One of the mystifying characteristics of the current ruling class is how it can be diabolically clever one moment and insanely stupid the next. Two brief examples. First, the concerted effort by the elite to defeat Trump in 2020, which, whatever one might think of it ultimate result, was, it must be admitted, very expertly done. Using the excuse of the “pandemic”—itself overblown by a medical establishment eager to inflict its authoritarian tendencies on a hapless population—the elites flooded the electorate with mail-in ballots, thus making it so easy to cast a ballot that literally millions of low information were suddenly enfranchised. The elites then made sure, through various schemes of artifice and manipulation, that these hordes of the congenitally clueless would cast their votes for Biden, thus giving the man who is easily worst candidate to ever be run by a major party in American history the record for most votes ever received in a Presidential election. The result may have been exceedingly disheartening and catastrophic for the country—but it was still one heck of an achievement.
The very same elite that could dig up 80 million plus votes for an ultra-corrupt babbling moron of a politician is the same elite that is desperately attempting to foist a failing vaccine with potentially dangerous side effects on the entire population of the United States, including children five and up. Why would anyone with half a brain do such a thing? It’s enough to inspire even the sober minded to embrace wild conspiracy theories. Yet e don’t have fully rely on conspiracies to explain this seeming anomaly. Throughout history and even during contemporary times plenty of examples can be found of a high level of cleverness and intelligence coexisting with unbelievable manifestations of dimwitted and implacable stupidity.
Which leads us to our second example—a recent news story about the shoe corporation Nike:
Nike Inc. has agreed to buy RTFKT, a Utah-based business founded just two years ago. The company produces virtual products like sneakers. It ensures authenticity and it uses blockchain technology. Financial terms were not disclosed.
What are “virtual” products? They are products that don’t exist in reality. They are computer generated facsimiles that exist in what computer nerds pretentiously refer to as the “metaverse”:
In its current meaning, metaverse generally refers to the concept of a highly immersive virtual world where people gather to socialize, play, and work. Awareness of this term surged on October 29, 2021, when Facebook rebranded itself “Meta” and released a video in which CEO Mark Zuckerberg says, “I believe the metaverse is the next chapter for the internet.”
In other words, the metaverse is fake world computer nerds such as Mark Zuckerberg are creating as refuges for weak people eager to escape from the rigors of the real world.
Why then is Nike buying what is essentially a company that makes fake (i.e., “digital”) shoes? As Nike’s CEO John Donahue attempt to explain,
this acquisition is another step that accelerates Nike’s digital transformation. Our plan is to invest in the RTFRT brand, serve and grow their innovative and creative community and extend Nike’s digital footprint and capabilities.
That is to say, Nike is going to get into the business of making digital shoes. Does this make any sense? No, of course it doesn’t. Investing in a digital shoe making business is an astonishing piece of silliness for a major corporation. It suggests that there exists a serious lack of judgment among those in charge of running the Nike corporation. Yet here again we run into that anomaly of cleverness coexisting with shocking levels of asininity. The people who run Nike obviously must be at least somewhat competent and intelligent. After all, the shoe corporation is doing reasonably well in a very competitive market. The corporation's gross profit for the twelve months ending August 31, 2021 was $20.917B, a 29.83% increase year-over-year. So this is not a company run by idiots. This being the case, how is it that very smart people with degrees from the best colleges and universities would buy a company that makes imaginary shoes?
I suppose it could be argued that the move might make sense as an advertising scheme. But that’s not how it was presented by the company’s CEO, John Donahue, who insisted that the purchase of RTFRT is part of a broader plan to “extend Nike’s digital footprint and capabilities.” Donahue seems to really believe there is something to making digital shoes for the metaverse.
There is actually a much simpler explanation for all this. These doctrines emerging from the fever swamps of Big Techm they are essentially of a religious nature. When progressive-minded nerds wax enthusiastic about metaverses, transhumanism, and the singularity, they are using terms derived from their own unique secular theology. Now secular religions are always wrong and usually stupid. Religion, being a realm of faith, requires strong and vibrant traditions to keep it within the cognitive straight and narrow. If you try to start a religion from scratch, and then, even more unwisely, you detach it entirely from transcendental principles borrowed from other tradition-based religions, then you have entered an intellectual realm where nothing can keep you tied to the universe of real experience. This appears to be what has happened with the nerd version of the secular religion of progressivism. The denizens of Big Tech read way too much bad science fiction, which they have absorbed without reference to any controlling reality. Hence once they seek solace for their spiritual strivings they are easily misled to the most preposterous conclusions.
“When a man stops believing in God he doesn't then believe in nothing, he believes anything,” warned Chesterton. Transhumanism is a secular belief system which advocates the “enhancement” of the human condition by developing and making widely available sophisticated technologies able to greatly enhance longevity, mood and cognitive abilities. According to the Wikipedia article:
Transhumanists support the emergence and convergence of technologies including nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology and cognitive science (NBIC), as well as hypothetical future technologies like simulated reality, artificial intelligence, superintelligence, 3D bioprinting, mind uploading, chemical brain preservation and cryonics. They believe that humans can and should use these technologies to become more than human.[108] Therefore, they support the recognition and/or protection of cognitive liberty, morphological freedom and procreative liberty as civil liberties, so as to guarantee individuals the choice of using human enhancement technologies on themselves and their children
Such a technology might involve, for example, planting a chip on the human brain. Elon Musk claims his company Neuralink is developing a special piece of silicon that, once physically linked to the brain, could be used to help the paralyzed walk again. Although such technology at first blush sounds very intriguing, it of course contains on its flipside many very serious downsides. The concern is that these chips could also allow human beings to escape into a virtual world of their own choosing, such as Zuckerberg’s puerile metaverse. This technology is potentially far more powerful than any hallucinatory or opioid drug that one could name—and almost certainly more dangerous. If millions of people in the West suddenly disappeared into their various private metaverses, that in itself could greatly increase the alienation from reality that afflicts so many in Western societies. Transhumanism, in short, is little more than a subconscious suicide strategy.
Your essay calls to mind the movie "Shallow Hal" in which Hal (played by Jack Black) character now sees with his physical eyes the inner beauty of characters who are in fact physically plain or, in the case of his romantic interest, very obese (Gweneth Paltrow, with and without the body suit.) Guess how the inner beauty is represented? As stereotypical beautiful and handsome actors. Now, they're indeed examples of physical beauty, but is that the only way to represent inner beauty? (And by implication it seems to confirm the physical unattractiveness of the characters, rather then consider whether they're at least partly victims of a society conditioned to recognize only certain archetypes as being beautiful.) A more daring choice is for Hal to see the same plain or fat face we see, but now in addition he sees the kindness, keen intellect, etc. (and also cruelty, dullness, etc.) His focus is no longer on the beauty of the handwriting, but instead the beauty of the message. But now I'm probably describing an art house film; a commercial film usually panders to existing prejudices or virtue signals that it holds the same values as the cool kids.