Tssst… tssss….
… anks for tuning in for this special broadcast. Today, we commemorate 3000 full years since the last Internet-3.0 user passed away in 2152. There have been many attempts at understanding this archaic period. A world so ravaged by greed-wrought disasters that it had become easier than ever before in human history to pretend that all was well by retreating behind a screen.
Do not let your clarity of those past peoples bias you. They faced a future-fog that our children have long since been born beyond. They were simply different; indeed, they are as ancient to us as the Ancient Egyptians were to them. We must remember that hindsight is 30/30 - but to them it was 20/20.
Once, such a phenomenon existed called synesthesia. Certain sensory systems in the body overlapped such that, for example, one could hear something and see an analogous but arbitrary shape float in front of them. How trivial this seems now, but our Streamers™ only exist due to our inspiration from nature. We are all perfectly and predictably synesthetic now, allowing Streamers™ to play the Tones™ which imply the Images™ we desire to see. Sound™ and Sight™ are inextricable, as nature’s millenia of evolutionary hints implied! Incredible, this cycle between nature, reality, and fiction, informing and taking inspiration in trifectal majesty.
In the Sub-Renaissance of the 29th century, nearly 800 years after the event we now commemorate, many revolted against the wave that built into what we have come to know today. Concerns were posed that we were taking over evolution and playing with forces beyond our control. In truth, however, humanity had ruined evolution (as they knew it) by the 21st century. This concept would offend that era’s forward-minded people but we are fortunate to have more objective clarity. It is simply by following accepted theory that we may arrive at this conclusion: evolution as we know it is still best explained by ‘survival of the fittest’. It was a common joke at some point to confuse ‘fittest’ in this context with ‘most physically able’ rather than the clearly intended ‘most fit to the immediate environment’. This was precisely what ‘moral’ humans of the 1800s to 2200s cultivated, however: all are equal, including those who appeared most physically fit but in reality had nothing to contribute beyond increasing the number of pictures online. We - no, they - deliberately passed along unoptimal genes.
Evolution is shallow and unforgiving. At least, until that Evolution Revolution - often cited in older literature as the ‘REvolution’ - when the definition of ‘fittest’ changed entirely. The moral person of that time could look at this as a positive change. They evolved the word ‘fit’ in this context, to include empathy. Pity became a strategy, along with ingenuity for ingenuity’s sake and no other. This brings us back to a crucial element of these people’s identity, for which this special broadcast is named. These were Internet-people - the static nomads whose minds were vaccuumed by the data economy and creation was among the only things left (arguably) for humans to perform, especially with deep learning leading into the brief Automoton Rising of 2140 that in turn helped along that era’s demise. Unlike its peoples, we now know that letting humanity get to the point where it thinks that it can afford to ‘not do’ is the worst mistake possible. We must support each other and keep a watchful eye.
We will finish as we have on the 500-, 1000-, 1500-, 2000-, and 2500-year anniversary broadcasts. Thank you for listen-/watch-ing.
♫
Sit and watch
Listen and doze
Feel the memories of all of those
People that lived
Endlessly spir’ling
Going and going and going and tiring
First it was land
Its crops, its people
Till only attention remained on the steeple
That tall, tall tower
Way up above
That held all that was sacred and loved
Colonize that
Colonize this
Nothing’s off limits, we shan’t reminisce
But do not worry
The future is ours
We’ve learned how to balance all the world’s powers
Right here, right now
Strive through the strife
There’s no social media to waste all your life
♫