Pogoism: We Have Met the Enemy and He is Us
In the human quest for self-knowledge we invent approximate stand-ins for ourselves from life-size terra cotta soldiers to clockwork dancing automatons and now AI+Robotics. What could go wrong?
It’s May Day and a fella’s thoughts turn to looking out the window and daydreaming of being free from “the man” for an afternoon at the swimming hole or some other non-work activity that transcends the means-to-an-end category of tedium. In other words, revolution!
And what, in 2026, is more revolutionary and more revolution-provoking than artificial intelligence and robotics? The devices seem to be arrayed in force against the workers of the world as they get trained on our words and movements…
“Workers of the world, submit to scanning and tokenization; You have nothing to lose but your brains!”
I mean, I mean… there’s a definite zombie apocalypse vibe to the whole thing even before one considers that they’re now interfacing grids of human brain cells into digital meshes to find a less energy intensive way of implementing neural networks. Yes, that’s really happening already. 1
AI+Robotics are tools that present a unique opportunity to transcend scarcity and the -isms that evolved to manage scarcity-- capitalism and socialism. Unfortunately, the ascendant -ism of our day seems to be transhumanism-- a negation of the adequacy of the human condition as finite, limited meatware in favor of immortal, tech-augmented sentient bots.
AI+Robotics are being rolled out in a way that favors the oppressors, of course, same as it ever was with any new tech. Is revolution even possible against waves of drones with facial recognition and shape charges following AI-generated kill lists based on our social media posts, phone calls, online purchases, etc.? John Henry died with his hammer in his hand trying to beat a machine in a machine’s game.
We need a game-changer now, more than ever, because the default outcome, as things stand today, will be built on the foundation of the oppressors’ fear of the oppressed and the dystopian imperative to “manage” the oppressed (instead of liberating them). The oppress-or-be-oppressed game we’ve played for thousands of years is so ingrained, we even fear being oppressed by our own new inventions that only do what we ask them to do (because we are unskilled in assessing the unintended outcomes of our own foolish prompt-requests).
Is the real problem that, ultimately, we fear ourselves? There is a seed of the oppressor in each of us, is there not? Is the real reason we oppressors don’t trust the oppressed with liberation because we know exactly what we’d do given the same opportunity and we can’t countenance the potential of an adversary like ourselves? How can we ever be safe when there are other people as unsafe as us running around?
Perhaps only a revolution of consciousness can even come close to the game changer we need.
Transhumanism doesn’t really offer anything new. The human ego aspiring to become god-like is a very, very old story that generally doesn’t end well. That’s because the ego is never satisfied with being excellent. The ego must be the best and, so, in the end there can be only one— one who has vanquished all the others.
Unless there is some way for people to be satisfied and fulfilled with mere equality.
Perhaps, if we do enough collective shadow work to “make the unconscious conscious” as Jung put it, we might approach such a shift in consciousness. What do you think? The road to Kumbayah, if it exists, is an arduous pilgrimage