Logan’s Run and burnout culture
Below is an excerpt from my forthcoming book… © Mahabodhi Burton 10 minute read This is an excerpt from my chapter ‘The Woke Mind Virus.’ A Logan’s Run update on Yuppiedom Writing in Chicago magazine in 1980, Dan Rottenberg was the first to coin the term ‘Yuppies:’ ‘Something is occurring in Chicago … Some 20,000 new dwelling units have been built within two miles of the Loop over the past ten years to accommodate the rising tide of “Yuppies”—young urban professionals rebelling against the stodgy suburban lifestyles of their parents. The Yuppies seek neither comfort nor security, but stimulation, and they can find that only in the densest sections of the city.’[1] Moving forward to 2024, Damien Walter explores the 1970s science fiction classic Logan’s Run[2] as an allegory of today’s achievement culture: ‘Take a look around your bourgeois workplace, maybe it’s a tech start-up or a tech giant, a marketing agency or a media company, a Game Dev, a business consultancy; today even banks and accountancy firms run this way. Your office … looks like the primary colour set of 1970s sci-fi movie; there’s an unlimited supply of caffeinated energy drinks and probably a foosball table; your workplace looks more like a college dorm or a child’s day-care than like a workplace place, all to persuade you that you aren’t really at work, but this job eats every moment of your waking life and you never really sleep. If this is you, then congratulations you’re a member of the creative class and you’re among the elite. Everyone in your company is beautiful, well-dressed, young, oh-so-young. But think about this, where are the old people, is there anyone over 40 in your office? What did they do with the old people? You’ll find out when your life-clock begins to flash and you get the call to Carousel.’[3] Logan’s Run takes place in the year 2274; in a cluster of geodesic domes the remnants of human civilization live in a dome-enclosed city, run by a monolithic master computer that takes care of all aspects of life, including reproduction. The citizens live in a hedonistic utopia: no-one works or gets married; there are orgy rooms where people go to have sex and do drugs[4] but, to prevent overpopulation, all must undergo the rite of ‘Carrousel’ when they reach the age of 30; a ritual in which they are killed under the guise of being ‘renewed’ (as an infant in the city’s cloning facilities.) At birth, each is implanted with crystal in the palm of the left hand: their ‘life-clock.’ The crystal changes colour from white to yellow...
The Bush Pandemic Plan
Below is an excerpt from my forthcoming book… © Mahabodhi Burton 4 minute read This excerpt is taken from the appendix ‘No-Man’s-Land: The Unclaimed Area Beyond the Domains of Religion, Politics and Science‘ and follows on from the debate around Ivermectin. President Bush’s pandemic plan Still outstanding is the question of the effectiveness of the West’s response to the pandemic: an October 2020 Telegraph article states: ‘Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Imagine if a world leader, a president with unlimited resources, had marshalled a crack team of scientists to devise a pandemic strategy that could have prevented a new respiratory virus from turning western society upside down. ‘A strategy specifically designed to hold back a lethal new pathogen long enough to allow a vaccine or other pharmaceutical interventions to be created without the need for a total lockdown. A strategy that was not just academic but one which had been approved as policy, operationalized and shared with allies around the world, including Britain. ‘Looking at the world today you would think it was China and its neighbours across southeast Asia which had developed such a protocol. They are the nations which acted quickly to control Covid-19 through a carefully crafted set of social distancing measures or “non-pharmaceutical interventions” (NPIs), as they are technically known. ‘Yes, they too have taken a hit, but by acting early, national lockdowns have been brief or avoided completely, as have large-scale deaths, direct and indirect. Moreover, they have dramatically limited damage to their economies and their geopolitical power and status has surged as a result.’[1] US President George W. Bush, and his deputy Dick Cheney, had, in 2003, ordered a social distancing plan be researched, devised and tested in order to protect America from a new pandemic pathogen, man-made or naturally occurring. They placed the full might of the Department for Homeland Security behind it and made sure it was in place and ready to be deployed before they left office in January 2009. The plan was announced in December 2005.[2] In that plan were some key recommendations, one of which was that the public needed to hear a coherent message from government and media sources, so that they did not become confused: this is the exact opposite of what actually happened! Back in 2005 the information marketplace as it is now, wasn’t available to us, for better or worse. In 2020, when the pandemic arrived the scientific debate about issues like mask-wearing and social-distancing therefore took place in public, in a cacophony of informed and uninformed opinions over which nobody was in control....
The Scientific Tradition
Below is an excerpt from my forthcoming book… © Mahabodhi Burton 1 minute read This excerpt is from the chapter ‘The Evidence Bases in Religion, Science and Politics,’ in which I explore how the scientific tradition functions. This excerpt follows on from Secular Religion. The Embodied Mind Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche’s establishment of the Naropa Institute and the subsequent collaboration with Francisco Varela in exploring cognitive science–and aided by the Dalai Lama’s long-standing interest in science–led to the publication of the influential book ‘The Embodied Mind.’ This work laid the theoretical foundation for the ongoing dialogue between Buddhism and Science. The Scientific Tradition Pyramid Varela, along with Evan Thompson and Eleanor Rosch, posited a central insight regarding the distinct forms of evidence employed by Science and Wisdom traditions. Science relies on ‘third-person evidence’ or objective evidence, progressing through experimentation, validation by the scientific community, and the establishment of scientific truth. The reason why such evidence is termed “third person” is that once an experiment is completed, various third parties—we might call them ‘The They’—need to replicate the experiment and corroborate its results. By amassing corroborated third-person scientific evidence, endorsed by the scientific community, a definitive scientific veracity is established, graphically represented by the depicted pyramid. The ascending progression along the pyramid symbolizes the incremental consolidation of scientific truths, indicating a growing and substantiated body of knowledge within the scientific domain. A hierarchy in Science However, not all science maintains the same level of objectivity, and a spectrum exists from high-certainty Evidence-based Science to low-certainty Pseudoscience. The evaluative criterion for any scientific discipline lies in its capacity to generate tangible and advantageous outcomes in the world, typically manifested in technological advancements. In contrast, pseudoscience may be aptly characterized as a subjective tradition, although it can sometimes yield benefits that elude precise quantification. The chapter goes on to explore the Religious...
Buddhists in Silicon Valley
Below is an excerpt from my forthcoming book… © Mahabodhi Burton 12 minute read Check out this fascinating 7-minute excerpt from the chapter ‘Transhumanism and Alienation,’ which explores the connection between Buddhism and Silicon Valley, including the concepts of ‘Buddhism-lite’ and Wisdom 2.0. Are you concerned about the dilution of Buddhism in a secular context? This excerpt is a must-read. Buddhists in Silicon Valley Emma Grey Ellis, in her WIRED review[1] of Dan Zigmond’s book Buddha’s Office–Dan is a Facebook (and Microsoft, Instagram, YouTube, and Google) alum, data analyst and Zen priest[2]–spells out the strong connection between Buddhism and Silicon Valley. ‘In Silicon Valley, you are always an iPhone’s throw from a Buddhist. Some of them will have arrived at their Buddhism the usual way—family, culture—but a fair few will have adopted it later in life, as a piece of their adult identity. Even if they’re not checking the “Buddhist” box on the census, you’ll know them by their Zen meditation retreats, their references to ‘the Middle Way’, their wealth … of Steve Jobs trivia. Did you know that Steve Jobs was a Buddhist who studied under Zen priest Kobun Chino Otogawa and once wandered India in search of a guru? Did you know Jobs swiped Apple’s famous “Think different” slogan from the Dalai Lama? Did you know Buddhism and tech companies have a grand historical ‘synergy’?[3] When I moved to California from the East Coast, I did not. After living and working in San Francisco for a few years, I see Buddha everywhere.’ Wisdom 2.0 ‘Every February or thereabouts, representatives from tech companies like Google, Facebook, Twitter and PayPal gather in San Francisco for Wisdom 2.0, a conference that aims to unite mindfulness with technology.’[4] ‘Over the course of several days, high-profile digerati interact with spiritual luminaries like Eckhart Tolle, Jon Kabat-Zinn and Joan Halifax, to explore topics such as ‘mindful management,’ ‘conscious leadership,’ and ‘wisdom in the workplace’ through speeches, dialogues, and group sessions.’[5] In a 2014 article called The selective awareness of Wisdom 2.0, Darrin Drda asks whether in taking an ancient practice, removing it from its context, stripping away its ethical imperatives and selling it for a profit, ‘Is the goal of the corporate mindfulness movement to comfort the already comfortable?’[6] By 2001, Slavoj Zizek had already pointed out a link between Western Buddhism and late capitalism: ‘Marxist philosopher Slavoj Yizek has long argued that “Western Buddhism,” as he calls it, is an ideal palliative for the stresses of life under late capitalism—their “perfect ideological supplement.” ‘“It enables you to fully participate in the frantic pace of the capitalist game,” Žižek explains in a 2001 essay...
Elon Musk: Social Media as Cyborg
Below is an excerpt from my forthcoming book… © Mahabodhi Burton 7 minute read This excerpt is from the chapter ‘Transhumanism and alienation’ and it explores the cyborg nature of social media in the human-machine interface: with input from Elon Musk being interviewed by Joe Rogan. Silicon life viewed from Space: a thought experiment Years ago, I remember reflecting on the Periodic Table of the elements and on the fact that all the elements in a column have the same number of electrons in their outer shells: and therefore, similar properties. Carbon (symbol C)—the element on which organic life is based—has four electrons in its outer shell, as does Silicon (symbol Si.) Along with Germanium (Ge,) Tin (Sn) and Lead (Pb,) they make up Group 14 of the table. I therefore came to reflect on whether there could ever be such a thing as a silicon-based life form, and if so, what it be like. Life only exists—and thus, continues to be life—when the conditions necessary to maintain its existence are present. Human life, thus, is supported by a network of conditions, which includes other animals, plants, water, air, soil, and so on. A life-form existing independently of its supportive conditions is just not possible. Organic life is defined as possessing certain qualities:[1] such as the ability to reproduce and homeostasis.[2] But let’s conduct a thought experiment: suppose an alien were to look down from Space, down at the Earth, over the past thirty years. They would see the number of personal computers grow to 1.4 billion, and smart phone users, as share of the global population, to 78%; all ‘attached’ to their users: human beings. Not knowing what they were looking at, the alien might assume they were watching a silicon-based life-form reproducing and evolving in homeostatic symbiosis with its supportive host (the human). They might even wonder whether humans were not being put into service by those life-forms; in the same way that humans farm cattle: the humans feed the computers with information, and in return they receive mental stimulation and organisation. We are not talking about Skynet here, but something more mundane. If computers are truly ‘alive’—in their own silicon-based sense, then the question of ethics arises. Are their activities truly benefitting humans; or have humans to some extent become their slaves. Social media as a cybernetic collective In 2018, there was an interesting interview with Elon Musk by Joe Rogan,[3] in which Musk points to the ‘cyborg’ nature of social media: ‘A company is essentially a cybernetic collective: of people and machines. And then, there is different levels of complexity in the way...
Human downgrading by social media
Below is an excerpt from my forthcoming book… © Mahabodhi Burton 12 minute read Check out this fascinating excerpt from the chapter ‘Transhumanism and Alienation,’ which draws on the 1995 book War of the Worlds: Cyberspace and the High Tech Assault on Reality where Mark Slouka lays out the foundations for what we see today: the downgrading and commodification of human experience, and its remedy: as suggested by Tristan Harris from the Centre for Humane Technology. Are you concerned about the future of technology and its impact on society? This excerpt is a must-read. The Transhumanist culture of unmoral alienation In 1995 Mark Slouka published a chilling book called War of the Worlds: Cyberspace and the High Tech Assault on Reality.[1] In the various chapters he catalogues the fronts on which that assault is taking place: ‘Reality is death’: The Spirit of Cyberspace ‘Springtime for Schizophrenia’: The Assault on Identity Virtual World: The Assault on Place Highway to Hive: The Assault on Community A Republic of Illusion: The Assault on Reality (My emphasis) The Internet only communicated 1% of the information flowing through two-way telecommunications networks in the year 1993, by 2007 it was more than 97%,[2] so Slouka’s concerns were largely about a vocal minority of transhumanist enthusiasts: ‘My quarrel is with a relatively small, disproportionately influential group of self-described ‘Net Religionists’ and ‘wannabe gods’ who belief that the physical world can (and should) be ‘downloaded’ into a computer, who believe that the future of mankind is not in RL (real life) but in some form of VR (virtual reality); who are working very hard (and spending enormous amounts of the federal and private money) to engineer their very own version of the apocalypse. As intelligent as they are single-minded, these people have been ignored by the majority of humanists for too long; it’s time we started listening.’[3] In a poignant passage Slouka opines the lack of caution: ‘Given the enormous effect the digital revolution may come to have on our lives … there is something downright eerie about the lack of debate, the conspicuous absence of dissenting voices, the silence of the critics. Congress seems uninterested; watchdog groups sleep. Like shined deer, we seem to be wandering en masse onto the digital highway, and the only concern heard in the land, by and large, is that some of us may be left behind.’[4] For some, the novelist and voices techno-evangelist Robert Coover explains, humanity has to do with souls and ‘depth’ and the search for meaning and purpose; with tradition, ritual, mystery and individualism.’ For others, like himself, it has more to do with the spiritualism of...
Techno-Feudalism equals caste
Below is an excerpt from my forthcoming book… © Mahabodhi Burton 7 minute read Check out this fascinating 7-minute excerpt from the chapter ‘Transhumanism and Alienation,’ which delves into the contemporary challenges posed by the increasing influence of Silicon Valley, social media algorithms, and Artificial Intelligence in our daily lives. The excerpt examines the tragic social consequences of an alienated geekish mindset that often accompanies this technological landscape. Are you concerned about the future of technology and its impact on society? This excerpt is a must-read. New Feudalism Governing elites in Britain in the nineteenth century: i.e., the middle-classes saw themselves as cultured and therefore as truly human: whilst they looked down upon the masses: the workers and peasants. In this regard, social commentators in recent years have come to speak of a new feudalism: a primary characteristic of which is that individuals’ public lives are increasingly governed by business corporations:[1] ‘Neo-feudalism or new feudalism is a theorized contemporary rebirth of policies of governance, economy, and public life, reminiscent of those which were present in many feudal societies. Such aspects include but are not limited to: Unequal rights and legal protections for common people and for nobility, dominance of societies by small and powerful elite groups of society, and relations of lordship and serfdom between the elite and the people. Often the former are rich and the latter poor.’[2] Joel Kotkin outlines what he thinks will happen in his audio book The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class:[3] ‘Following a remarkable epoch of greater dispersion of wealth and opportunity, we are inexorably returning towards a more feudal era marked by greater concentration of wealth and property, reduced upward mobility, demographic stagnation, and increased dogmatism. If the last 70 years saw a massive expansion of the middle-class, not only in America but in much of the developed world, today that class is declining and a new, more hierarchical society is emerging. ‘The new class structure resembles that of Medieval times. At the apex of the new order are two classes–a reborn clerical elite, the clerisy, which dominates the upper part of the professional ranks, universities, media, and culture, and a new aristocracy led by tech oligarchs with unprecedented wealth and growing control of information. These two classes correspond to the old French First and Second Estates. ‘Below these two classes lies what was once called the Third Estate. This includes the yeomanry, which is made up largely of small businesspeople, minor property owners, skilled workers, and private-sector oriented professionals. Ascendant for much of modern history, this class is in decline while...
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