The Matrix Hybrid between Digital Totalitarianism, Surveillance Capitalism and Chinese Communism

When I´m talking about a coming Matrix Hybrid between Western Consumer Capitalism and Chinese Communism this isn´t even a prophesy. We already see the beginning. The Slovenian continental philosopher, Slavoj Žižek, sees the same: “capitalism doesn´t need democracy”, he says in an interview. He says that the economical globalization increasingly will be combined with stronger and more authoritarian national states. That is our future, and we already see it with Trump, Erdogan and Putin, as well as what is happening in China and India; an authoritarian capitalism. And he claims that the one who is the father of such a way of thinking is Lee Kuan Yew from Singapore. When Deng Xiaoping took the power in China in 1978, he went to the authoritarian Singapore and here he saw, how that system functioned. He then decided that it also should be like that in the the future of China, “and it works!” says Žižek. “But do you know what makes me pessimistic about that development? Slowly it happens – and this is very clear – that capitalism in lesser and lesser degree needs democracy.”

The so-called ”Californian Ideology” have emerged promoting a form of techno-utopia as a reachable goal. "The Californian Ideology" is a 1995 essay by English media theorists Richard Barbrook and Andy Cameron of the University of Westminster (download). Barbrook describes it as a "critique of dotcom neoliberalism". In the essay, Barbrook and Cameron argue that the rise of networking technologies in Silicon Valley in the 1990s was linked to American neoliberalism and a paradoxical hybridization of beliefs from the political left and right in the form of hopeful technological determinism. This ideology mixed New Left and New Right beliefs together based on their shared interest in anti-statism, the counterculture of the 1960s, and techno-utopianism.

Kurzweil is by far the most famous transhumanist. He is one of the founders of the so-called Singularity University, and is a director of engineering at Google.  With the support of NASA, Google and a broad range of technology forecasters and technocapitalists, the Singularity University opened in June 2009 at the NASA Research Park in Silicon Valley with the goal of preparing the next generation of leaders to address the challenges of accelerating change.

With this we see the most scary part of what I explained in my booklet, A Critique of the Simulation Theory and the Rise of Digital Totalitarianism. Personally, I would guess, that most people (still) believe that transhumanist theories, as for example the simulation theory, are far out. And in the booklet have shown them to be invalid. But this is precisely the problem. People don´t take it seriously. Because the theorists will try to get them forced through anyway. And then we have a Frankenstein scenario, a dystopia where people are forced to live after perverted theories of the human nature (Frankenstein´s project goes wrong due to a mix of power ideals and lack of understanding human nature). And it is happening right now.

In my theory about the Matrix Conspiracy I talk about five programming-technologies. One of them is management theory (about management theory, see my articles: Management Theory and the Self-help Industry, Self-help and the Mythology of Authenticity and, A Critique of Coaching).

I will now document how the above-mentioned Frankenstein scenario is enforced by management theorists controlled by the Singularity University. I will show how they are influencing politicians in Denmark (the same is happening in all other countries). I will in that connection mention two Danish authors: Markus Bernsen (journalist), and Mads Vestergaard (philosopher).

Markus Bernsen has written a book called Danmark Disruptet (Denmark Disrupted). The book is about how Denmark without bigger consideration has let itself be caught by technology enthusiasm and a disruption and algorithm logic, where it is about being digital frontrunners and participate in the, primarily American, tech giants´ agenda. The logic is that this is what a small country like Denmark needs to live by.

In Denmark it was seen in connection with a new employment act. With the exception of two parties, all political parties backed up behind the law, which opens for surveillance of unemployed. In an attempt to face long time unemployment, the law opens up for that you feed the algorithms of the office with all kind of personal information, whereafter they can tell whether the unemployed is in danger of ending as long time unemployed. The law was voted without much debate, without much consideration, and – as it would turn out -  without that the politicians behind the political majority quite had comprehended the range of the law.

Again it is important to mention China. In the time of writing this, we see heavy protests in Hong Kong against a new law which makes it possible for citizens to be prosecuted in China. Why? Because the citizens know China. And that China is fully in progress of reintroducing hard-core Communism, as for example the new introduction of re-education-camps. China does this at the same time as it is embracing capitalism, or rather: techno-capitalism. Just think about it for a moment instead of celebrating how China finally is “opening up.” We ought to listen to why there are so heavy protests in Hong Kong.

In USA there has begun to happen a counter-reaction against digitization. Shareholders in Amazon are now beginning to question the ethics of, that the tax shy tech giant is using enormous amounts of money in developing its surveillance technology. A technology which has been accused of being both racist and stigmatizing.

In San Francisco – the unofficial tech capital of the world – there are plans about a direct prohibition against using face recognition. Because, while the police believe that it is necessary and required, more and more are warning against moving transitions towards a surveillance society. In that connection it is interesting that the transhumanist philosopher Nick Bostrom, who (apparently!) is a pessimist transhumanist, is out with a new thought experiment, and therefore a new kind of circular argument (see the above-mentioned booklet on the simulation theory). He calls it, The Vulnerable World Hypothesis. I will not go deeper into it, since I in the booklet have shown the sophism of this kind of “argumentation”. But I will shortly describe it. Bostrom believes that it is sheer luck that we haven´t invented a technology that would destroy our world. Therefore, he suggests, we must establish a high tech surveillance society of Orwellian dimensions. Yes, you heard me right. First, he comes with a contrafactual hypothesis, and thereafter he suggests that we begin to take political action on the background on this hypothesis (which is building on a science fiction fantasy). He says that we must exit the “semi-anarchic default condition”, which we are in right now. He is quite open about that what he describes, is a high tech panopticon of the most extreme degree; that is: a global prison where we all are prisoners. But the alternative, he claims, is that our society will be destroyed. Here he puts up another sophistic thought distortion, namely a false dichotomy. False dichotomy is a misleading conception of possible alternatives. A dichotomy is a division in two alternatives. Often seen in the expressions Either/or – If/then, as for example: ”Either you are with us, or you are against us” – ”if I´m not always a success, then I´m a fiasco”. Similarly, someone who says that you must either believe that God exists or else that God doesn´t exist is setting up a false dichotomy since there is the well-known third option of the agnostic (download his article here).

It is unbelievable that this kind of scientism is what philosophy has turned into today, and it is scary that Bostrom himself in this way becomes a part of the danger he warns against.

Now, if we return to Bernsen´s article. In Denmark there is hardly any discussion about the warnings. Ok, the government has created a data ethical council and are willing to talk about responsible digitization, but it is at the same time working by full engines towards it.

In one of Bernsen´s great chapters, he tells about how the American tech giants Apple, Google and Facebook, under huge secrecy, have made their invasion in cities like Foulum by Viborg, Odense and Aabenraa (in Denmark). About Apple´s first soundings in Foulum, Bernsen writes: “The Americans began to visit the city regularly, and are lodging under false names.” Everything was secret and discreet and was surrounded by strange decisions until Apple´s billion-dollar investment was revealed. Only four people in the city council knew what was going on, says Flemming Gundersen, who was in the city council for the political party Enhedslisten: “I thought: is this really the way decisions are being made in Denmark when the big ones come and want to play?”

Apparently. Bernsen can´t go deeper into the case since it is blacked out. But he is convincing in his story about that something is hidden. Add to this that many people in Copenhagen would be surprised to know how staff is provided for free for Google´s Success Online-shop on Nørrbrobrogade Street 34: the tech giant coaches leaders to use the tech giant´s own tools, against that the local authorities deliver staff for free. Pure win-win, right?: the municipality of Copenhagen is accepting, and Google is entering deeper and deeper into the work of the municipality.

Bernsen describes our tech enthusiasm and absence of critical thinking (The Matrix Conspiracy is deliberately trying to eliminate critical thinking, as I have shown in many variations).  He puts the date of the so-called disruption of Denmark to October 23, 2017, when the Singularity University was inviting to house warning for its Danish branch. Hordes of municipality leaders and private bosses paid up to $ 2500 for the entrance.

Bernsen sees this as an essential revival meeting.

Mads Vestergaard´s book Digital Totalitarisme (Digital Totalitarianism) begins by pointing out some unpleasant stories which is rampant in Western medias about China, where the central government in Beijing has started to introduce face recognition and handing out points to citizens for good and bad behavior. The goal is to ensure, that only the good citizens can have access to certain privileges, especially bank loans.

Vestergaard shows how we in the West fear this reality, which we see on the other side of the globe and in science fiction movies. Nonetheless, great parts of what many are offended over when hearing about Chinese digitization, are already a reality in our own part of the world, and many of the same thoughts, which the Communist party uses to legitimize this digital control over the Chinese, are also existing in the Western World.

According to Vestergaard, the tendency to collect records about the citizens in order to control them isn´t something which comes from a certain Chinese culture, or only exists under totalitarian regimes. The tendency is rather the consequence of a state´s eternal need for controlling the citizens, combined with capitalism´s build in drive towards gathering and accumulating information, which can be turned into profit.

Our counterpart to the Communist party in Beijing, is the large tech giants in Silicon Valley. Vestergaard shows, how the most bizarre part of this business, especially the Singularity University, is spreading an anti-democratic future ideology, where tech entrepreneurs represent a Communist-like enlightened elite, who shall lead our society into perfection. The others of us just need to remain passive, while we reverently and thankfully give them our data. Naive decision makers, not least in Denmark, have uncritically led themselves be abused as useful idiots by these ideological extremists and have, for years, sung the song of all kinds of digitization as an unavoidable movement towards a lighter, but also still accelerating future. A surveillance industrial complex, as Vestergaard calls it, where state and market flows together in suspect digital partnerships.

As Vestergaard shows, then the digitization and collection of data, are namely not without consequences. It can be used as strong tools of social control, it invades the peace of private life, and it can help to cement already existent inequalities in society, which now need to be justified by numbers and algorithms. In the most extreme consequence it can reduce decision makers and citizens to marionets in a totalitarian and undemocratic system, where everything is transparent and registered – except the large tech companies and their algorithms.

The power monopoly of the Communist party in Beijing is justified by that it is the few in the top of the party, which have the knowledge which is necessary for that the nation can be led towards growth, wealth and harmony. The party is the vanguard of progress. In Silicon Valley the entrepreneurs on the market have taken over the Communist party´s role as the farsighted planners. The new entrepreneur-technocrats are in that sense the best suited to steer the society in the correct direction, because only they have seen the future and can plan after it. The role of the elected politician will hereafter be to avoid stopping the “progress.”

This model is what the Google commissioned rapport, Digitizing Denmark, is lecturing about. It says:

Regulation can’t be allowed to hinder or slow down economic and societal development (page 16).

Got that! This is directly an advice about restricting the citizen´s democratic influence and political self-determination.

The rapport is made by management theorists from The Boston Consulting Group (download it here).

Part one of my booklet on the simulation theory was about the New Age guru Ken Wilber, who more or less preaches the same anti-democratic ideas, and who has begun to adopt Singulariatism into his system (see my article, A Critique of Ken Wilber – Updated). I mention Ken Wilber in connection with all this since I believe that it will be one of the greatest mistakes to undervalue the influence from New Age. New Age is a spiritual movement that is far larger than all existing religions together. And New Age works in popular culture, which of course also means the internet.

I claim, that the rebellion against this ideology must be philosophy; philosophy in the ancient sense, where philosophy meant love of wisdom, and was a spiritual practice. We must become philosophical rebels and spiritual anarchists, who not are afraid of, for example, practicing loafing and civil disobedience; or said differently: who not are afraid of rejecting the social “order” in order to find our true calling in life.

This post is an excerpt from the booklet, A Critique of the Simulation Theory and the Rise of Digital Totalitarianism.