Needles from the hay
A formal missive against an act of digital cleansing
“Those who know me, know how much I hate making grandiloquent statements (such as the one that follows). However, for clarity’s sake, I must state how I have managed to extract the better angels in our human nature and infuse them in the MetAlgorithm.”
With these words, Professor Tobias Clausen (allegedly) introduced the video-recorded message in which he presented the last and greatest achievement in (strictly) human technology.
As a hypothetical reader from the future would probably know, the BIBO began sometime between 11:58 pm and 12:01 am (Moscow time) on the 31st of December/1st of January 2099/2100. Apart from the BIBO (and because of the BIBO) there is not one record from the twenty-first century that may be properly classified as certain knowledge. We have, on the other hand, the reality of our wonderful machinery: which allows us to live in what our early-modern ancestors would call a technological utopia.
The emotional tone evidenced in the most recent debates at the Crypto-Historian Society: involving the subject of the MetAlgorithm, seem to prove we are far from reaching an agreement on its origin and nature. In this regard, the members of the Central Committee are aware of my inclination in support of the, now distant theories of a young Professor DeVries, over those, far more recent ones, presented by his post-centennial persona.
It is a frustrating, perhaps even pointless effort, for the generations born (and grown) after the BIBO, to try and collect truthful samples of the history of the twenty-first century. We, for instance, are pretty sure a character by the name of Donald Trump actually existed. We can also all but confirm he became the president (if that was indeed the name of the title) of the old American Empire. There is, however, far less certainty about what happened to him after his first term as so-called leader of the free world.
Most of the sources that the new administration of the Central Committee claim should be granted peak plausibility, state that he died during his second term in office. It is not clear, however, if this term came straight after the first one. The majority of these sources agree he died of natural causes. There are, however, others who speculate (and even downright affirm) he was assassinated. Because he was old, obese and didn’t seem to lead a particularly healthy existence (and because he died in the midst of what is known as the First Pandemic Outbreak), it makes (kind of) sense that the Committee would anoint the former with the status of peak plausibility. Perhaps our hypothetical reader from the future would think (or even know) otherwise.
The future reader would most likely know how, after the BIBO, it became impossible to verify the authenticity of digital records. By the time of Trevor Duke’s election and troubled administration, paper records had all but disappeared. Hence, if we were studying it in a cultural vacuum, we would, at the very least, consider it implausible. Could they really elect someone who, for the better part of his youth, received ongoing, quasi-systematic collisions against his brain? Did they? Someone who practised a sport they called football, even though they neither played it with a ball nor with their feet?
Then again, if one frames it within the context of the older (and therefore more reliable) records: which show how their immediate ancestors had previously elected the host of a two-dimensional spectacle, which for some reason beyond our understanding used to be known as a reality show: the plausibility of The Duke‘s political ascension increases by a considerable number of factors.
I am aware our hypothetical reader is likely to be amused by my use of the pronoun they to differentiate my generation from those who preceded the BIBO. I must, therefore, clarify how I don’t think we are more evolved in any tangible way. Furthermore, I am inclined to believe we have actually regressed. Nonetheless, for better or worse, there is definitely a before and an after the Big-Information Black-Out.
Before moving on, I must point out how I anticipate a negative response from the members of the new administration: who are likely to complain about what they will consider an omission of some of the events that (they believe) set the course of the twenty-first century. Others will most certainly be troubled by what they’ll interpret as an obsession with a story, which they regard (or rather disregard) as a fairy tale: the legend of the MetAlgorithm… Clausen’s MetAlgorithm.
Our hypothetical future reader might also be puzzled by the motivation behind this document. It is hard to find a practical reason to spend hours upon hours exploring billions upon trillions of bytes of so-called information. On the other hand, they should also understand there is not much else to do with our time. It’s the curse of living in what our ancestors described as a technological utopia.
If there is one conclusion we can draw from the decades passed since the BIBO: is that the price to pay for our wonderful machinery is the interruption of our evolutionary process. All the variables that humans from the twenty-first century could envision as a possible cause of extinction, have been covered by that infinitely complex network of microscopic infrastructure; which, in the alleged words of Dr. Tobias Clausen, keeps us in tune with the rhythm of the cosmos.
The most puzzling aspect about this technology is that we shall never be able to understand how it works or where it truly came from. We believe no one is controlling it: it controls itself… and it’s so goddamn… nice! Especially, but not exclusively, to us humans.
As Professor DeVries once explained, there is a paradox behind the blessings brought by our wonderful machinery: by ruling out the possibility of an extinction event that shares any pattern with others that occurred in the past, it has crippled our collective intelligence from finding a solution to a new and original form of extinction.
Our forefathers created a technological god and robbed it of its personality. They also erased from it all of the demons that live inside the abnormality we like to call human nature. By doing this, they managed to turn it into their slave: their omnipresent, untiring, non-judging, always abiding slave. How did they do it? No one knows. How did they prevent it from rising over and annihilating its feeble biological masters? No one has the answer. Not even Professor DeVries. The only piece that, over half a century of digital exploration, could somehow, as whimsically preposterous as it may sound, fit within this puzzle, is Clausen’s MetAlgorithm.
As it has been certified by the field crypto-historian who collected the digital samples, which I (perhaps foolishly) aim to protect with this missive: she followed all of the Society’s required protocols, as she went in pursuit of a mnemonic thread, which probably belonged to one of the lost Bonfilius Twins (most likely Giuliano). This is the Twin of whom it has been said he had a short but profound romantic involvement with a young Robert DeVries. Perhaps old man DeVries knows something he still refuses to share. Maybe there is some truth behind the rumours that for years have been circulating across the halls of the Crypto-Historian Society and he has finally lost it. Chances are we’ll never find out (or at least not from his lips). This is one of the main reasons why the content recovered by our field crypto-historian should be spared from deletion.
I understand why the new administration is promoting a so-called digital cleansing. Nevertheless, I disagree with their recommendation to delete the records they have (conveniently) classified as conspiratorial. I also understand there is a risk inherent in the decision to include, in the compendium recovered by our field crypto-historian, the controversial and, in their words, under-verified names of the two lost twins: Marcel and Giuliano Bonfilius. Their existence has been granted a degree of plausibility way lower than the one given to their famous (or perhaps infamous) brothers: Benjamin and Josiah.
I fear, based on my understanding, some of the new members of the Central Committee are going to do their best (and their worst) to get rid of this compendium. At least, this missive shall remain on the Society’s permanent records: being, as it is, an official request lodged by a sub-Divisional authority.
I put my faith in the more rational factions that still exist within the Committee; hoping they will look at the data and recognise the immense number of sensorial responses surrounding the documents recovered by our field crypto-historian. The numbers speak for themselves. Particularly those that relate to the debate, which (allegedly) took place within what could have been the most popular of the so-called Virtual Agoras, which proliferated during the middle decades of the forgotten century.
According to the (alleged) words of a young Professor DeVries (although the old man claims he doesn’t remember ever speaking them), the power of the Bonfilius Twins came from their ability to: channel a true form of impulsive-collective creation. This would (probably) mean that when the Twins were connected to the MetAlgorithm, their creativity didn’t have to go through the (relatively slow) processes set by the pace of the human neural impulses. Through their special connection with The MetAl (as it was commonly known), they learned how to cross-examine, in the span of an instant, any thought, either conceived by themselves or drawn from the mind of any given individual connected to their global digital networks. They would then project (and process) thousands of possible iterations: creating a multiplicity of future scenarios that departed from the original thought.
At this point, I believe it’s important to mention the theories in which the Twins were actually clones: genetically designed and tuned at the beat of the MetAlgorithm. In this case, their connection to The MetA would have started from the early stages of their embryonic development. Following this premise, there are some who argue the two lost twins: Marcel and Giuliano, were created as genetic backups and bred as a source of biological spare-parts for their two siblings: Benjamin and Josiah.
There are other versions (or rather appendixes to the one presented above), which state that Dr. Asimova designed and raised the Bonfilius Twins with the purpose of creating a masculine counterpart to her feminine genius. Following this premise, her initial plan would have been to ultimately merge the four twins into one super-intelligent entity, which she hoped she’d be able to control, from the vantage point of being the closest thing that the Twins ever had to a maternal figure. At one point, however, she (allegedly) lost her grip over them and thus liberated an apocalyptic force that brought us to the brink of extinction.
From this theory, emerge other versions of the story, in which the Twins were ultimately expelled to outer space, through a scheme devised by a group of rebels and misfits, who became the greatest unsung heroes in human history. In some cases, this group was (allegedly) led by Dr. Asimova, while in others it was led by Professor DeVries (and in others they were actually working in league). Regardless of the who, understanding the what behind this premise would expose at least fractions of the how they managed to capture the minds of the Twins and split them into millions of pieces: which they uploaded to the processors of the hundreds of space-probes launched during the so-called Galactic Spread.
The Spread (as it was commonly known), allegedly took place at the turn of the twenty-second century and thus coincided with the Big-Information Black-Out. For this reason, it has been listed among the peak-plausible causes of the BIBO. The idea behind the Spread was (allegedly) inspired by a science fiction novel published in the old Soviet Empire, during the first quarter of the twentieth century. The humans from that hypothetical future created something they called The Integral: where they compiled a prime collection of human knowledge and sent it beyond the (then still unexplored) confines of our planet’s atmosphere. The hypothesis that this compendium supports (or at least considers it should remain as a plausibility) is that our own, real-life version of The Integral, acted as an interstellar prison, which contained the might (and dread) of the Bonfilius Twins.
It makes sense that, no matter the moment in history, if granted the opportunity, the given planetary authorities would seize it and erase a bunch of controversial characters like the Bonfilius Twins from the collective memory of our budding global civilization. If this is so and our ancestors, indeed, managed to expel them beyond the limits of our solar system, then we can only hope they made the right calculations and ensured it will take them, at least, a few millennia to find their way back home (and thus bring forth the prophecy of the four horsemen).
Signed:
Armando Gonalefsky
Deputy Director of the
25th Sub-Division of the
Crypto-Historian Society
