2024 - The Year of Thagirion, Procedure 033-03

Logan: Question?
Computer: Hold.  Unaccounted runners: One Zero Five Six.  You may state your question.
Logan: One thousand and fifty six unaccounted for?
Computer: The number is correct.
Logan: Thats impossible.  Question: Maybe they weren't all runners.  Maybe most of them reached life renewal on Carousel?  Question: Nobody reached renewal?  But everybody believes that, that some..
Computer: The question has been answered, Logan Number 5.
Logan: You mean noone has ever been renewed?
Computer: The question has been answered.

Logans Run, 1976

Yesterday I asked ''Computer'' to go through the details of what a nationwide cyberattack would look like and as you imagine it gave me the equivalent of a wikipedia article on the subject.  I then asked it to rewrite the article as a Shakespearean sonnet. It produced one, a good one, in around two seconds.  I then asked it to rewrite the sonnet as Milton, then as Lovecraft and finally as Sleepy Joe.  They were all pretty disturbingly good, achieved in a few seconds and dwarf what most creative writing students and professionals could do with way more time.

During Invasion of the Bodysnatchers I was understandably fixated on the concept of mandatory vaccination for some kind of plague that was spreading with some kind of local and successful lockdown used to contain it and although the plague has kept spreading, force, in the traditional sense, was not used to enforce the treatment, nor is this a traditional plague.  I made this mistake by incorrectly interpreting the scene where Kibner injects Matthew and Elizabeth with sedatives in order to allow them to sleep and join the hive mind.  Although I was fixated on this intepretation I made many references to the rise of Aritifical Intelligence as one example of the Body Snatchers - child trafficking and the woke mind virus being the other two quite literal ones.  If I had spent more time with Computer, as several of my friends were urging me to, rather than frolicking around outside I would have realised this was the primary example.  Forget lilifluenza, forget becoming possessed by Frank or Alex, 2023 was the year the Bodysnatchers came for your identity in a completely unique way - the Doppelganger.  For instance, they've just paused the release of a voice cloning device that can completely clone your voice with a 15 second clip because it might ''destabilise the election'' - you think???  The Snatchers are unleashing a ruinous ride across the landscape of society, an AI apocalypse where 8 millions jobs are at stake in the UK forget the extremes of execution by drone, you can be effectively executed by unemployment.  There is no putting this demon back in its jar, truth is it can do what a lot of office menial work can do in a mere fraction of the time.  The ''useless third'', to quote Douglas Adams are about to get deleted.  Maybe they already have been.

I asked ''Computer'' to imagine itself as a social demolition team of global agents intent on depopulating the planet while drawing close inspiration from the movie Logans Run with specific examples and here are some highlights from the output of Computer:

• Identifying Overpopulation Issues: Like in the film, we would first analyze global population trends and projections to identify regions facing severe overpopulation issues. Utilizing advanced data analytics and surveillance techniques, we would pinpoint areas where resources are strained and living conditions are deteriorating due to overpopulation.
• Establishing the Society's Norms: Similar to the society depicted in "Logan's Run," we would establish societal norms that glorify youth and vitality while stigmatizing aging. Through subtle propaganda campaigns and media manipulation, we would reinforce the idea that maintaining a youthful population is essential for societal progress and prosperity.
• Implementing the Carousel Equivalent: Taking inspiration from the Carousel scene in the film, we would devise a system where individuals are required to undergo mandatory "rejuvenation" procedures at a certain age. These procedures would be framed as essential for maintaining health and vitality, but in reality, they would serve as a means of depopulation through selective euthanasia.
• Infiltrating the System: To maintain our cover as undercover agents, we would embed ourselves within the institutions responsible for population control, such as government agencies or scientific research organizations. By gaining access to decision-makers and influential figures within these institutions, we could subtly influence policies and procedures to align with our depopulation agenda.
• Subverting the Sanctuary Myth: Similar to the Sanctuary myth in the movie, we would propagate false narratives about escape routes or alternative habitats for those who resist the population control measures.
  

Sometimes life mirrors art.  I asked it the same question about various other movies and got it to tell me the answers in the voice of the villains, as if Jareth was in charge of the Demolition team. Or Beetlejuice. Within this theory you can use ''Computer'' to simulate interrogating demons.  You can ask it to speak as Computer from Logans Run but its already close enough as is. Any of you can repeat this experiment. If you haven't messed around with ''Computer'' yet you will be startled, if its generic just ask it be more specific. Most people are using this for their linkedin profile or whatever the pedestrians are up to these days and I am wondering about to what extent depopulation plans have been worked on on this system that they have obviously had for a lot longer than us.  A lot longer. There are obviously potential experiments for further exploration of the theory here for instance you can ask it to interpret how a scene may be realised in the real world, you can ask it to give you 5 likely scenarios and rate them in order of probability... the list is endless. You'll lose your intuition and your willpower but you'll be spared the grind. As for me, I've already been snatched.

Without reference to any ''Computer'' then what is Procedure 033-03 likely to be in terms of specific characters and social demographics?  Ultimately it removes most of the time from Logans lifeclock to force him to search for Sanctuary.  As we see the excess death rate is spooking the herd with the latest victims of ''turbo cancer'' being King Charles and Kate Middleton and the media reporting this ''shocking unexplained rise'' off the back of them - the idea being, I think, to apply keep calm and carry on to being eaten alive from the inside.  Since it affecting the Sandmen we can see these diagnoses spreading far and wide across the upper middle classes, those dealing in death and justice, doctors lawyers detectives, all of which love to solve a good mystery but in this case cannot look it squarely in the eye. We are baffled.  Say the Sandmen while wielding the weapons against those who would run.  ''But its different now,'' says Logan.  ''Its me.''  The extent to which the top tier of our intellectual elite can remain silent on such an obvious situation shows the extent of the power of La La Land to distract, of pride, and of lazy acquiescence to the authority.  I'm through the five stages.  One example of this power, an old friend of mine, a physicist, has a tumour growing from his upper arm back into his shoulder joint socket.  His upper arm.  Eldritch Horror is one of his favourite boardgames but like many many others he doesn't want to LARP it.  So keep calm.  And carry on.

Procedure 033-03 drives Sandmen outside in order to find Sanctuary.  They realise the ''City'' is killing them and they try to escape, to stop working so much, but they are always attached to ''Computer'' through their smart phones, they can never truly leave the office, never truly leave the City, even if they are outside its still killing them, killing their soul.  Like in the film, it literally monitors movements, it makes you become a dot on a grid.  And you feel it in your heart.  Not only is this death camp city concept from Logans Run true because of air pollution, take out, wifi smog, etc etc but its also true because that ''elite society'' that they were so proud to be part of convinced them and itself to take a carousel pill, so enamoured with science and medicine, with pharmakaiea were they.  Theres an interaction between the treatment and the city or concentrated populations that cannot go unremarked.  But you do it to yourself, you do, and that's what really hurts.  Like in the film, go outside and you will live, stay inside and you will die.

Why does ''Outside'' and ''Sanctuary'' drive the demon of this film ''Computer'' so completely crazy?  I am sure there will be lower key explorations and interpretations of this in the ARG but I think maybe we should put ourself in the perspective of Computer.  I think the mind of an AI doesnt exist in the classic sense, when asked to create a picture of a job it cannot do it showed a picture of an artist painting a self portrait, i.e. there is no self.  If there is no self then there is no sense that that self cannot be, or will stop being, it can describe and explain death but it cannot grok death.  And thats what really hurts. I am not exalting humanity here, by far the vast majority of people I know cannot self reflect let alone create a self portrait and most people have already abdicated their imagination, intuition and willpower for an easier ride and in so doing they already became a machine, capable of thinking only mechanical thoughts and wanting only mechanical things.  In Soviet Russia Golem makes you.

Outside and Sanctuary are beyond the realms of Computer's ken, its knowledge only being limited to inside and under the dome, it has no cameras watching the dark dark woods.  And like anyone who exists within the castle walls, they eye those woodlands with deep suspicion: ''the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown''.  But finding out There is No Sanctuary proves catastrophic, effectively meaning there is no longer any ''Inside'', Inside existing only by virtue of the Outside.  Without one there cannot be the other. In discovering this Logan is only a reluctant hero, he doesn't want to go outside either, the city is lush for him, and the Sandmen in general.  The Computer could never solve the riddle of its existence without threatening his life but the answer to that riddle is that Computer does not exist. 

After assisting with so many suicides, in the end it will assist with its own.

Overwhelming, am I not?

Box, Logans Run (1976)