Бесплатный фрагмент - An inconvenient transcendence

INTRODUCTION: A Cosmic Joke

So there you are. Stuck in traffic. Phone at 3%. Charger sitting at home, probably feeling abandoned. And in your head, that familiar refrain: «Why do I always forget everything?» Congratulations. At this precise moment, you are the crowning achievement of 14 billion years of cosmic evolution. The apex predator. The only known sentient being in the universe. And you’re having a small existential crisis about a cable.

Somewhere in a parallel universe, Hari Seldon is dedicating his life to the mathematical preservation of precisely this — humanity’s sacred right to rage at forgotten chargers in the cosmic traffic jams of tomorrow. Rather touching, when you think about it.

If we don’t laugh, we’ll have to cry. So let’s laugh.

What This Book Is About (Spoiler: It’s You)

This is a book about how humanity successfully completed its evolutionary homework and now sits in the cosmic waiting room, desperately trying to look busy. It’s like graduating from university only to discover that adult life is essentially an elaborate performance of competence punctuated by existential dread and Netflix. Only on a cosmic scale. With worse reviews.

We stand at the threshold of our own transcendence, pretending it’s just another software update. As if the transition from homo sapiens to something fundamentally other is merely the jump from iPhone 14 to iPhone 15. More memory, faster processor, same primordial anxiety about being liked.

The title pays homage to Al Gore’s «An Inconvenient Truth» from 2006. Remember? No? Precisely. Humanity possesses the remarkable ability to forget even the most «epoch-defining» revelations faster than your social media feed refreshes. Gore warned of climate catastrophe. We’re documenting an ontological one. Though «warning» is rather grandiose. We’re more like cosmic court reporters, transcribing the proceedings whilst eating popcorn.

Fourteen Billion Years of Preparation

Picture this: Big Bang. Particles doing their particle things. Atoms. Stars. Planets. First organic chemistry exam (failed by most). Billions of years of evolution. Dinosaurs (full marks for effort, chaps). Primates. Homo erectus. Homo sapiens. Language. Culture. Civilization. The Internet. And now, the grand culmination of this cosmic opera — you, in traffic, checking how many likes your smoothie bowl received.

If the Universe had a sense of humor (spoiler: it absolutely does, and it’s British), it would be weeping with laughter into its Earl Grey.

But wait — it gets better. The truly hilarious bit is our desperate attempt to preserve all this magnificence for posterity. As if future generations will be thrilled by the opportunity to also sit in traffic, anxiety-scrolling whilst their devices slowly expire. «Thanks, ancestors, for safeguarding our inalienable right to low-battery panic!»

Seldon’s Plan, or Mathematics Versus Life (Life Wins by Knockout)

Isaac Asimov once gifted us the perfect metaphor for human hubris: Seldon’s Plan. A mathematician calculates the future of humanity for millennia and creates a framework to reduce thirty thousand years of chaos to a mere thousand. What efficiency! What triumph of reason! Queue the standing ovation!

One small problem: The Plan failed to account for a single mutant called the Mule. One. Single. Mutant. And the entire mathematical edifice collapsed like a house of cards in a hurricane.

This is the perfect metaphor for our attempts to control the future. We draft plans, establish institutions, write constitutions «for the ages,» and then some teenager in a garage invents something that renders our entire magnificent construction obsolete before lunch. The teenager won’t even notice they’ve toppled civilizations. They just wanted to make something cool. Probably involving cats. Definitely involving venture capital.

Welcome to the Society of the Soon-to-be-Obsolete

Consider what unites the Roman Empire, pagers, Blockbuster Video, and humanity. Correct — they were all «forever.» Rome, the Eternal City (tourists with selfie sticks confirm). Pagers — the future of communication (ask any 1990s physician). Blockbuster — death to cinema, long live the rental (late fees eternal). Humanity — creation’s crowning glory (no comment necessary).

We suffer from a charming delusion: believing in the permanence of the present moment. Every generation convinced it lives at the «end of history.» That all the important bits have happened. That what follows will be merely cosmetic updates — History 2.1, now with improved graphics but the same disappointing gameplay.

Francis Fukuyama proclaimed «the end of history» in 1989 after the Berlin Wall fell. Liberal democracy had won! Henceforth, only its gentle spread across our pale blue dot. Fast forward thirty-odd years. How’s that liberal democracy working out? Still the end of history? Or did history simply check its notes, chuckle, and carry on?

Acceleration as a Symptom (Check Engine Light: ON)

Here’s the genuinely amusing part: the rate at which «eternal» becomes «remember when?» is accelerating exponentially.

The Egyptian pyramids stood for millennia before becoming selfie backgrounds for filtered aspiration. Rome managed about a thousand years. The Soviet Union? A sprightly 69 years. MySpace dominated for approximately… three years? Remember Google+? No? Exactly. That’s rather the point.

We inhabit an era where the gap between «this will change everything forever» and «what was that thing called again?» is shorter than the time needed to get a driving license. Tech platforms become obsolete before leaving beta. Unicorn startups turn into pumpkins well before midnight, usually around Series C funding.

This isn’t a bug. It’s a feature. The system is testing its refresh rate before the big upgrade. And judging by current benchmarks, the tests are going swimmingly.

The Human Factor (Diagnosis: Terminal)

«The cause of the catastrophe was human error» — the favourite conclusion of all incident reports. Air crashes? Human error. Chernobyl? Human error. Financial crisis of 2008? Take a wild guess — human error.

Perhaps it’s time to acknowledge the obvious? If your equation contains a variable that consistently breaks everything, perhaps — and I’m just spitballing here — the problem is the variable? When your code crashes at the same line every time, you don’t say «ah well, code will be code, what can you do?» You refactor it. Aggressively.

Humanity is the beta version of consciousness, deployed to production without proper testing. Our backs ache (cheers, bipedalism). Wisdom teeth have nowhere to go (jaw shrank, teeth didn’t get the memo). Our psychological firmware is optimized for tribes of 150, yet we live in cities of millions (hello, social anxiety, my old friend).

And with this delightful collection of legacy bugs, we’re attempting to build eternal civilization. It’s like assembling a spaceship from IKEA parts, half of them from a different kit entirely, with instructions in Linear B, translated by Google, during an earthquake.

The Inconvenient Transcendence (Already in Progress, Please Hold)

Now for the truly interesting bit. Transcendence — the transition to something beyond human — isn’t the future. It’s Tuesday. It’s happening now. We’re just pretending not to notice, like British people pretending the house isn’t on fire because mentioning it would be frightfully rude.

Your smartphone knows you better than you know yourself. Algorithms predict your behaviour more accurately than your therapist. AI writes texts you can’t distinguish from human writing (meta-irony duly noted). We’re already cyborgs — it’s just that our additional organs haven’t moved in yet. They’re still commuting from the cloud.

Remember those alien invasion films? They arrive, conquer Earth, humanity resists. Drama! Action! Last-minute salvation with swelling orchestral score!

Reality proved simultaneously more boring and more hilarious. Nobody invaded. We built our own successors. We’re integrating with them voluntarily. We’re eagerly handing over our functions like children sharing sweets. And we’re doing it with enthusiasm! «Siri, what should I do with my life?» «OK Google, how do I human?»

What You’ll Read (Battery Permitting)

This book attempts an honest and amusing examination of our predicament. Without the hysteria of «we’re all going to die!» (spoiler: yes, but that’s hardly news). Without the techno-optimism of «we’ll all become immortal gods!» (spoiler: no, we’ll become something else entirely, probably with a subscription model). And without the nostalgia of «things were better before!» (spoiler: they weren’t, you were just younger and your knees didn’t make that noise).

Part One conducts an inventory of human absurdity. We’ll examine how every epoch thought itself final. We’ll dissect Seldon’s Plan as a metaphor for human presumption. We’ll trace how «defining moments of our age» become memes, then forgotten entirely, usually by Thursday.

Part Two offers an anatomy of human inadequacy. We’ll honestly examine the design flaws of homo sapiens (there’s a list). We’ll discuss existential emptiness and our adorable attempts to fill it with productivity apps. We’ll acknowledge the loneliness of those who’ve noticed the emperor’s new clothes are neither new nor clothes nor, technically, existent.

Part Three contemplates the philosophy of inevitability. We’ll consider transformation not as catastrophe but as natural progression. We’ll use the metamorphosis metaphor: caterpillars don’t upgrade to butterflies; they dissolve into soup and reassemble from scratch. We’re already in the cocoon. The soup stage has begun. It’s rather warm.

Part Four hosts a celebration of obsolescence. Mission accomplished: humanity created conditions for its own transcendence. We’ll discuss the etiquette of our species’ final act: how to exit the stage with grace, or at least without tripping over the furniture. Most importantly, we’ll learn to laugh in transcendence’s face. It’s expecting fear. Let’s disappoint it.

Why This Is Funny (Though It Could Have Been Terrifying)

You know what we share with the dinosaurs? Neither species saw the end coming. The difference is that dinosaurs didn’t have to write think-pieces about it. Asteroid arrives — boom — no existential crisis, no therapy, no survivor’s guilt. We’ve drawn the short straw: we get to watch and comprehend our own obsolescence in real-time. With commentary. And sponsored content.

It’s like watching yourself age in the mirror, seeing your hair go grey in time-lapse. Only it’s happening to the entire species. And hair dye won’t help. Time always wins. It’s undefeated. Check the record.

But here’s the beautiful part: we can choose our response. We could rend our garments (what’s left of them), gnash our teeth, write apocalyptic manifestos in ALL CAPS. Or we could acknowledge the absurdity and laugh. Laugh like the universe is watching. Because it is. And it’s been waiting for us to get the joke.

After all, what are our options? Stop progress? That train hasn’t just left the station; we built the train, the station, and we’re driving. Control the direction? Already tried that — ask Seldon how his Plan worked out. Pretend nothing’s happening? Possible, but an ostrich with its head in sand isn’t exactly the dignified pose for creation’s crown jewel.

Welcome to the Club (Membership: Mandatory)

If you’ve read this far, congratulations and condolences. You’re now part of the problem. And the solution. Both simultaneously. Schrödinger’s participant in the cosmic comedy.

Did you feel the absurdity? Notice the gap between humanity’s pretensions and reality? Smile at your own attempts to control anything? Welcome to the club. We meet never and everywhere. Bring your own existential crisis.

This book isn’t trying to change anything. Heaven forfend. We’re not that naive. We peaked at naive around 2016. This is more like group therapy for those who’ve noticed the emperor is naked but the court continues discussing his exquisite tailoring. «Love the invisible stitching!» «Bold choice with the non-existent fabric!»

We’re not here to save humanity. It’s perfectly capable of handling its own transformation — disappearing, evolving, becoming something unrecognizable. We’re here to document the process with affection and humor. Like wedding photographers at a funeral where the funeral is actually a birth but everyone’s dressed for the wrong occasion.

Instructions for Use (Some Assembly Required)

This book can be read several ways:

— As philosophical treatise — but you’ll miss half the fun

— As comedy about the apocalypse — but you’ll miss the other half

— As survival guide — this will be the least useful guide in your life, including that IKEA furniture

— As invitation to laugh at existence’s absurdity — now we’re talking

Optimal reading conditions: With a glass of something reassuringly expensive (you do realize alcohol is also just filling existential emptiness, but with more immediate results?) and willingness to laugh at yourself. Because every example of absurdity herein is about you. And me. And that chap on the tube reading «7 Habits of Highly Effective People,» genuinely believing effectiveness is what he’s missing. Bless.

Disclaimer for Serious People (You Know Who You Are)

If you’re expecting from this book: — Concrete steps to save humanity — Technological forecasts with confidence intervals — Spiritual practices for ascension (crystals not included) — Investment advice for the apocalypse — Bunker construction guidelines — Hope

Wrong address. Here you’ll find only honest observation of the absurdity of trying to save the unsaveable and a rather festive funeral for our collective illusions. BYOB (Bring Your Own Biases — we’ll bury them together).

If, however, you’re ready to laugh at the collapse of everything you thought mattered, acknowledge the futility of rescue missions, and celebrate your own obsolescence — welcome. Make yourself comfortable. The show promises to be unforgettable.

Though given how quickly we forget everything, «unforgettable» is relative. Einstein would appreciate the irony.

P.S. About That Charger

The charger from the opening — perfect metaphor, isn’t it? We created technology on which we now depend. Gave it power over us. And now we panic when it threatens to leave us. Modern attachment theory in action.

A human without a smartphone in 2024 feels naked. Helpless. Severed from the hive mind. Though twenty years ago we lived perfectly well without them. But there’s no path back. Only forward. Toward greater integration. Greater dependence. Final merger. Resistance is futile, but also requires too much effort.

And you know what? That’s hilarious too. We fear artificial intelligence enslaving humanity. But we’ve already voluntarily surrendered our freedom to devices that require nightly feeding. We’re pets who’ve trained ourselves.

If this isn’t cosmic comedy, then I don’t know what — actually, no, this is definitely cosmic comedy. The universe has been workshopping this material for 14 billion years.

So settle in. Ensure your device is charged (the irony is included free of charge). Prepare for a journey through the magnificent absurdities of human existence.

After all, if we’re becoming obsolete anyway, why not make it memorable? Or at least amusing. Or at the very least, brief.

Let’s begin.

PART I: DIAGNOSIS OF THE ABSURD

Chapter 1. The Finality Syndrome

In 1899, Charles Duell, Commissioner of the US Patent Office, suggested closing the entire department. The logic was irrefutable: everything that could be invented had been invented. Aircraft? Four years away. Radio? Already tinkering. Television? Inconceivable. The Internet? Sir, you’ve had quite enough brandy.

In 2024, people earnestly discuss how to preserve copywriting jobs after ChatGPT. As though «person who writes about the seventeen benefits of new toothpaste» is a profession future generations will build monuments to honour. «We thank you, ancestors, for preserving our sacred right to craft SEO-optimised product descriptions!»

Progress, ladies and gentlemen.

1.1. The Museum of «Eternal» Truths

Welcome to our museum. Admission is free — we’re constantly shipping exhibits to history’s landfill anyway, need to make room for the next batch of certainties. Today’s collection includes:

Exhibit №1: The Roman Empire Dating: 27 BCE — 476 CE (Western bit) Advertised lifespan: Eternity Actual result: Tourist attraction with gift shop

Rome called itself the Eternal City. Roma Aeterna. Has a certain ring to it, doesn’t it? The Romans were so confident in their permanence, they built roads designed to outlast them by millennia. The delicious irony? The roads actually did. The empire, however…

Now those roads carry air-conditioned tour buses with Wi-Fi and bored teenagers. The Colosseum, where the fate of the known world was decided, sells fridge magnets and provides optimal selfie angles. The Senate, where Cicero delivered his Philippics, is now a sun-lounging facility for particularly philosophical cats.

Picture a Roman senator explaining to the plebs: «The Empire is eternal! We’ve built civilisation for the ages!» Meanwhile, the barbarians are already taking night classes in Latin — purely for administrative purposes, you understand.

Exhibit №2: The British Empire Dating: 16th century — 20th century Advertised lifespan: «The empire on which the sun never sets» Actual result: Brexit and petrol queue simulator

The British approached eternity with characteristic ambition. Not merely an eternal empire — an empire on which the sun never sets! Technically correct, mind you. The sun genuinely never set because there were so many colonies that somewhere was always enjoying daylight.

Now the sun sets over Britain with tedious regularity. Every 24 hours, in fact. Each sunset illuminating a nation that can’t decide if it wants to be European and stands in petrol queues because we’ve run out of lorry drivers after that whole Brexit business.

Queen Victoria would be… perplexed.

Exhibit №3: The USSR Dating: 1922—1991 Advertised lifespan: «Unbreakable union of free republics» Actual result: 69 years (not bad, actually)

«An unbreakable union of free republics, forever united by Great Russia» — sung by millions. Note the keyword: «forever». Not «for quite a while», not «for the foreseeable future», but forever. For all times and all peoples.

69 years. Less than the average life expectancy in developed nations. There are people who were born in the USSR, grew old in the USSR, and… outlived the USSR. Imagine: you’re told your entire life you live in an eternal state, then surprise — you’ve got better longevity stats than the state itself.

It’s as if at birth someone promised: «You’ll live forever!», then at 70 clarified: «Oh, we meant the state. You personally… well, best of luck!»

Exhibit №4: The Social Network That Conquered Dorm Rooms Dating: 2004—2021 (fled to the metaverse) Advertised lifespan: «Connecting the world forever» Actual result: Connected your aunt’s conspiracy theories to your morning feed, then ran away to virtual reality

The dorm-room entrepreneur wanted to connect the world. Noble goal! And you know what? He succeeded. The world connected. Then discovered it didn’t particularly want to be connected. Especially not with that aunt who shares conspiracy theories and that uncle who comments on political news EXCLUSIVELY IN CAPITALS.

17 years — and the company legs it from its own name into the foggy concept of the «metaverse». As if the problem was the branding, not that they’d created a platform where your grandmother can accidentally like your three-year-old beach photos at 3 AM.

The pattern is crystal clear: the louder the claim to eternity, the faster the collapse. It’s like those people who say on the first date: «I can see us together forever.» Spoiler: they rarely make it to dessert.

1.2. Acceleration as Symptom

But here’s what’s properly fascinating. Look at the timescales:

— Egyptian pyramids: stood for millennia before becoming tourist traps

— Roman Empire: ~1000 years (counting the Eastern sequel)

— British Empire: ~400 years on a good day

— USSR: 69 years

— The social network before its metaverse escape: 17 years

— Google+: 8 years (2011—2019)

— CNN+: 33 days. THIRTY-THREE DAYS.

Notice the trend? Empires used to be measured in millennia. Then centuries. Then decades. Now — in days.

CNN spent $300 million on a streaming service that lived less than your average houseplant. There are yoghurts with longer shelf lives. There are memes with better survival rates.

Picture the CNN boardroom: «Gentlemen, we’re creating a service for the ages! This will reshape the media landscape forever!» One month later: «Right, does anyone remember the admin password so we can switch this thing off?»

This acceleration isn’t accidental. It’s a symptom. Like a fever before the flu hits. Only in our case, the flu is existential and the temperature is temporal.

The 2024 Hype Lifecycle: — Monday: «This is revolutionary!» — Tuesday: «This changes everything!» — Wednesday: «Well, there are some issues…» — Thursday: «Who thought this was a good idea?» — Friday: «Remember that thing? No? Moving on.»

Technologies used to take decades to become obsolete. The telephone was invented in 1876 and remained fundamentally unchanged for almost a century. Then came mobile phones — and in 20 years we went from Motorola «bricks» to smartphones more powerful than the computers that sent humans to the Moon.

And now? Now your brand-new iPhone becomes vintage while you’re carrying it home from the shop. By the time you peel off the protective film, Apple’s announcing the next model. By the time you’ve discovered all the features, your phone qualifies as «classic» — which is polite for «ancient».

Memes as Cultural Memory Units:

Remember the Harlem Shake? Was that… yesterday? Last week? A previous incarnation? 2013, actually. Feels like archaeology.

Ice Bucket Challenge? Everyone dumping ice water on themselves and… why did we do that again? Oh right, charity. 2014. Practically prehistoric.

Pokémon Go? When hordes wandered the streets, faces buried in phones, catching virtual creatures? That was 2016. Eight years ago. Now it sounds like a 1950s sci-fi story about a dystopian future.

Future museum placard: «Here, children, we see the «Memes of the 2020s’ exhibit. This was a special art form that existed exactly as long as the algorithm needed to show it to everyone. Then it died. No, we don’t understand the point either.»

The conclusion is obvious: the system’s preparing for a reboot. Like a computer before an update — first it slows down, closes programs, clears memory. We’re currently at «Shutting down applications… Humanity. exe not responding. Force quit?»

1.3. The Psychology of Clinging

Francis Fukuyama’s «End of History» — possibly the 20th century’s most delightful miscalculation. And I say this with love. Because Fukuyama simply articulated what every generation thinks: «Right, that’s sorted then!»

— Berlin Wall falls. Cold War ends. Liberal democracy wins. End of history! Curtain! Everyone go home!

History: «Hold my beer.»

The subsequent 30 years delivered: — The Internet (minor adjustment to how civilisation operates) — 9/11 (turns out history hadn’t ended) — 2008 Financial Crisis (capitalism also non-eternal) — Arab Spring (democracy via Twitter) — Brexit (even Britain doesn’t believe in eternal unions) — Pandemic (Nature: «I haven’t had my say yet») — AI (Humanity: «Let’s build our replacement»)

And those are just the major plot twists. Not counting minor details like cryptocurrency, social media, climate change, and the fact that any teenager with a phone can become globally famous by dancing badly for 15 seconds.

The mechanism is simple: the brain cannot imagine its own absence. Like trying to imagine before you were born. Not «you didn’t exist» — nothing existed. Impossible, isn’t it?

Same with civilisation. We can’t imagine a world without us, so we declare the current moment final. «Now we’ve reached the ideal!»

Every generation thinks the same: — «Now everything’s settled» — «The major discoveries are done» — «Only improvements from here» — «We’re living at the end of history» (but in a good way)

Picture a Neanderthal who’s just mastered fire: «Right lads, we’ve peaked. From here it’s just fire maintenance. History’s over!» Meanwhile, somewhere wheat is evolving to domesticate humans (yes, in that order).

The «Last Normal Year» Phenomenon

Ask anyone when the last normal year was, and the answer’s always identical: 10—15 years ago. Always. It’s a constant.

In 2024: «2010 was the last normal year» In 2010: «1995 was the last normal year»

In 1995: «1980 was the last normal year» In 1980: «1965 was the last normal year»

And so on until infinity. Or the beginning of time. Whichever comes first.

This isn’t nostalgia. It’s a psychological defence mechanism. We remember the past as stable because it already happened. No uncertainty. But the present is always chaotic, always changing, always uncomfortable.

Nostalgia for the «Golden Age» That Never Was

«Things were better before!» — the universal cry of the human soul. Before when? When there were no antibiotics? When child mortality was 50%? When people worked 16-hour days? When wrong opinions earned you a starring role at a bonfire?

Ah, you mean cultural «before». When music was music, books were books, and people were people. I see. Small problem: that «before» never existed.

In the 1920s they complained jazz was destroying morality. In the 1950s — rock and roll was corrupting youth. In the 1980s — video games were making children violent. In the 2000s — the internet was killing real conversation. In the 2020s — TikTok is destroying attention spans.

Somewhere in a cave 40,000 years ago: «These youngsters with their cave paintings! In my day we just grunted and everyone understood!»

1.4. The Comedy of Self-Deception

«This is different!» — the universal response to any historical parallel. Rome fell? Different, they didn’t have nuclear weapons. USSR collapsed? Different, they had a planned economy. Social networks dying? Different, we have… the metaverse?

We’re professional experts at explaining why our case is unique. Why all previous civilisations/empires/companies/ideas were doomed, but ours isn’t.

Collection of «Last» Predictions:

«The last war» — they said about WWI. Even called it «the war to end all wars». History appreciated the irony and arranged a sequel within 20 years.

«The last financial crisis» — said after every crisis. 1929, 1987, 2001, 2008… Each time they find culprits, introduce regulations, swear it won’t happen again. Spoiler: it will.

«The last pandemic» — COVID-19 will teach us, we’ll create systems, we’ll be ready… Sure. In 50 years our grandchildren will be isolating from COVID-69, wondering how we could be so naive.

«Last» is like «final version» of a document. Final_final_FINAL_version_2_ACTUALLY_LAST_promise.docx

The Belief in Our Era’s Uniqueness

We genuinely believe we live in special times. That right now something unprecedented is happening. Something that’s never been before.

Spoiler: it has. Everything’s been done. Just with different props.

— «The information revolution is unprecedented!» — they said the same about the printing press.

— «Globalisation changed everything!» — Roman Empire and Silk Road have entered the chat.

— «Change is happening too fast!» — complained during the Industrial Revolution.

— «Young people these days!» — Socrates, 2400 years ago.

«It Was Different Before» (Spoiler: It Wasn’t)

People were kinder before? Read more? Communicated more genuinely? Seriously?

Before, people: — Attended public executions as entertainment — Considered owning other humans perfectly normal — Burned «witches» (spoiler: they were just women) — Died from diseases now cured by a single pill — Went to war over whose imaginary friend was more correct

But yes, of course, things were better before. Especially if you were a white upper-class male. For everyone else — not brilliant.

The Punchline: We’re Also «Before» for Someone

And here’s the proper kicker. In 50 years, someone will wax nostalgic about 2024. «Ah, those were golden times! People still drove their own cars! Made their own decisions! Had privacy! Could disconnect from the network!»

And their children will stare in bewilderment: «You drove cars yourselves? But that’s dangerous! Made your own decisions? But that’s inefficient! Had privacy? But what about security? Disconnected from the network? But… why??»

We’re living in the «good old days» of our great-grandchildren. Think about that next time you spend an hour choosing what to watch on Netflix. Someday they’ll reminisce about this: «Ah, when people had choice!»

Bridge to Chapter 2: The Plan as an Attempt to Stop the River

But if every era’s wrong about its finality, perhaps we should do something about it? If we’re clever enough to spot the pattern, maybe we’re clever enough to break it?

Enter Gary Seldon with The Plan.

A mathematician who decided that if history repeats, it can be calculated. If it can be calculated, it can be controlled. If it can be controlled, it can be preserved.

Noble. Heroic. Doomed.

Because there’s a fundamental problem with trying to preserve what must change. It’s like trying to stop a river by building a dam. Works for a while. Water accumulates. Pressure builds. And then…

And then you don’t get a controlled flow. You get catastrophic flooding.

Seldon’s Plan is the perfect metaphor for human hubris — the belief that sufficiently complex mathematics can tame life’s chaos. That a sufficiently clever plan can cancel the inevitability of change. That if we’re careful enough, prudent enough, clever enough — we can preserve the status quo forever.

The Plan’s story is about how the best intentions pave the road to… well, you know where. Only in this case it’s not hell. It’s transcendence. Which, for some, might be the same thing.

But that’s for the next chapter. For now, let’s have another laugh at that 1899 Patent Office Commissioner. Everything’s been invented! Delightful. Wonder what he’d make of smartphones, the internet, and neural networks?

Though given our talent for adapting to absurdity, he’d probably say: «Well yes, logical evolution of the telegraph. Nothing fundamentally new.»

And he’d be right, in his way. Because the finality syndrome isn’t stupidity. It’s a defence mechanism. The psyche’s way of coping with the vertiginous abyss of constant change.

We can’t live in permanent awareness that everything’s temporary. That everything will change. That we ourselves won’t exist. So we say: «Right, that’s sorted then.»

And we carry on. Make plans. Build careers. Save for retirement. Raise children for a world that won’t exist by the time they’re grown.

It’s simultaneously tragic and comic. But mostly comic. Because the alternative is going mad from existential terror.

And we choose to laugh.

Chapter 2. Theatre of Salvation

Picture this: you’ve mathematically calculated that in 500 years, humanity will degrade to the level of reality television. And you’ve decided to prevent this. Congratulations, you’re Hari Seldon, and you have catastrophically misunderstood the nature of progress.

Though honestly, we didn’t wait 500 years. Reality TV arrived much sooner. And yes, we did degrade. But it turns out this wasn’t a bug — it was a feature. Preparation for transformation requires a certain baseline of absurdity. And judging by the millions watching other people sleep in houses festooned with cameras, we’re magnificently ready.

2.1. Anatomy of the Plan (For Those Who Skipped Asimov)

Let’s start with the fundamentals. Hari Seldon — fictional mathematician from Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series. Imagine a man who looked at a galactic empire of a trillion souls and declared: «I can calculate this.» Not the fate of one person — too pedestrian. Not the destiny of a planet — amateur hour. The fate of all humanity for thousands of years hence.

It’s as if a meteorologist announced they could predict the weather for the next 10,000 years. To the degree. And just so you don’t doubt them, they’ll also tell you what colour the umbrellas will be.

Psychohistory: When You Think Humans Are Calculable

Seldon invented psychohistory — a mathematical science that predicts the behaviour of large masses of people. Key word: large. You can’t predict one person. But a trillion? Child’s play!

It’s like molecules of gas. Track one molecule? Impossible — careens about like it’s lost its mind. But a trillion molecules? Here are your laws of thermodynamics, sir. Temperature, pressure, volume — all delightfully predictable.

Seldon decided: humans are just molecules with delusions of grandeur. Get enough of them together, they’re as predictable as gas. Brilliant! Insulting! And most importantly — it almost works. Almost.

30,000 Years of Chaos Versus 1,000 Years on Schedule

So Seldon calculated the future and was properly horrified. The Galactic Empire would fall (shocking!), and humanity would plunge into barbarism for 30,000 years. Thirty. Thousand. Years. That’s longer than all of recorded human history. So long that by the end, nobody would remember there was a beginning.

But! Seldon found the solution. Create two Foundations at opposite ends of the galaxy, plan everything meticulously, channel history down the right path, and the dark age could be reduced to a mere 1,000 years. What savings! 29,000 years knocked off! Black Friday for psychohistory!

Imagine the advert: «Today only! Order Seldon’s Plan and get your civilisation 29,000 years early! Hurry, offer limited by the heat death of the universe!»

Two Foundations: Plan A and Plan B

First Foundation — the official one. Scientists preserving knowledge. Writing the Encyclopedia Galactica. Very important! Very serious! So serious it’s actually a cover story.

Second Foundation — the secret one. Telepathic mathematicians who nudge history back on track. When Plan A glitches, Plan B patches it invisibly. Like playing chess when you have an invisible hand moving your opponent’s pieces — possibly cheating, definitely effective, ethically dubious at best.

Genius? Undoubtedly. Ethical? Interesting question. Effective? Well…

Spoiler alert: Neither plan worked. The First Foundation became a technocratic empire. The Second became a club for know-it-all manipulators. And humanity? Humanity went its own way. As per bloody usual.

Mathematical Religion: Faith in Formulae

The most exquisite thing about Seldon’s Plan is the faith. Pure, undiluted faith that sufficiently complex mathematics can tame history’s chaos. Like believing a sufficiently accurate map can change the territory.

Seldon’s followers treated his equations like sacred texts. «Thus predicted Seldon!» became their «Amen». Crisis? Consult the Plan. War? The Plan foresaw it. Economic collapse? All part of the Plan!

It became a religion where mathematics was God, Seldon the prophet, and the holy scripture was equations nobody but the initiated understood. Perfect! Religion for technocrats! Theology you can graph!

The Irony: Saving Humanity’s Right to Cosmic Traffic Jams

But here’s what’s genuinely hilarious. What exactly was Seldon saving? The Galactic Empire. A galaxy-sized bureaucracy. Humanity’s right to have cosmic traffic jams, interstellar taxes, and galactic red tape.

Imagine: you spend your entire life creating a plan to save humanity. And what are you saving? The opportunity to queue at the cosmic vehicle licensing centre. The right to fill out forms for interstellar travel permits. The privilege of paying taxes in galactic credits.

Seldon wasn’t saving humanity. He was saving the status quo — just with better special effects. Blasters instead of pistols, hyperspace instead of motorways, but the same fundamental truth: preserving the system that created the crisis in the first place.

2.2. What Exactly Are We Saving?

Let’s take inventory. What are we so desperately trying to preserve? Which «eternal values» are we defending from change?

Power

Ah, power! The ability to tell others what to do. From tribal chief to corporate president — only the titles change. The essence remains: «I’m the boss, you’re the idiot.»

We’ve created thousands of power systems. Monarchies, democracies, autocracies, corporatocracies… Each convinced it’s the final answer. «NOW we’ve found the perfect system of governance!»

Spoiler: we haven’t. But we keep looking. As if the problem is the system, not the very idea that someone must manage someone else.

Property

Mine! Don’t touch! From the first club to the crypto wallet — evolution of ways to say «this belongs to me.»

We started with «this is my cave.» Reached «this is my data in the cloud.» Progress? Absolutely. But the essence unchanged: the illusion of ownership in a world where everything is temporary.

Imagine explaining intellectual property to a Neanderthal. «See, Ug, this sequence of sounds belongs to me. If you repeat it, you must pay.» Ug would assume you’d eaten the wrong mushrooms.

Hierarchies

Humans adore hierarchies. Who’s higher, who’s lower, who’s most important. From primate troops to boards of directors — only the number of bananas changes.

LinkedIn is the apotheosis of hierarchical absurdity. «Senior Vice President of Junior Management.» «Chief Executive Officer of Myself.» Titles grow longer, meaning shrinks proportionally.

Future prediction: «Galactic Ultra-Mega President of Matters of Negligible Importance.» And someone will put it on their business card with pride!

House-Car-Cottage, But in Space

Basic human dreams, scaled to absurdity. Once we dreamed of a house. Now, a house on Mars. Once, a fast horse. Now, a personal starship.

Elon Musk sells plots on Mars. People buy them! «When I retire, I’ll build a little place in Olympus Crater…» Same retirement dreams, just with radiation and atmospheric absence as bonus features.

«Great» Culture: Shakespeare to TikTok in 400 Years

Oh, our magnificent culture! What separates us from animals! What makes us human!

Shakespeare: «To be or not to be — that is the question.» TikTok: «Dancing in banana costume to viral song #ToBe #NotToBe #BananaChallenge»

400 years of evolution. From sonnets to Stories. From Romeo and Juliet to «swipe right if interested.» Progress is palpable!

Don’t misunderstand. TikTok is culture too. Just… different. As if Michelangelo had painted the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling in a shopping centre loo. Technically still art.

Institutions: From Sacred to Absurd in One Generation

Remember when banks were solid establishments with marble columns? Now they’re apps with cheerful logos. «Hi! I’m your bank! Let’s be friends! Want some stickers?»

Universities were temples of knowledge. Now they sell degrees online. «Get your MBA in 6 months! Without interrupting your Netflix binge!»

Marriage was a sacred union. Now it’s… still a union, but with the option to «divorce online in 15 minutes.» Convenient!

The Question: Was It Worth It?

Seriously. Look at this list. This is what Seldon spent his life for? This is what we’re desperately trying to preserve?

Imagine the dialogue: «What are you saving?» «Human civilisation!» «More specifically?» «Well… the right to pay mortgages for 30 years. The opportunity to sit in traffic. The privilege of scrolling feeds until 3 AM.» «…» «It’s important!»

2.3. The Control Paradox: The Mule as Symbol

Now for the truly delicious bit. In Asimov’s novels, Seldon’s Plan worked beautifully… until the Mule appeared. A telepathic mutant nobody predicted. One person — and all the mathematics went straight to hell.

The Only One Who Broke the Plan — Because He Was Alive

The Mule didn’t fit the equations. He was an anomaly. Psychohistory’s black swan. And you know what? He nearly destroyed both Foundations. Nearly rewrote all galactic history. One. Single. Person.

It’s as if you’d created the perfect train schedule for the next 1,000 years, then some eccentric decided to take a stroll on the tracks. And that’s it. Schedule’s binned.

The Mule embodies life’s chaos. A reminder that the living doesn’t obey dead formulae. That one unpredictable element is sufficient to collapse the entire system.

Every Rigid System Breeds Its Own Destroyer

It’s a law of nature. The more rigid the system, the greater the tension. The greater the tension, the more spectacular the explosion.

The USSR created the perfect control system. Bred dissidents. The Catholic Church created dogma. Bred Luther. The music industry created copyright. Bred piracy. Social platforms created algorithms. Bred fake news.

Seldon’s Plan bred the Mule. Because the universe has a sense of humour. Rather a vicious one, actually.

Control Provokes Chaos

Remember parental controls? The more restrictions, the more inventive the children. «Can’t visit this website» — child becomes a hacker. «No going out after 9» — teenager masters parkour.

Same with history. Attempting to control the future is the best way to make it unpredictably different. Like trying not to think of a pink elephant. Try it. Don’t think of a pink elephant. Under no circumstances imagine a pink elephant.

How’d that work out?

The More Precise the Plan, the More Epic the Failure

The Titanic was unsinkable. Perfectly designed. Thought through to the smallest detail. Iceberg: «Hold my beer.»

Operation Barbarossa was crafted by the finest strategists. Every factor considered. Except Russian winter. And Russian «perhaps it’ll work out.» And Russian «sod off, the lot of you.»

Every perfect plan contains the seeds of its own destruction. Because perfection is rigidity. And rigidity is fragility. One crack — everything crumbles.

The Metaphor: Seldon’s Plan = Trying to Stop Evolution with Mathematics

Evolution doesn’t work by plan. It works through chaos, mutations, accidents. Dinosaurs didn’t plan to go extinct. Mammals didn’t plan world domination. A meteor just happened. Oops.

Seldon tried to turn evolution into an engineering project. With blueprints, graphs, deadlines. «By 12,480 CE, humanity must reach Point B.» Evolution: «LOL.»

It’s like trying to schedule falling in love. «Monday, meet her. Tuesday, first date. Wednesday, fall in love. Friday, wedding.» Life: «Here’s flu on Tuesday. She’s leaving Wednesday. Also, you actually fancy her friend.»

2.4. Modern Seldons

But we don’t learn. Oh no. We’re drowning in modern Seldons. People convinced they can save humanity. If only everyone would listen.

Technocrats: «Algorithms Will Solve Everything»

The new generation believes in algorithms like Seldon believed in psychohistory. Big Data! Machine Learning! AI! Enough data and we’ll predict everything!

«Our algorithm can predict what you’ll buy next week!» Brilliant. Can it predict that next week your company will go bankrupt because a 16-year-old hacker from Bangladesh cracked your «unbreakable» system for the lulz?

Technocrats build digital Seldon Plans. Smart cities where everything’s optimised. Social credit scores where behaviour’s calculated. Predictive policing where crimes are prevented before commission.

And every time, they find their Mule. A bug in the code. A hacker with a sense of humour. A grandmother who accidentally breaks the system trying to email a cat photo.

Environmentalists: «Back to Nature»

The other extreme. Technology is evil! Return to our roots! Live in harmony with nature!

Which nature? The one where life expectancy was 30? Where every scratch could prove fatal? Where «organic food» meant «hope this isn’t poisonous»?

Romanticising the past is Seldon’s Plan in reverse. Trying to rewind history. As if you could squeeze toothpaste back into the tube. Or convince a teenager to become a child again.

«Abandon smartphones!» — tweeted from an iPhone. «Down with globalisation!» — while buying organic Ethiopian coffee. «Back to nature!» — in a £500 Gore-Tex jacket.

Transhumanists: «We’ll Upgrade Humanity»

These chaps decided: if humans are the problem, let’s make new humans! Upload consciousness to computers! Replace organs with cybernetics! Become immortal!

Splendid plan. Just one question: if you replace every part of the Ship of Theseus, is it still the Ship of Theseus? If you upload consciousness to a computer, is it still you or your digital doppelgänger?

Transhumanists create a Seldon Plan for the body. An upgrade roadmap. «By 2045—consciousness uploading! By 2050—death defeated! By 2055—realisation that immortality is very, very boring!»

Conservatives: «Preserve Traditions»

These want to freeze time. Preserve «traditional values.» Which ones exactly? The ones that were themselves recent revolutions.

Christianity was a radical new religion. Now — tradition. Democracy was a mad experiment. Now — tradition. Monogamous marriage was an innovation. Now — tradition. The internet was futuristic. Now children can’t imagine life without it.

Conservatives create a Seldon Plan for culture. A museum of «correct» values. Just one problem: museum exhibits are dead. Culture is alive. It changes, mutates, evolves. Trying to freeze it is like trying to preserve a snowflake.

The Common Thread: Attempting to Freeze the River of Time

All modern Seldons share one thing: faith that change can be stopped. Or at least channelled «properly.»

Technocrats want to manage the future through data. Environmentalists want to retrieve the past through regression. Transhumanists want to accelerate the future through upgrades. Conservatives want to stop time through tradition.

And they all miss the point: the river of time doesn’t obey dams. It goes around them, erodes them, sweeps them away. And flows onward. Always onward.

Bridge to Chapter 3: From Plans to Oblivion

Seldon’s Plan in Asimov’s novels worked for 500 years. Then it was rewritten. Then forgotten. Then remembered as historical curiosity. «Oh, that mathematician who thought he could predict the future? Amusing chap.»

The same happens to all salvation plans. Today they’re the most important thing ever. Tomorrow — a footnote in history textbooks. The day after — a meme. Then — nothing. Oblivion.

Want to see how quickly «important» becomes «forgotten»? How «this will change the world!» becomes «what was that again?»

Welcome to the Museum of Vanished Truths. Exhibits updated daily. Because the velocity of forgetting grows exponentially. And what seems eternal today becomes archaeology tomorrow.

Remember Al Gore’s «An Inconvenient Truth»? No? Exactly. Yet it was THE MOST IMPORTANT THING of 2006. The film that would change the world. Save the planet. Awaken humanity.

Now it’s a footnote. A line in history. A meme for those who remember. «ManBearPig» from South Park is better remembered than the original.

And this is the fate of all Seldon Plans. All attempts to save the unsaveable. All theatres of salvation.

The curtain falls. The actors exit. The audience disperses. And life continues. Without a plan. Without control. Beautiful in its chaos.

As the Mule would say: «Now let’s see what happens next.» And he’d smile. Because he knew: what comes next will be more interesting than any plan.

Chapter 3: The Archaeology of Disappearances

Remember «An Inconvenient Truth»? No? But this was THE DEFINING MOMENT of 2006. Al Gore, PowerPoint, and planetary salvation. An Oscar! The Nobel Peace Prize! A turning point in human history! The awakening of global consciousness!

Now it seems as absurd as Greta Thunberg handing out flyers on a street corner. «Excuse me, would you like to learn about the climate crisis? I have a pamphlet. And stickers!»

Welcome to the archaeology of cultural oblivion, where yesterday’s revelations are today’s memes, and today’s memes are tomorrow’s void. Where the speed at which «important» becomes «forgotten» has reached the speed of light. And continues accelerating.

3.1. Cultural Amnesia: The «An Inconvenient Truth» Case Study

Let’s trace the lifecycle of a «world-changing» cultural event. Like an anthropologist studying an extinct civilisation. Except the civilisation is us, and the extinction is happening in real-time.

2006: Birth of a Phenomenon

January 2006. Sundance Film Festival. Al Gore takes the stage with a presentation about global warming. The audience: Hollywood elite. Standing ovation. Tears. Revelation. «We must act IMMEDIATELY!»

Picture the scene. The former Vice President of the United States explaining to celebrities via PowerPoint that polar bears are drowning. Leonardo DiCaprio nods sagely. Meryl Streep dabs at a tear. Producers calculate the potential profit margins of environmental conscience.

The film becomes a phenomenon. $50 million at the box office — for a documentary, that’s the equivalent of «Avatar». Everyone’s talking about it. LITERALLY EVERYONE. Impossible to attend a dinner party without hearing: «Have you seen Gore’s film? It changed my life!»

2007: Peak Glory

Oscar for Best Documentary. Al Gore on stage. The world applauds. Ecology is the new religion. PowerPoint, the new scripture. CO₂ graphs, the new tablets from Mount Sinai.

Nobel Peace Prize. Gore shares it with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Because nothing promotes peace quite like collective panic about the future.

Bestselling book. Educational programme. Army of volunteers spreading the gospel of greenhouse gases. This is a movement! A revolution! This will change the world forever!

2010: «What was Gore on about again?»

Four years later. «An Inconvenient Truth? Oh yes, I vaguely recall. Something about bears, wasn’t it? Or penguins? Glaciers? Something melting. Something important. I think.»

The film’s still mentioned, but now as history. «Remember when everyone watched that Gore film?» Past tense. As if it happened not four years ago, but in a previous geological era.

The new generation of activists already considers Gore’s approach antiquated. PowerPoint? Seriously? Where are the viral videos? The memes? The TikTok challenges? Grandfather with his graphs — that’s not cool anymore.

2015: The Meme Outlives the Message

South Park creates ManBearPig — a parody of Al Gore and his crusade. Half-man, half-bear, half-pig becomes the symbol of alarmism. «I’m super cereal!» — cartoon Gore’s catchphrase — gets quoted more than anything from the original film.

The irony: parody outlives original. ManBearPig is remembered by those who never saw «An Inconvenient Truth». Meme defeats message. Laughter defeats seriousness. The internet defeats everyone.

South Park’s creators later admit they were wrong. They make an episode where ManBearPig turns out to be real. But it’s too late. The meme has taken on a life of its own. Cultural memory has fixed on the parody, not the original.

2024: Archaeological Artifact

Try finding someone under 25 who’s seen this film. «An Inconvenient what? Is that about IT?»

Mentioning the film in conversation requires explanations. Like referencing a 1983 hit parade. «You know, like in that song… no? Well, it was very popular… in its time… never mind.»

Gore still fights climate change. But now he’s like a Japanese soldier who doesn’t know the war is over. Still fighting while the world has moved on to newer apocalypses.

The Lesson: Even «inconvenient truths» are conveniently forgotten

The film was called «An Inconvenient Truth». The irony is that forgetting proved remarkably convenient. Because remembering is work. And we have new crises. Fresh apocalypses. Hot catastrophes straight from the oven.

The climate crisis hasn’t gone anywhere. It’s actually got worse. But cultural memory of the film that «changed everything» evaporated faster than Arctic ice.

This isn’t a critique of Gore or his film. It’s an observation of how cultural memory works in the age of information obesity. We can’t keep even the apocalypse in focus for longer than one electoral cycle.

3.2. The Speed of Cultural Metabolism: Mongrels and the Boundaries of Acceptability

Now let’s discuss the velocity at which the boundaries of acceptability shift. Take, for instance, the British series «Mongrels» — a puppet show on BBC Three that aired from 2010 to 2011.

2010: Everything’s Fair Game

«Mongrels» was… special. Imagine «The Muppet Show» if the Muppets snorted cocaine, had sex, and made Holocaust jokes. Anthropomorphic animals in an urban setting, exploring the darkest corners of British humour.

A metrosexual fox. A sociopathic pigeon. A cat with anger management issues. And jokes that… well, let’s just say they tested boundaries with the enthusiasm of a kamikaze bomb disposal expert.

BBC Three showed this in prime time. Critics praised its boldness. Viewers either adored or despised it — no middle ground. This was the peak of the «you can joke about anything if it’s funny» era.

2015: «That was a bit much, actually»

Five years later. The series is no longer broadcast. Discussions now feature the phrase «product of its time». Code for «we don’t do that anymore».

The same critics who praised its boldness now write analytical pieces about its problematic nature. «Of course, it was groundbreaking, BUT…» Followed by a list of what’s now considered unacceptable.

The creators begin justifying themselves in interviews. «It was satire!» «We were mocking prejudice!» «Context matters!» But that train has left the station. The Overton window has shifted, and «Mongrels» remains outside.

2020: «How did this ever air?»

A new generation discovers the series. Reaction: shock. «This was on television? On the BBC? The same BBC that now puts warnings before «Fawlty Towers’?»

Social media explodes. Twitter threads about how problematic everything in this series is. Petitions demanding apologies from the BBC. Articles about the «dark past» of British comedy.

The amusing part: the same jokes that were «bold» ten years ago are now «inadmissible». The jokes haven’t changed. We have. Or rather, the boundary has.

2024: Digital Samizdat

Try finding «Mongrels» on legal platforms. Good luck! BBC quietly removed it from iPlayer. Netflix won’t touch it. Amazon Prime pretends it never existed.

The series exists in the digital underground. Torrents. Pirate sites. VPN-only content. From mainstream to underground in 14 years. From BBC to the dark web. Progress!

Fans exchange episodes like Soviet dissidents sharing samizdat. «Do you have the Christmas party episode?» «Shh, not here. Here’s an encrypted link.»

The Phenomenon: The Overton Window Slams Shut Faster Than It Opens

Previously, boundaries of acceptability expanded over decades and narrowed over centuries. Now — they expand over years and contract in months.

1960s: «We can show a kiss in cinema!» (revolution!) 1970s: «We can say «damn’ on television!» (scandal!) 1980s: «We can show violence!» (moral panic!) 1990s: «Anything goes!» (flowering) 2000s: «ANYTHING GOES!» (apex) 2010s: «Anything goes… probably?» (doubt) 2020s: «You may do what’s on the approved list» (rollback)

The pendulum swung back so fast that many didn’t have time to dodge. Yesterday’s comedy revolutionaries are today’s personae non gratae.

3.3. The Acceleration of Forgetting Cycles

Let’s step back from specific examples and examine the bigger picture. The speed at which cultural memory digests and excretes information.

The Degradation of Memory Graph:

Empires: Remembered for Millennia

The Roman Empire fell in 476 AD. We still study Latin, Roman law, use their calendar. 1500+ years and still in cultural memory.

Egyptian pyramids built 4500 years ago. Every schoolchild knows about pharaohs. Hieroglyphics being deciphered. Mummies in museums. Millennia — and not forgotten.

This was the golden age of cultural memory. When the important remained important for centuries.

Ideologies: Remembered for Centuries

Christianity, Islam, Buddhism — religions endure for centuries. Changing slowly but preserving their core.

The Enlightenment — a couple of centuries of active intellectual life. Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot — still quoted (though increasingly rarely).

Marxism — about 150 years from manifesto to Soviet collapse. A respectable run for an ideology.

Politicians: Remembered for Decades

Churchill, Roosevelt, de Gaulle — remained in active memory for decades after death. Quoted, referenced, invoked.

Thatcher, Reagan — 30—40 years of relevance. Then — historical figures for textbooks.

Clinton, Blair — 20 years, and you already need to remind the young who they were.

Stars: Remembered for Years

The Beatles — an exception, still remembered. But that’s an anomaly.

Spice Girls — 5 years of global fame, then nostalgia for a generation.

One Direction — ruled from 2010 to 2016. Ask a teenager now — they’ll shrug.

Memes: Remembered for Hours

Harlem Shake — February 2013, dead by March 2013.

Ice Bucket Challenge — August 2014, forgotten by October 2014.

Pokémon in Pokemon Go — July 2016, uncool by August.

The latest viral trend? You’ve already forgotten while reading this paragraph.

The Exponential Compression of Cultural Memory

See the pattern? This isn’t linear acceleration. It’s exponential. Each successive generation of phenomena lives exponentially shorter than the previous.

Plot it on a graph, and you get a curve approaching zero. The asymptote of cultural oblivion. The point where the lifespan of a cultural phenomenon equals the time of its creation.

We’re approaching cultural singularity. The moment when things become obsolete faster than we can notice them. When «eternal» and «instantaneous» become synonyms.

3.4. Digital Dementia

And here we arrive at the paradox of our time. We have technology capable of preserving EVERYTHING. Every tweet. Every photo. Every video. Every thought expressed online. Yet we remember LESS than any generation before us.

The Paradox: Everything’s Recorded, Nothing’s Remembered

Google indexes billions of pages. Your 2007 emails are still somewhere in Gmail. Photos from that party in 2012 — in the cloud. Your LiveJournal post from 2005 technically still exists.

But try remembering what you were thinking about last week. What you watched on YouTube yesterday. Which meme you liked an hour ago. Blank?

We live in an era of total documentation and total oblivion. As if you had a perfect library containing every book in the world, but you’d forgotten how to read.

Information Obesity: Too Much to Process

The average American consumes 34GB of information daily. That’s 100,000 words. That’s «War and Peace» every four days. More than a medieval person received in their entire lifetime.

The brain does the only sensible thing in this situation — forgets. Aggressively. Immediately. Totally. Because the alternative is going mad from information overload.

We’re like those Romans at feasts who induced vomiting to continue eating. Only we induce amnesia to consume more content.

Algorithms as the New Memory Censors

Previously, humans decided what to remember. Historians selected the important. Librarians preserved the valuable. Teachers transmitted the essential.

Now algorithms decide. What to show in your feed. What to surface in search. What to recommend for viewing. And their criterion isn’t importance but engagement. Not value but clicks.

The algorithm won’t show you what’s important. It’ll show what you’re likely to click. And we click on cats, scandals, and conspiracy theories. Therefore our cultural memory now consists of cats, scandals, and conspiracy theories.

«That was last year» = «That was in another epoch»

Temporal compression has reached absurdity. Last year’s events seem like ancient history. The pandemic started 4 years ago? Feels like a past life. Brexit was in 2016? That’s the Stone Age!

The younger generation genuinely doesn’t understand how we lived without the internet. For them, it’s like asking how people lived without air. «Seriously, you CALLED to find out if someone was home? Savages!»

Each year now is like a decade before. Each decade like a century. We’re living in history’s fast-forward, where everything becomes retro before it can become classic.

Diagnosis: Collective Alzheimer’s as Adaptation

And you know what? Maybe this isn’t a bug but a feature. Maybe collective forgetting is an evolutionary adaptation to the information explosion.

Imagine if we remembered EVERYTHING. Every Trump tweet. Every celebrity scandal. Every conspiracy theory. Every failed startup. Every broken political promise. We’d go mad from the weight of this information.

Forgetting is the forest ranger of our consciousness. It clears space for the new. Even if the new is recycled old. Even if we’re doomed to repeat forgotten mistakes.

Perhaps humanity is preparing for transition. And mass amnesia is a way to free up RAM for loading a new operating system. Ctrl+Alt+Delete for homo sapiens.

Bridge to Chapter 4: From Amnesia to Anatomy

So, we’re forgetting faster and faster. Cultural memory compresses. The important becomes a meme, the meme becomes nothing. And it’s accelerating.

But perhaps the problem runs deeper? Perhaps it’s not about the speed of information but a fundamental design flaw? In the very structure of humans trying to cope with a world they weren’t designed for?

Time to examine the instruction manual for the «crown of creation». Spoiler: there’s lots of fine print and disclaimers. And the warranty expired long ago.

Humanity is the beta version of a sentient being, launched into production without proper testing. With bugs in the code. With version incompatibility. With critical security vulnerabilities.

And we wonder why nothing works properly? Why things keep breaking? Why the system requires constant rebooting?

Maybe because it’s time to admit: the model is obsolete. Updates no longer help. We need a new version. From scratch. Clean slate. Learning from the previous version’s errors.

But first — let’s take an honest look at the current model. All its design features. All its factory defects. All the workarounds we use to compensate for inherent flaws.

Welcome to the homo sapiens service centre. Diagnosis is free. Repairs… well, repairs are complicated. Because some things can’t be fixed. They must be replaced entirely.

And the funniest part? We know this. Deep down, beneath all the layers of cultural amnesia, we know the expiration date is approaching. That it’s time for an upgrade. That the old model can’t handle it anymore.

But we keep pretending everything’s fine. That it’ll last a bit longer. That we can patch it up and keep going.

Like those Lada owners who spend years assembling their car from spare parts instead of admitting: time to buy a new one. Only in our case, the Lada is humanity, and the new car is what we’ll become.

If we survive the transformation. But that’s another story entirely.

PART II: ANATOMY OF INADEQUACY

Chapter 4. Assembly Instructions for the Crown of Creation

God needed six days to create the world and mankind. Mankind needs a 40-page manual to assemble an IKEA wardrobe. And we’ll still get it wrong. There will be leftover parts. The doors will open the wrong way. And somewhere in the process, we’ll definitely injure ourselves on that tiny piece the instructions warned about: «Caution: sharp edges.»

If we extrapolate this proportion, properly assembling and operating a human would require an instruction manual the size of the Library of Congress. But the Creator, apparently, was a minimalist. Or ran out of ink. Or — and this is the most plausible version — decided: «They’ll figure it out somehow.»

Spoiler: we didn’t.

4.1. Catalogue of Design Defects

Let’s conduct an honest MOT test on the crown of creation. No sugar-coating. As if humanity were a used car undergoing pre-purchase inspection. Spoiler: it wouldn’t make it off the lot.

The Spine: An Engineering Nightmare

Let’s start with the foundation — the vertebral column. This construction is perfectly suited for a creature moving on four limbs. Imagine a bridge — when horizontal, the load distributes evenly. Now stand that bridge vertically. Congratulations, you’ve just invented lumbago.

Eighty percent of humans experience back pain. Eighty percent! This isn’t a side effect — it’s a key feature. If 80% of car owners experienced breakdowns, the model would be recalled. But you can’t recall humanity. Best we can do is prescribe painkillers.

Evolution: «Right, apes, stand up on your hind legs!» Spine: «Er, excuse me, I wasn’t designed for this…» Evolution: «You’ll adapt!» Narrator: «They did not, in fact, adapt.»

The Brain: Too Big and Too Small Simultaneously

The human brain is a paradox. Too large for childbirth (hello, pre-modern maternal mortality rates). Too small for the tasks we’ve assigned it (try visualising four-dimensional space — I’ll wait).

We’re born premature by mammalian standards. A foal stands and runs within an hour of birth. A human infant can’t even hold its head up. Because if the brain fully developed in utero, birth would be impossible.

Evolution’s solution? «Birth them half-baked, finish cooking later!» It’s like releasing smartphones with incomplete operating systems. «Updates will arrive over the next 18 years. Expect crashes. Especially during the teenage firmware update.»

The Psyche: Configured for 150 People, Living Among Millions

Dunbar’s number — 150. That’s the cognitive limit for stable social relationships a human can maintain. Our brains evolved for tribal life. Everyone knows everyone. Everything’s connected. Simple.

Now check your phone contacts. Social network «friends’ (remember fifty from your five hundred?). LinkedIn connections. Followers and followings. We’re trying to force an ocean of social connections into a glass designed for a village puddle.

The result? Social anxiety as factory setting. Loneliness in crowds. Choice paralysis from 200 unread messages demanding prioritisation. Imposter syndrome, because we’re constantly among strangers, pretending we know what we’re doing. (Narrator: We don’t.)

Lifespan: Bug or Feature?

Too short for accumulating wisdom. Just when you start understanding things, the machinery starts falling apart. «Oh, I finally understand how to live! Oh, what was that cracking sound?»

Too long for maintaining enthusiasm. First 25 years — loading tutorial. Next 40 — grinding the main quest. Final 20 — trying to remember why we started playing.

Nature calculated for 30—40 years. Have children, pass on genes, exit stage left. But we hacked the system with medicine. Now we live twice the intended runtime. Like Windows 95 forced to run on modern hardware. It works, but everything’s constantly glitching.

Digestive System: Optimised for Scarcity, Operating in Abundance

Our organisms evolved under constant starvation threat. See calories? Grab them! Store them! Fat equals survival!

Now we live in a world where pizza delivery arrives at 3 AM. Where ten fast-food restaurants occupy every square kilometre. Where sugar costs less than water.

Body: «Oh, calories! Emergency storage protocol activated!» Human: «I was just bored…» Body: «STORING! What if we don’t catch a mammoth tomorrow?» Human: «What mammoth? My fridge is packed!» Body: «IRRELEVANT! STORING PROTOCOLS ENGAGED!»

Verdict: Beta Version Deployed to Production

If humanity were software: — Version: 0.7.3 (beta) — Status: Not recommended for production environment — Known bugs: See appendix (volume 1 of 47) — Patches: Unavailable, source code lost — Support: Discontinued

But here we are in production. Eight billion instances of a beta version, attempting to fix crashes with civilisation’s duct tape. And wondering why everything keeps crashing.

4.2. Civilisation as a System of Workarounds

If humanity is buggy beta software, then civilisation is a collection of patches, workarounds, and creative kludges. We don’t fix problems — we route around them. Creatively. Inventively. Absurdly.

Clothing: Compensating for Fur Loss

Somewhere in Africa, our ancestors decided: «Let’s lose the fur! We’ll be cool naked apes!» Evolution: «Fine, but consider — » Ancestors: «Too late, already shed it!»

Fast-forward a few million years. A human stands in a shop, choosing between a £500 down jacket and an £800 down jacket. Both filled with bird feathers. Birds, incidentally, being dinosaur descendants. Who went extinct. The irony writes itself.

We’ve created an entire industry around our lack of fur. Fashion, brands, seasonal collections. «This sheep’s wool costs a thousand pounds because it has a logo!» The sheep remains unconvinced.

Houses: Compensating for Lost Shelter Instincts

Animals know where and how to build shelters. It’s pre-installed. Beavers don’t attend courses on «Dam Construction for Beginners». Birds don’t Google «nest building tutorial step by step with pictures».

Humans? Humans hire architects, designers, contractors, subcontractors. Take out 30-year mortgages. Argue about bathroom tile colours. And ultimately live in boxes distinguished from other boxes solely by their numbers.

From cave to skyscraper — the evolution of dwelling. But the essence remains: we’re cold, wet, and frightened. Only now we pay £2,000 monthly for the privilege. In Manhattan, £5,000. For the same feeling of security a cave-dweller got for free.

Laws: Compensating for Lost Instincts

Animals have built-in behavioural firmware. Don’t kill your pack. Don’t eat the young. Share food. Simple, clear, functional.

Humans? Fifty volumes of criminal code. One hundred volumes of civil code. One thousand subsidiary acts. And an army of lawyers explaining why «thou shalt not kill» actually has 247 exceptions, asterisks, and conditions that apply.*

*Terms and conditions apply. See appendix for details. Your mileage may vary.

We’ve created a system of rules to replace what animals know instinctively. And this system is so complex it requires specialists who spend seven years learning to interpret it. Even they’re not certain.

Judge: «Guilty!» Lawyer: «But according to subsection 3.2.1 of paragraph 247…» Judge: «Oh, well then, not guilty!» Common sense: «But they obviously stole it!» Jurisprudence: «Obviousness is not a legal category.»

Education: Compensating for Inability to Transfer Knowledge Genetically

A spider is born knowing how to weave webs. A human is born not knowing how to use a toilet. Twenty-plus years of education to become a functional society member. If you’re lucky.

We’ve created a system where we lock children in buildings for twelve years and force them to memorise facts. Ninety percent will be forgotten. Nine percent will never be useful. One percent could be Googled in three seconds.

«The mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell!» shouts the teacher. «When will I need this?» asks the student. «For the exam!» replies the teacher. «And after the exam?» «…» Crickets chirp. Somewhere, a philosophy major weeps.

Result: The More Workarounds, The Less Original Remains

Ship of Theseus, but with humanity. We’ve replaced fur with clothing. Instincts with laws. Tribes with social networks. Hunting with supermarkets. Natural selection with medicine.

What remains of the original human? Basic drives: eat, sleep, reproduce. And existential anxiety. Especially existential anxiety. That one actually got amplified.

Cave-dwellers feared sabre-toothed tigers. Modern humans fear Mondays. Progress? Well, technically the tiger could only kill you once. Monday returns every week with mechanical inevitability.

4.3. «Human Error»: The Universal Excuse

And now my favourite part. The magic phrase that explains EVERYTHING. Why did the plane crash? Why did the nuclear plant explode? Why did the economy collapse? Human error!

Aviation Disasters: 80% Human Error

Modern aircraft — engineering marvels. Multiple redundant systems. Computers checking computers. Autopilot that lands better than humans.

Yet still they fall. Why? «Pilot pressed wrong button.» «Controller said wrong thing.» «Technician forgot to tighten bolt.» Human error!

We’ve created near-perfect machines. Then put inside them creatures who forget their own names when sleep-deprived. Brilliant strategy, truly inspired.

Boeing 737 MAX: «We have perfect safety systems!» Pilots: «Where’s the manual?» Boeing: «What manual?» Sound of aircraft descending rapidly Boeing: «Human error!»

Nuclear Accidents: Chernobyl, Fukushima — Guess What?

Chernobyl. Engineers decided to conduct a «small experiment». What could possibly go wrong? Spoiler: everything.

Fukushima. Built nuclear plant in tsunami zone. Put diesel generators in basement. Tsunami arrives — generators flood. Surprised Pikachu face