“MY LAST TOPIC COVERED from this morning was on the aftermath of the Debacle. How I lament the pace at which I must work through these various learnings that I am imparting. Poor Sofia is on the receiving end of continuous pressure from the powers that be, the long arms of the oligarchs and the infrastructure to ensure control. So time is of the essence. This monologue pours from me, but it’s clipped and sputtered under the intensity of pressure I feel.”
“As I said, things are happening outside this tiny room, causing me to worry we will be caught and reprogrammed at best or eliminated at worst before I can send this transmission. Their surveillance tech is so refined, exact, pervasive, and invisible anymore, the risks compound at every passing moment.”
“But it’s not my intent to inform you about this insignificant being’s pressures and troubles. I have a job to do, and I intend on meeting my commitment to complete this task. I much prefer to leave this life with the right thoughts in my last moments, knowing my purpose was fulfilled.”
“Enough on that repeated topic. Now I will discuss our frenetic genetics that helped lead us to where we are now, the brink of our final days.”
“Human lives are built on biological code, the code of DNA. It’s only in the last century that our scientists came to realize this. And in the last five decades, the infinity curve on manipulating this code has hit the vertical.”
“A few years after scoping and sequencing human DNA, we created the tech to straightforwardly modify our DNA. There were various names for this, but the term CRISPR stuck with society.”
“With CRISPR and its multiplicity of derivatives, a combination of tools were used. Delivery mechanisms of modified DNA were mostly viral and bacterial in those early days, enabling segments called nucleotides to be injected into very specific areas of the DNA molecule. This capability allowed a human cell or cells to take on desired characteristics and spread those changes through normal processes of cellular replication. Initially, the tech was used to modify germ cells, as if we’d be patient enough to wait umpteen years to see the presumably beneficial effects in our children.”
“Impatient as we are, ingenuity drove us quickly beyond that early stage. We discovered how to drive these same modifications into living humans and have the effects disperse throughout the body. This enabled us to create the desired effects instantly, thus obviating the need to embed the desired traits solely in germ lines. It was the age of geedee, or gene drive, technological advancements.”
“And advance we did, climbing that infinity curve at a rapid pace. Given low cost and ready access to the raw materials, we could easily democratize this technology. Ingredients to do so became readily available on a mail order, next-day delivery basis.”
“So what happens when ‘everyone can play with it?’ Well, everyone starts playing with it. Any half-wit could become an instant geneticist, or a genetic application scientist, with all the requisite components and Internet tools to show them how. One could watch a video about how to modify their own or another’s DNA almost as readily as learning how to change a flat tire.”
“From this tech, humanity now had the capacity to create virtually anything it desired in any combination, whether plant or animal or hybrid. Note that I truly meant ‘in any combination’ as garage experimenters quickly developed websites and instructions for illicitly sharing their findings and coordinating experiments. Some of these rogue geneticists, by the way, were still in elementary school.”
“And so began an unruly, and some think ‘unholy,’ revolution in the concept of humanity. Ten years before that time, you’d not even consider integrating DNA code from an insect, another mammal, or even a plant into the human body.”
“It didn’t take long, however. Faster than one might imagine, new hybridizations were created. As people began to experiment on themselves or others, most of the resulting hybrids or varints substantially retained their human characteristics but integrated small segments of transgenic code from the various host organisms or even manufactured DNA.”
“What a time to be alive! I was in my early thirties when this explosion of new life occurred. Most of the experimenters were concentrated in the backwaters of society. Why there? Because they could do it easily and avoid the prying eyes of regulators who were painfully slow to approve the new tech or recognize what was happening on the street.”
“Regulators, however, were the least of the worries for the budding geedee community. These code changes were affecting every aspect of being human, so you can imagine that the large majority of people were against such things based on religious or other grounds.”
“Some varints pursued the self-absorbed path, enhancing a body’s innate capabilities to induce physical pleasure. Others wanted to experiment with new skin colors, chlorophyll production, enhanced musculature, and integration with metallics and machines. The CRISPR-induced variations in these varints were so extensive, it’s hard to describe. You’ll read about them elsewhere, so I’ll avoid boring you with my own descriptions.”
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“As mentioned before, many of these garage-based geedee labs had their share of mishaps. Lots of trial and error, and I emphasize the latter. Many humans were permanently mutilated, unable to undo the harm they did to themselves and destined to live lives in pain and torment from maladapted code or aberrant integration into their cellular systems.”
“This experience was not unlike the processes for encoding early computers. Some code was ineffective or even destructive, even to the extent of ruining the machine. So there were many corrupted systems – meaning damaged humans. No different than a laptop computer with a defective screen, most of those non-fixable hybrids were cast aside.”
“The world was wholly unprepared for such changes in the short time in which they happened. Most hybrids, or transhumans, were resolutely differentiated because the changes were so visual. Varints were sporting tails, manes, antennae, multiple appendages, and massive limbs. Imagination was the only limit to what they might try.”
“As one would anticipate, the wealthy and powerful were heirs to the greatest advantages because they had superior genetic tech at their avail. They could thrive off the learnings often paid in agony by the less fortunate suffering from off-target mistakes. They profited in so many ways, either integrating this code themselves or stealing intellectual property off the backs of successful back-alley and garage scientists. It was no different from what happened in the early tech days of the railroads or Internet, but in this case applied to human, animal, and plant physiology.”
“I don’t mean to forget human-machine integration, either. Much of that tech had been rights-protected by the fortunate few, and early-on they extracted heavy taxes on any human who wanted to hybridize in that way. ‘You want your brain to access the cloud?’ they’d ask. ‘Then here’s the fare. We own the IP, we’ll define your connections, and you’ll pay dearly to ride our exclusive train.’”
“Indeed, too much happened too fast. Some hybrids, especially those early varints with direct interfaces into the AI clouds, began to control key aspects of humanity, given their superior algorithms and predictive models. They began to call the shots on the economy, company fortunes, and stock prices. Worse yet, their advanced capabilities could readily influence or create the outcomes they predicted.”
“The fact that humans and hybrids eventually came to blows was no surprise. Each side felt entitled. Humans were entitled by their sense of human purity, borne from that innate belief of bigotry or view of a God-given definition of what it meant to be a human. Varints were entitled by their ability to comprehend a much more expansive view of species evolution. Some extremist factions even demanded their visions should be executed by all others on the planet.”
“I mentioned that this was the perfectly imperfect time for an obelisk to fall from the sky and create utter confusion and conflict among our rapidly hybridizing species. We all felt entitled and placed blame on each other. We were fueled by our complicit social networks, the cacophony of voices screaming cowardly, anonymous insults and opinions at others who thought or looked differently, causing emotions to be ignited and inflamed. Things spun quickly out of control.”
“In this caustic environment of 2037, our human negativity was peaking. Hateful and divisive rhetoric from populists and demagogues stirred up fears and entitlements in a continuation of a long line of such societal demons that began in the teens. It was no surprise a plague suddenly appeared, one that could annihilate large portions of humanity.”
“One must deduce that the Debacle’s timing was not coincidental. Violence, fear, and hatred rising from the turgid muck. An obelisk falls from the sky, right then. Not in Roman times, not in the Middle Ages, but right at the perfectly imperfect time. And suddenly the plague agent of the Great Debacle mysteriously arises and executes its destructive code. Dubiously coincidental.”
“Causal speculation continues to this day. A garage tinkerer mad at the world? A fifth-grade class creating the super bug by accident? A legitimate military lab experiment leaked? An AI system that developed a devious sentience and designed the agent on a 3-D printer? Somebody knows the answer, but I never will.”
“There is a lesson in this. I doubt it’s much different from what I’ve shared before, so please forgive the restatement. Moore’s Law, where technology capability or capacity doubles every two years, evolved to eighteen months, then to shorter periods. This compounding effect soon took over, and tech climbed the infinity curve with haste.”
“Given its advance, we were doomed from the start, I daresay. We concurrently had regressed on the curve of societal adaptation, trending downward and holding even tighter to our historical fears and entitlements. The worse things got, the worse we made them.”
“It reminds me of the tremendous swings we experienced in the financial markets during the twenties. Pandemics. Zero or below zero cost of money. Government printing presses spitting out limitless excesses of fiat currencies. Industry and beloved moguls devouring this free-for-all to make terrible investment decisions and go further in debt. A money free-for-all, assuming you were important enough to receive the benefits.”
“The beneficiaries in this morass were kids in the candy store, using debt to buy back their inflated stock or inventing new enrichment schemes to favor the few. Then the inevitable speculative bubbles ultimately burst, causing massive currency devaluations that exacerbated global disparities. An unfortunate primogenitor to the Debacle.”
“We look up, and we can see no end to the vertical tech curve; frenetic genetics being key among those. Then we peer down at our horizontally declining societal curve, a result of our woeful stupidity, sagging discipline, and lack of vision. The two curves are at peak imbalance, implying a fateful end."