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“When humans created a computer with the ability to collect information and learn from it, they signed the death warrant of mankind”
Sister Becca the Finite
In 1965 Frank Herbert had a book published entitled, Dune. I came across the book at the Ft. Lewis base library in Tillacum Washington at the age of fifteen. An avid reader of science fiction I picked up the book and could not put it down. The character development was phenomenal and the story line was unbeknownst to me, prophetic. A brief synopsis follows.
Humankind has spread to the stars, but rather than relying on technology and machinery per se computers, genetically modified humans pilot and man the space vessels. Man is ruled by an Imperium, headed by the Padishah Emperor Shaddam, of House
Corrino. Space travel is controlled by the Guild Navigators, genetically altered humans who plot courses through the Space continuum without computerized technology by using the cinnamon mélange spice. The Spice, a potent addictive spatial psychoactive drug is found on only one planet, Dune. This planet is a desert world populated by a native people called the Fremen. The Fremen are deep desert dwellers and wear a device called a stillsuit, the totally recycles body fluid. Water is such a precious revered substance that a dead Fremen’s water is given to the tribe. It is added to the tribal water pool at their sietch, or village. There are ongoing political military struggles over the spice. No one except the Fremen know the connection between the Spice, water and the giant desert worms. Into this maelstrom comes the Atreides family and the boy Paul. The Zensunni beliefs of the Fremen are the prophetic part of this story.
Paul Atreides flees into the desert after his father Leto is assassinated. The Fremen shelter him after he takes the spice and has prophetic visions that fit the Fremen beliefs. Here is where the language of the book takes on a scary prophetic note. Paul is renamed Mau Dib, (the Madhi) the expected one. His faithful militant warriors are called Fedaykeen, death warriors, the fedayeen mujahideen. Mau Did launches a Jihad, holy war, against the Imperium and its contracted soldiers, the Sardauker. His strategy is based around control of the Spice(Oil). He states, “He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing”
Forty years ago Frank Herbert wrote the future. We are waging war against mujahideen led by a Madhi army over oil(the spice). Water is becoming more and
more valuable and scarcer. A contractor army is being used to install puppet rulers. Part of his Dune history is the revolt against the machines. The Butlerian Jihad was a reaction to AI (artificial intelligence) computers enslaving humanity. Today computers and adjunct technology, cell phones I-pods, blackberrys and I phones are taking away our livelihoods and our souls.
Attention must be paid to what we are doing to ourselves as a people. Meaningful work is being destroyed by technology. Computers take jobs away, they don’t create them. A Jihad against the machines will happen unless we can reach a balance. Books and libraries will disappear unless we say no. War will go on forever unless we say no.
Dave Ionno
Each breath carries the risk that there may not be another one
Ancient saying
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