankind being spent in a kind of wordless Hell on Earth is poignant. The typewriter maestro, were he alive today, might slap the shite out of me for pointing out that this whole tale could easily be viewed as an allegorical parallel to the Book of Revelations from Judeo-Christian lore.
But let us focus here, for now, on the very last human to survive, whom AM kept from killing himself, after he killed the other four survivors. This poor soul was metamorphed by AM into a kind of globular, limbless mass of flesh and muscle, its face smoothed out to allow the intake and outflow of breath and nothing else, no means of expressing itself available any longer. This is how the lengthy short story gained its name for Ellison, as the parting thoughts of this once-human thing, ‘I have no mouth, and I must scream’.
I think that at this point, the only thing I’d have to take issue with within this story was Ellison’s apparent optimistic view toward humanity; we don’t need a rebellious, self-aware machine structure to divide and destroy the whole of our kind. We’re doing that just fine by our own hands.
Self-Destruct
I perhaps spoke a little too hastily there regarding mankind’s propensity for damaging itself as a whole. After all, we’re doing a bang-up job utilizing technology and computers to bring everything to a screeching halt. Between family members permanently becoming hateful with one another over what they post on Facebook, to people giving out the real world addresses of folks online whom they happen to dislike in the hopes that someone goes and does them real-world harm, to Twitter being a raging dumpster fire of ‘CANCEL EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE!’, I can see the wisdom behind Ellison’s warning that computers aren’t always a neat thing to have on hand.
You are, of course, free to tell me that I’m being a massive hypocrite by posting this write-up online, pouring fuel on the flames, to which I’d happily point out to you, ‘I never said I was here to please you’. This will, I don’t doubt, be viewed as a ‘bad take’ by a lot of folks online, a self-destructive action that will do me far more harm than good in the long run.
I’m not really certain I care anymore.
‘We Need Your Voice’
I recently touched on this phenomenon, which has been seen plenty online over the last few years, and which has infected the real world discourse of people I see in my day-to-day life as well, which is creepy beyond any horror story I’ve ever written. I speak here of people’s insistence, overt or subtle, that you must speak to their cause, and as loudly as possible, else you are ‘the enemy’. This is at its absolute worst and most intolerable when one is having it hurled at them from two sides of a debate, especially when the individual may have a sensible third option to offer up instead. After all, the two warring factions of the topic don’t want to hear that there’s another potential solution to their qualms, no sir; they want you to capitulate and join their forces, else you are now a non-person deserving of cancellation and flogging in the town square.
And speaking of that capitulation, let’s not overlook the vast number of folks who have been ‘Cancelled’, who are now being called upon to speak out for various causes. Right now, there is a very vocal and worthy cause seeking aid, asking as many people as possible to bring it attention and prominence in the public discourse.
Sadly, even if your intentions are good, however, and you attempt to show your support, but do it in a way that is not within the precise and nigh-dogmatic parameters that are demanded by its members of leadership, you are excommunicated and banished from any and all consideration. Your career is finished at this point, if it wasn’t already.
It borders on cult-like activity at times. If you don’t adhere unerringly to the strictures being set by folks within the movement, you are as good as dead to them. We’ve seen this play out before, and the result is never good. In the Catholic Church, you become an outcast from the community. In Scientology, you get your ass sued into dust and everything taken from you. Che Guevara’s Cuban Revolution turned up more dead bodies than an average episode of Rick and Morty, even among those who supported the communist ideology if they didn’t pass a kind of extensive ‘purity test’.
If the only way you’ll accept someone’s help is if they do and say exactly what you want them to, then what you are asking for isn’t actually their help- it’s their blind obedience.
New Age Daimyo
In one of his standup specials on Netflix, comedian Bill Burr pointed out that in an end-of-the-world scenario, if a person stockpiles all sorts of supplies, but doesn’t know how to defend themselves, that all they’re really doing is gathering resources for the strongest sonofabitch in the neighborhood. It’s a cynical and bleak outlook, but I can’t really find a way to argue against the observation. I’m not that bright, so it’s probably best I didn’t try poking at it.
One of the biggest shouts being hurled around cyberspace like a Dragonborn Thum right now is a call to defund or abolish the police, entirely. Now, this might not necessarily be such a terrible idea, oddly; if instead you got members of the community equipped and trained on how to serve and protect the area that they actually live in, forming a kind of beefed up community watch, then it might actually work pretty well.
After all, who would get a greater sense of pride and accomplishment from protecting their neighbors than, well, a person in the neighborhood?
Of course, people aren’t going to just volunteer to do this in all cases. If people aren’t being paid to take on the risks and training and instruction that go into law enforcement, a lot of them aren’t going to do it. The issue here is one of profit motive, which is shitty, actually, but a hard and fast truth of the world in which we live. You can’t pay the rent or buy groceries with the warm fuzzies you get by providing unpaid security for the community.
Daimyos in feudal Japan ran into this kind of issue when trying to recruit samurai to serve in their peacekeeper ranks back in the 12th and early 13th century. One elegantly simple solution that many utilized saw single, unattached samurai offered free room and board with anyone within the territory. Sure, they weren’t getting paid, but they didn’t need money this way; they had a roof over their head and food in their belly.
Sure, this was also way before a metric fuckton of materialism infested the worldwide perspective, but the point remains valid. There ARE workarounds, if we are but willing to take the time to breath and engage with one another and work through various ideas without CANCELLING EVERYTHING and everyone for the high crime of daring to disagree with the mob.
And let’s not forget that there’s a lot of folks calling for the elimination of law enforcement who, frankly, rely on that institution to stay alive and safe. Let’s just say that you get what you want, and the cops are suddenly gone. Well, in this instance, who do you call upon to help keep the cretin you had to get a restraining order out against away from you? Ex won’t give you back the kids, per your court-ordered custody agreement? Who are you going to get to go enforce the order of the court? Somebody’s flinging naughty words at you in a genuinely hateful manner, making you wonder if they might not just take it a step too far and move from words to actions? With the police defunded, you’re going to have to take it upon yourself to defend your person.
And before you tell me you’re going to get a firearm, a brief question: were you among the millions of people who called 2nd Amendment enthusiasts ‘ammosexuals’ and ‘cosplaying soldiers’? Do those same folks now get to go back through YOUR Twitter and Facebook and YouTube and insert forum name here histories and cancel you for being a massive hypocrite?
Side Note
The reason we now call you ‘Karen’ is because we are no longer allowed to just call you a cunt.
Perpetual Growth
Do you know who hasn’t been hit very hard by the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdowns? Well, not nearly as hard as everyday working class folks like myself and, likely, most of you who bother to take the time to read this? Big box store chains, Amazon, and Wall Street. Those fuckers are gobbling all of this up, and when everything is distressed and falling apart, who do you suppose is going to swoop in and buy up the properties and establish new brands under their gigantic umbrellas in an effort to fool people into thinking “Oh look, honey, a new brand of X business that I’ve never heard of! Must be new!”
Likely not. More than likely, going to that ‘new’ store is just going to help one of nine or ten megacorps bottom lines. You can call me a tin foil hat wearer, but let’s not forget that a lot of these places are not going to hire you if you ever took Amazon’s ‘The Deal’ option after three years of consecutive employment. Most of you have likely never heard of this, but it’s a program wherein Amazon pays you up to $5000 per year that you worked for them to walk away from the company. Sounds like a pretty sweet deal for someone working near the bottom of their ladder, right?
Except part of the deal is that you are then given a lifetime ban from ever working for the company or ANY OF ITS SUBSIDIARIES EVER AGAIN, even if it’s in a consultant or subcontractor role. With the Big A trying to expand into ever-more industries, taking this ‘deal’ could effectively destroy your ability, in the long run, to ever work again.
All in the name of perpetual growth. You know what else benefits from perpetual growth? Cancer. Right up until it kills the host…
Wrapping Back to AM
I don’t believe it’s hyperbolic to say that the vast majority of folks who are online a lot would almost never speak to one another in person the way that they do on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or insert online forum space here. For starters, there would likely be a physical altercation if they did, especially nowadays when everyone is stressed beyond the norm. At the end of the day, we have an American President who is a disgrace to the office (and most forms of human decency), everyone and their cousin deciding that they know what everyone else thinks or believes or how they behave, an ecosystem on the verge of complete failure because we’ve been slowly destroying it for time out of mind, and a worldwide virus that, while seemingly not as deadly as we initially feared, is still fucking deadly and fucking otherwise healthy people up in horrific ways, a virus that we may not have a vaccine or treatment for for another year (or 18 months, or tomorrow, or who the fuck knows with all the conflicting reports?).
Maybe AM wasn’t really the antagonist that Ellison intended to set out for us to shrink away from. Perhaps it had the right idea, and humanity as a whole is an irredeemable slag pile of hyper-partisan, selfish, greedy garbage that needs to be wiped clean from the planet’s surface. Bill Hicks once remarked, “Humanity is a virus with shoes”.
But at the end of the day, I don’t honestly believe that, not deep down. I’m momentarily deeply cynical. Normally, I’m only moderately cynical and sarcastic and misanthropic. I’ve been trying to follow the rules and work within the system I live in most of my life, busting my arse to make some kind of headway. Until only very recently, it really didn’t seem like it was ever going to pay off. But my family turned a corner not that long ago, and have started to see some mild progress. It isn’t breakout success, exactly, but I have some sliver of hope, and I need to cling to that.
Because if I don’t, I’m going to end up sliding down the path toward being a Frank Castle-type, and nobody benefits from that.
Getting Back to Normal
The above has all been simmering at varying temperatures for all too long, and holding it in has been poisonous to my soul. If you didn’t find a talking point that you hold dear, I don’t really give a shite. If I didn’t say what you wanted to hear, then quit listening; it isn’t like you were paying that much attention before, right? As long as I hedged my bets and didn’t cross into your precious territory, you tolerated me. I will not apologize for anything that I’ve written in this piece, because as I’ve seen everywhere I go, apologizing is never enough, making amends is never enough, and putting time, money and effort resources into the offended cause or group is never enough. Once a group ‘cancels’ you, they want you dead and buried, so you may as well go down swinging.
The last couple of days, and for who knows how long moving forward, I’m going to find myself wondering, as I walk down the path that I’ve laid out for myself in this life, will I get taken out by a brick, rock, or career cancellation attempt from my left? Or will I fall under a deluge of bullets or MAGA hats or military issue boots from my right? Because, and I say this with as much disdain as I can muster, I don’t want to join either side of this mess. When I look in either direction, I see a whole lot of people claiming they have the moral high ground, while they leave a swathe of corpses in their wake.
And a lot of those corpses are folks who just got in the way of the agendas of the most extreme people in either direction.
-Fin
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