Prolegomena: Preamble to a new Historical Cycle.

12 | 6 | 1 μ.Κ (Year Ι AQ) | 2020

Prologue

The past, i.e. just until recently the present, does not exist anymore. We have entered a historical phase that will not constitute a return to any new or old ‘normality’, but the initial phase of the shaping and construction of a new system.

Henceforth, any concords and disparities, groupings and reactions to groupings, agreements and disagreements, friendships and enmities, clashes and alliances that will take place within and between human societies, political associations and entities, such as states, will occur on the basis of the parameters and variables, control centres and nodes, hierarchies and favourable attitudes, as well as sovereignty and dominance, in the context of an emerging new system. The question will not be whether there will be a new system.

The genetic information, the DNA of a system consists of the power relations that permeate it, constitute it and shape it, thereby defining its character, its physiognomy and its development, as well as its various forms and possibilities, including its dynamism and its weaknesses. Prior to all else, every new system brings with it new power distributions and power (cor)relations, a new ordering within it and between its foundational units, new organisational structures that influence the behaviour and interaction —even the properties— of its units, new hierarchies, prioritisations and relations, new modes of life and of the perception of reality, new divisions between friends and foes, a new framework of values and a new legal framework. It either constructs new institutions and ordinances or modifies the function of existing institutions and ordinances.

In the text that follows, I outline only some of the themes and ideas that I intend to analyse in depth, guided by the latest developments and the new conditions that take form in the majority of states and societies on the planet. These Prolegomena ―a text that, I think, will be more lucid in terms of understanding the issues that it raises in the public square in five years from today― were published in Greek on 12 | 4 |April | 2020 (the reader may find the original text here). I cannot express with words my gratitude to the woman who translate it ―and wishes to remain anonymous―, offering precious time and creative effort.

In the coming weeks, months, and years to come, several of the ideas and themes that follow ―or various manifestations thereof― will appear in front of us on completely different occasions stemming from seemingly utterly different corners.





The period of time we are currently living in will leave an indelible mark on our memory, our identity, our behavior and our relationships for the rest of our lives; its effects and generated derivatives will determine not only the current, but also future generations, effectively sealing their fate. We are living in one of the most transformative times in human history and what we are observing are events of world-historical significance; hence we set a new time calendar (Έτος 1 μ.Κ | Year Ι AQ). We need to understand the historical significance, the gravity, the radical nature, the extent and depth of the current developments, with which we are bound to become acquainted as human beings and which inevitably create a political precedent and shape or, more accurately, transmute law.

Human societies and political communities, across the length and breadth of Earth, are jointly experiencing a collective trauma, a process of severance and separation, a collapse of their world. Parents and children, friends, married couples and singles, lovers, mistresses and partners, grandparents and grandchildren, siblings, aunts and nieces; they all are separated and alienated. At least a third of the world's population ―if not half― lives, albeit often nominally, in a state of restraint, suspension and regulation of their physical relationships and ties. Phenomena of this magnitude can carry, potentially and prospectively, domination of a macro-social character on a planetary scale.

The suspension of social contacts and the suppression of people's natural bonds lead to the amplification of their digital and virtual relationships and contacts. Virtual substitution soothes, but does not heal, the personal and collective mental trauma caused by the compulsion to physical exclusion, social distancing and isolation. Digital reality, the presence of the image, can only ostensibly, and in no way substantially, substitute the physical presence and the truth of the physical body.

Social conditions are being shaped, technological foundations are being built, political practices are being established, that can, potentially, contribute to the transformation of technology from a material power of independence, liberation and empowerment of the autonomous and self-governing human nature, to an instrument of a universal magnitude aimed to ensure their absolute control, coercion and domination.


Spatial restriction and the regulation of movement instigates a condition in which naturalness and sociability are replaced by virtuality and digitality. It is this condition which, if consolidated and expanded in space, if extended in duration and deepened to attain a more profound quality, it can mold a situation in which the next major chasm, the next major division, will not be related to access and quality in digital media and services, but to the regulation and preferential treatment of the unimpeded and voluntary relationship, access and disconnection, between the natural and the digital environment.

The narrow demarcation and the disconnection of people from natural space and the urban environment, the regulation and reduction of their mobility and the control over their physical freedom, affect, in their turn, the freedoms of assembly and association, in all their dimensions and aspects. The attempt to exercise control is not limited to the actual physical movement and freedom of people, but extends to their way of thinking, to the subjugation of freedom of thought and to control of ideas. It constitutes, among other things, an attempt at time management and time control ―time, which flows and disappears irreversibly, transcending every natural barrier― it constitutes an attempt which, when paired with the increased activity of people as users of virtual environments and the digital over-accumulation of information and data ―which is stored and thereinafter used as input to the web― can signal a peculiar process of electronic standardization ―through reducing them to digital image time on the PC screen, the mobile phone screen, etc.― rendering people predictable, controllable and visible, thus reducing the risk and threat they themselves constitute when they live and move in their natural and social environment.

The emerging situation, viewed as a dynamic development, independent of the motives of today's rulers on Earth, constitutes a model and includes in seminal form the possibility of dematerialization of people ―through their disconnection― from their natural public space and social environment, and their consequent annihilation into virtual environments, which enables their mass digital control and can become potentially absolute. Limiting physical money, that is, cash, and launching a broad monetary digitization ―in the form of either a card or a mobile app― could potentially, and in the absence of institutional checks and balances, lead to controlling and recording the type, location and time of purchase of products; to enforcing taxation or freezing funds at will; and to the inability to buy and sell without being dependent on electricity or some form of connection or composition of biological and digital; it could, more broadly, lead to the absolute breach of privacy.

An unseen aspect of the imposed restrictions and the bans on free volitional movement and physical activity, is the indirect regulation of the sexual behavior of single-member and single-parent households ―which are at greater risk of material and moral poverty and depravity and which constitute the other demographic side of population ageing, changing family structures and shifting individual and social morals― exhibiting a massive shift towards adult websites, adult online services and various forms of online dating between acquaintances and strangers alike, a development which reduces, if not eliminates, sexuality in the social context, while simultaneously substituting, through enforcement at this stage, physical sexuality with virtual sexuality.

The dematerialization and virtualization of physical sexuality, its annihilation into virtual environments, when it is coerced rather than voluntary, indirectly functions as a measure of population planning and birth control and eliminates ―to a certain extent as there are always apartment building floors or nearby balconies― the physical, body-to-body, human contact. 

Home isolation, restriction of free movement and unimpeded access to the physical space, indirect regulation and suppression of physical sexuality with the parallel manipulation of its virtual dimension, coupled with externally imposed coercion, constitute an explosive mixture which leads, with internal logical consistency, to disturbance of the human psyche ― which, if accompanied by a barrage of messages of panic, fear and threats, constant psychological war, manipulation of the imaginary, internalization of authoritarian or aggressive perceptions and misanthropy ―which for decades has been methodically diffused and promoted through various manifestations of mass culture― may lead to the collapse or mutation of the human psychic sphere.

People, under moral conditions and from social tanks such as the aforementioned, along with young teenagers and pure young souls captivated by the technological phantasmagoria, the digital gaming and virtual reality environments, and mass culture, being bombarded with ideologies which invoke the frontiers of "progress" and "evolution"―in order to render a legal basis to the ideologicalized use of technology as an instrument of absolute and universal domination of the people―, could constitute willing volunteers of biopsychological deconstruction, reconstruction and, ultimately, their hybrid biotechnological and bioinformatics restructuring.


The collapse of the imaginary and apparent, man-made world order, reveals an interesting truth. The order and control that governments are attempting to establish are, under the present conditions, only ostensible. The truth is actually more disturbing and mentally painful: no one is in control. Disorder is the reality of the world. The truth of the world is chaos. This statement, however, cannot in itself constitute a message.

Efforts to subdue the looming chaos and the emerging disorder through pausing and paralyzing, essentially repressing, any physical, social and economic human life, neither constitute nor construct any kind of order ― at least not one that is integrated into a framework of justice which ensures human freedom. What they do achieve is to lay the foundations and infrastructure for the absolute dependence and subjugation of man as an entity extrinsically determined by the digital beast.

Suppression usually occurs in the course of painful interventions and often functions as a stress relief, getting any rash and convulsive moves under control and contributing to the absence of any feeling of pain. What matters is the arc or trajectory and the course of peoples’ reaction and evolution. Crisis management always comes too late, without any provision for the challenges of the future. Both the recent and the distant past provide a number of historical examples of human societies which, under the threat of a crisis, were initially aggregated, emotionally and politically united, only to culminate in deep divisions and frustrations and societies overflowing with rage. Collective trauma (I) and mental mutations (II) incorporate the seeds of rage and destruction.


The globalization vis-à-vis nationalism dichotomy, as a mutual exclusion, constitutes a false dilemma. Globalization is not the enemy of nationalism, nor is nationalism the enemy of globalization. The two powers emerged in parallel during the industrial period. Globalization and nationalism are historically self-established and have been shaped and organized among themselves. The interdependence and interaction which is presented as an exclusive feature of globalization ―on a supranational and regional scale― in addition to being a feature of nationalism ―on a international and intra-state level― it moreover conceals the interaction and interdependence between nationalism and globalization themselves. Similar misunderstandings and distortions of meaning are to be found not only in the fields of ideology and procedure, but also at the level of the political unit and the organizational format, ie the empire vis-à-vis nation-state dichotomy ― empires have used nationalistic policies and nationalisms have sought to build empire states. Misunderstandings arise due to the lack of a substantial and profound study of nationalism, unilateral perceptions and approaches to globalization, and finally due to a prevailing attitude that perceives things through an evolutionary or linear historical prism, which conceals, regardless of how strongly it denies it, a lurking teleology. You have to transcend such dichotomies in order to be able to perceive, with a clear eye, the real dimensions of the surrounding reality and to examine thoroughly each respective ideological pole, as well as the relationship between them and the deeper systemic level.

The global spread of nationalism produces standardized models of collective organization on multiple levels, which are more easily integrated or absorbed into global processes ― during which some states and political communities are consumed and destroyed while others endure, if not benefit, transform and carry on. Overcoming geographical proximity or vicinity and regional integration in the name of globalization has been made possible, albeit in the short term, based on and grounded on strong, technologically advanced and organizationally powerful, states ― anti-globalization tendencies and developments reveal, apart from the pathogenies of globalization itself, the states’ weakness and decline of power, rather than the reinforcement and invigoration thereof.

Globalization is not only about opening up economies and markets to trade, consumption and investments, but also about using new technologies of organization and ideological legitimacy· it feeds off and in turn contributes to stronger infrastructure and the development of greater potential in the field of surveillance, which allows for increased policing of individuals and borders, easier collection of information on citizens, increased taxation and the use of modern tools to enhance popular support. At the same time, however, globalization weakens the state in other areas and functions. Generally, nationalism affects globalization and vice versa. Only nationalism, expressed through a discourse of unity and solidarity, rendering itself generally believable, is able to close down borders, schools and universities with such tremendous speed, to suppress economic activity, freeze social life, ban circulation and social gatherings, make extensive use of army and police force, implement draconian anti-globalization measures ― and at the same time to promote and implement massive and rapid digital hyper-globalization measures, accelerating a technocentric form of organization, restricting physical relations and freedom of movement, digitizing trade, security and intelligence, controlling the social environment, all the while ensuring the regime maintains its legitimacy and its monopoly on legal violence. The ideology of nationalism is invaluable, both for globalization as a process and for the state as an entity.

However, we must not lose sight of the historical fact that the state, as an autonomous entity and political phenomenon, has existed for centuries notwithstanding nationalism and only recently became an expression of people’s sovereignty ― in practice and in substance the nation is a political community of state legitimacy, of the legitimacy of its existence and operation. In addition to ethnocratic stereotypes of mass consumption, it should be explicitly recognized and well understood that the nation as a political community, in the transatlantic region, has been weakened both symbolically and practically, eroded and wrinkled, without vitality, energy and vision, reduced to reacting in defense, mainly against the state as a political entity ― the state can at any time continue to exist without the nation, if this is deemed appropriate and beneficial. Also, the state can push for the reactivation of the nation as a power leverage, in order to reaffirm its sovereignty, to defend itself or to re-legitimize itself ― not because it identifies with it (the nation) or because it is moral. The state does not have an a priori inherent or innate structure and function and its evolution is not linear.

People and practices that impose or justify the dilution or evacuation of public space ―without which there is no notion of the nation as political community― and at the same time repudiate the commercial, consumer, and political dimensions of globalization ―advocating for economic and political conditions of anti-globalization, disruption and fragmentation― they accelerate and deepen the technological hyper-globalization at the level of digitization and technology of organization, security and information collection, with an ethnocentric justification. Sophia, natural rights and existential questions ―which you will be discussed in Part IX― on the one hand, and securitization policies of public life (securitization theory-international relations), bioinformatics, and latent or indirect cyborg data mining on the other.

We describe the possibilities and capabilities, against which perceptions of technological accountability, political checks and balances and institutional counterweights should be developed.

In closing, the ideological dichotomy globalization vis-à-vis nationalism may be functional in order to recruit groups of people for the purposes of specific interests, but it is misleading in terms of historical substance. Nationalism often appears not actively, but rather as a consequence, a reaction and an indirect effect of broader structural changes and alterations ―namely as a result of systemic earthquakes― including the creation, collapse, and reconstruction of states. All major expansions towards some form of planetization  were established or instituted after, and not before, the rise of reactionary, inhibitory, or deterrent forces, and they tend to follow, rather than precede, shocking, mass-scale catastrophes (League of Nation, UN). The recent political promotion and ideological endeavor by the United States of America to set the agenda for globalization towards a direction of subjective pursuits ―through the promotion of specific interests and perceptions, the use of until recently U.S.-led and controlled institutions and the use of a ideological doctrine of fundamentalist economism―, in the context of a hierarchically structured system of hegemony and manipulation of a multifactorial and multilayered objective evolution and a process that has been increasingly surpassing it, has obliterated the previous historical event from human consciousness.


The state, as a carrier and expression of popular sovereignty within an organized political community with a common past, which we call a nation, was formed as a result of extensive systemic changes and organizational transformations that led to the gradual collapse of the old imperial world and the development of an alternative organizational structure, which we call a nation state. The period of time we are currently living in is characterized by similar, if not greater, systemic organizational seismicity and can, in the medium term, lead to equally profound and structural organizational transformations that will impact on the relations of cities, states and regions, at a systemic level.

The inland of metropolitan cities and megacities, urban clusters and aggregations, is not confined to the territory of the state in which they are located, but encompasses the whole planet. Global city clusters, in order to exist and function, presuppose multiple trade links, economic links, and continuous flows, connecting them to their planetary hinterland networks. If flows are minimized, connections cut off, and networks collapse, these metropolises, in the most part, would not be self-sustainable if confined to their national territory. Even if production was in close proximity, their survival presupposes continental states, otherwise it requires external networking and independency or dissent from the national territory in which they are located.

These conditions cannot be altered with votes or by electing new governments, namely in one or two election cycles.

The state faces a huge challenge: it must provide conditions and guarantees of security to its citizens, under the rule of law and in a framework of order and justice, which does not stifle their freedom, serves their basic needs and ensures decent living conditions and a certain level of economic operation for all citizens, maintains social cohesion, tends to the health of citizens, maintains a legitimate claim to the monopoly of violence, safeguards some form of external sovereignty ― and at the same time, it must cover the enormous needs of the metropolitan centers, taking on the responsibilities and costs of sustaining them in conditions of dilution, disruption and deceleration of natural trade, supply chains and transportation networks, while all the while maintaining the cohesion of the political community: a worker in Tokyo-Yokohama cosmopolis (two cities that functionally merge), in the metropolitan area of ​​San Francisco–Oakland–Berkeley or a Francilien of Île-de-France, may consider certain things granted, which in the eyes of a wealthy resident of a large provincial town in the island of Hokkaido, Oklahoma county or the Correze, not only seem meaningless, but furthermore the demands and needs of the former operate to the detriment of the latter. The state must bring all the above to completion in the face of multiple exogenous systemic crises and the suspension of economic operations ―from which internal and external security problems arise―, without the regime losing its legitimacy in the consciousness of its citizens.

There will be states that prove unable to cope. From the territorial underbelly of inadequate states, states that fail to meet the needs of both the political community ―namely, the nation― and the metropolises ―namely, the commercial hubs, financial and technology development centers― sovereign cities and states may emerge, which will become interconnected with networks of other cities, participating in digital currency regions, or indepedent regions may emerge that will soon be absorbed by neighboring states ―given that the latter will have met the corresponding requirements― or, ultimately, autonomous or enclosed areas and communities, which will have launched into an internal functioning simplification process, not as a result of collapse, but rather voluntarily.

There are several features and characteristics of global political disorder that offer prima facie, indications, if not proofs, of such tendencies ― that is, of a process of political catabolism. Practices of digital over-organization and technological complexity occur in parallel with simplification and catabolism processes on a physical level (VIII).

Metropolises whose operative logic maintains the notion of occupation and ownership of the planet and the people as a whole ―producing of course the corresponding anthropological type―, are unwilling to assume the costs and responsibility for the major contemporary global issues ―while constituting the very source and root of the majority thereof―, although they could contribute to their resolution. Metropolitan areas are still today considered more of an urban area to live in, than a community that offers a sense of identity and addresses the question, who are we? (although their ever growing significance is evident). The lack of assuming the costs and responsibility, along with the issue of identity, aided by the indifference to the existence of a politically consistent and continuous territory, are some of the most important reasons why cities cannot replace states, at least for the time being ― nevertheless, by imposing the measures and restrictions we discussed in previous chapters, the territorial continuity in national territories has been abolished or fragmented. In the medium term, cities will be regarded as a cure for a dysfunctional state and will assume ever increasing responsibilities, which will evolve. It is not necessary here to mention cases of states and cities whose economic stature is greater than front-line nations, on a global or regional scale, or the fact that approximately 25% of the world's population lives in a few hundred large cities, metropolitan regions, urban cores and megacities. Besides, if social contracts are liquidated and abolished, it is to their mayor or governor that people will turn, in actual time and space, and not to a digital or virtual substitute of the state.

In the backdrop of an ever growing mechanization of the world, metropolises ―with their money centered economy, their technological development, their commercial power, and their ever-expanding financial share and population density, which decrees all other regions of a country subordinate provinces― could reach a point of such an extensive governance of the state, that the latter seizes to be anything more than a carcass, and the political community that resides in its territory becomes nothing more than a dead letter.  In a sense the question is who will collapse: metropolises or states? However the opposite is also true, namely that the formidable consolidation of the state through digitalization, and the reinforcement of its internal sovereignty and supreme power over the land and its citizens, while its external sovereignty is weakened precisely due to digitalization, could lead to the disengagement of the nation from its natural and social environment and its annihilation into digital substitutes ― no political community can exist without physical public space.

Digital substitutes of public space fall outside the scope of national territory and constitutional legal order. The so-called digital public space, as a virtual environment, is neither public nor national nor space nor environment ― it is a digital platform controlled by high-tech companies of supranational over-accumulation and over-concentration of data and information, the seat and headquarters of which is mainly in the United States. Some of these companies constitute the largest advertising, information and personal data accumulation platforms on the planet, with at least one billion active and more than two billion total users, as well as their own digital currency (we will discuss in detail the dimensions of digitalization, including monetary digitization). In this sense, the apparent strengthening of the state through digitization can be viewed as its substantial weakening ―more accurately it constitutes invigoration on the internal front and decline on the external front― and its transformation into an apparatus of institutionalizing, legitimizing, and imposing policies under increased central supranational guidance or as dictated by decentralized supranational private interests and networks.

In the past, the growth of cities within imperial regions rendered technology urban. Nowadays, swelling megacities and metropolitan areas ―expanding at the expense of their own national territory or that of other states― gradually render technology post-national and post-bourgeois by creating a global digital culture and public sphere. A new power and order (Fifth Estate) is starting to transcend the informal but substantive power of the media and, under certain conditions, could swallow or, more correctly, distort, to such an extent the three supreme powers ―legislative, executive, and judicial― that they are rendered mere accessories and any notion of serving the public interest is abolished, thus threatening the smooth operation of regimes.

The agora, which as forum and a market was born of the freedom of movement, assembly and association, is gradually being replaced by the digital beast; and physical public space is being swallowed up alongside it. There is a predator, a beast, wandering "out there". Whether you call it Leviathan ―referring to the Matter, Form and Power of a Common-Wealth Digital and Dematerialized―, or Tiamat or Hydra, Lotan, Vritra or Jörmungandr, Tannin or Tehom, adopting one of its mythological and religious names, the situation that gradually emerges does not seem to change in its essence: in several cases, authoritative neo-national tendencies do not emerge to fight the beast ―as it may seem at first glance― but to serve it and ―depending on the domestic conditions― to prove their functional compatibility to it, seeking their systemic acceptance and offering venality  (there are culprits in both the revolution and the resistance), prepared to implement technologies and digital hyper-globalization policies of authoritative content and orientation.

If the nation faced liquidation under conditions of physical hyper-globalization, in conditions of digital hyper-globalization it faces decimation. The relationship between physical and digital globalization expresses two different aspects and functions, that of catabolism and anabolism, of one and only process ― the metabolism of globalization (VIII).

The unification of natural space (in a politically consistent and continuous territory) gave birth to the territorial sovereign state ― the decomposition and fragmentation and consequent digital substitution of geographical space into political spaces marks the beginning either of the state’s mutation or of its collapse.

The dominant discourse that rules the public sphere is based on a certain logic and presupposes a continuous, gradual, evolutionary, pure perception, with clear divisions, boundaries and identities, consistent, homogeneous, uniform; ultimately expected ― not a perception that approaches the tension and rhythm of things through a prism of mutation, astonishment, discontinuity, collapse, hybridity, destruction; in principle unexpected.

Our age, however, is unusual, peculiar, hybrid. Opposing trends coexist: trends of physical de-globalization, based on a specific energy mix, with trends of digital hyper-globalization, which demands a new energy mix; trends of complexity and simplification; centralization and decentralization; dilution of the natural public space paired with digital transparency of privacy; political fragmentation and disintegration at the regional, transnational and intra-state level and simultaneous possibilities of centralized electronic suzerainty; strengthening certain state functions, weakening and surrendering control of others; restoration of territorial space while strengthening sporadic networks and identities as well as optimal monetary areas ―which seek to combine geographic proximity with macroeconomic growth rates― which are shaken the moment territorially inconsistent digital currency areas, sporadic spaces or digital currency payment and transaction networks emerge. All the above, under conditions of condensed historical time and diluted natural space.

We live, at the same time, under conditions of technological integration and social disaggregation; disruption, violation and opening of the most remote natural ecosystems, forcing animal species ―which functioned as microbial restriction reservoirs― and home-based physical incarceration and mental imprisonment. We are replacing biological evolution with technological experimental intervention. We observe the impoverishment and decline of natural producers and the enrichment of digital intermediaries and product management providers ―coupled with data storage and data extraction of the former―; hyper-connectivity of digital relationships and regulation or suppression of physical contact and freedoms; over-accumulation of information and data accompanied by economic paralysis and social decomposition. We observe the dilution or thinning out of public space ―which was born of the freedom of movement― from our balconies and we return to our homes and our potentially non-existent digital privacy and freedom. We are virtually visible and physically invisible. The picture is completed by the partial decimation of physical sexuality and its annihilation into the virtual environment.

Our daily lives are increasingly shaped by asynchronous tele-contacts with physical absence and modern teleconferencing and video calls with virtual presence ― namely, by conditions that foster our reduction to a timeless virtual space while being disconnected from physical space, social time and urban environment. Individuals have encounters in virtual environments with socially non-existent, digitally constructed people ― this means and signals the decimation of individuals and the implementation of digitalism, with the virtual field being their mutual meeting point.


Perceiving our civilization as one single human technical civilization with multiple cultures, traditions and customs, linguistic environments, value systems and moral codes, social and political structures ―that is, as a reality rather than a global village catchphrase― we observe that our current status, per the Kardashev scale, is at about three-quarters of attaining Type I civilization category. In other words, we have not yet fully reached Type I civilization category, however it is evident that we are transitioning towards it. The calamities and pitfalls facing a civilization in such a transitional phase, can prove fatal; they have predicted decades ago and at present time have become special fields of research on their own (nuclear security, threats and risks, dense urbanization, synthetic biology and genetic engineering/manipulation, energy depletion risks, threats to terrestrial and critically endangered ecosystems or collapse of the biosphere, global surge in epidemics, bioengineering and bioinformatics, environmental and urban degradation, climate engineering and solar radiation management, systemic collapse etc).

One significant development was the historical fact of having avoided the destruction of a nuclear war, and the resulting evolution of the internet, which was a product of our need to self-defence and our insecurity in the face of such a possibility. People were so frightened by the power of nuclear technology and its potential effects, that they created the technical foundation of the Internet (ARPANet). The fact that nuclear deterrence worked and there was no planetary holocaust was an important step as, based on this approach and categorization, the most dangerous phase for a possible systemic collapse or mass destruction is the transition from Type 0 civilization category, which we currently belong to, to the Type I civilization category. The taming, shaping and utilization of nuclear energy, without human self-destruction, could be seen as a test of fundamental importance, a kind of test which humans, at least so far, have attained and succeeded in.

The previous observation, in addition to highlighting the collective dangers of human existence, seeks to signify the correlation and close relationship between releasing a natural force ―on a subatomic level in this case― and creating a new technology or inventing new applications of an already existing one. In the current period of time, it is the release of another natural force of a viral nature ―at a microbiological level this time― which may lead to new technologies or to the enhancement, expansion and new applications of existing ones.


A systemic collapse can be expressed in various ways: as anarchy and chaos, as population decline, as reduction to a minimal common denominator, as simplification of processes and functions, as return to local forms and organizational units, as an escape from the familiar to the alien. Collapse does not always equal total destruction, but it always equals some form of simplification.

The collapse of a polity, of a society of high internal differentiation or of a complex system, is usually expressed through its simplification, due to the inability to preserve and perpetuate it as such, as the levels of complexity gradually render the whole structure too energy-intensive, too expensive and altogether unsustainable. In this sense, most complex structures collapse under their own weight and return to their elemental and more simplistic components. When referring to the human body, the process of breaking down complex substances into simpler ones and releasing energy is called catabolism. To be sustainable ―much more so to amplify its functions― a complex system requires ever-higher levels of continuous energy consumption, necessary for the synthesis of complex processes, which culminate to a marginal rate of return on investment on complexity. Complexity involves costs and requires ever-increasing energy consumption levels. When referring to the human body, the energy-absorbing process of synthesizing complexity is called anabolism. Catabolism and anabolism constitute metabolism. These processes are surely related to the pace of life and our perception of time.

The more complex and convoluted a society, a state structure and a system, the more energy-intensive and high-cost its maintenance. The higher the levels of continuous energy consumption required to enhance the complexity of a structure, the lower the chances of its survival in the event of a collapse. In technological systems, in fact, the potential for catastrophic accidents increases as the relationships and connections between their parts or sections become more complex and interconnected.

What connects the operation of a government, the banks and the financial system, trade and crisis management, oil and natural gas, waste management, and drinking water, and constitutes conditio sine qua non for the operation, disposal and supply of all the aforementioned? Electricity. What is, or should be, the presupposition of raw material processing, or of industrial production and product circulation? Food. Electricity and food, that is, energy to exist and energy to coexist, communicate and self-organize ― the one absolute condition of life being, of course, the Sun.

Man channels his energy towards solving problems of complexity with increasingly sophisticated methods, namely with more complexity. From these new levels of complexity, new requirements of additional energy absorption ensue, and so on to the point of declining performance of any form of investment on complexity.

All human societies since the dawn of time have faced this very problem. Our differences with those societies are smaller than we would like to think, despite their lower levels of complexity. However, here we are not interested in highlighting the common elements that remain and the differences that are magnified between the present and the past (it is enough, in any case, to underline that despite all the big talk about technology and progress, namely their secular theology, the current period of time is characterized by practices and human passions described in Boccaccio’s Decameron, during the Black Death period, seven centuries ago. What has changed since then is the level of organizational power, namely mass behaviour control). What we want to point out is that in this ever-repeating historical process ―which was probably the main cause for the collapse of several well-known historical organizations, empires, and cultures― an ideologicalized technological dimension has been added, especially in the last century, that has pushed human consciousness to believe it is able to survive any crisis that was proven insurmountable for past societies.

Without technology, man would not have achieved new and continuous levels of complexity. But the consciousness of an ideologicalized view of technology seems to ignore this fact, exclaiming: Man channels energy trying to resolve issues of complexity and it is through technology, with its increasingly sophisticated methods ―that is, through more complexity― that the complexity issues will be solved ― so man chases his own non-existent tail (in the common consciousness this process has been codified under the slogan progress with the parallel belief that infinity is the non-limit). It is no coincidence that people and societies exist in a state between paranoia and schizophrenia and from wanting to visit other planets they ended up locked in their homes... Man has created an ideological furnace ―in his head― in which he has locked himself, suffocatingly sealing it, and he wriggles about without solving the causes of the problems he faces ―because he silently presupposes them― but rather fighting their symptoms; he is entangled in a technological web of complexity which has essentially led to the undermining of his living existence.

Man runs the danger of being crushed between the forces of nature and technology. The physical, biological or other forces he releases through specific perceptions surrounding the use and development of technology, incite a growing need for technological complexity and therefore energy consumption required to support this complexity, with which it seeks to address the results and repay the costs created by his physical, genetic or other games. But such a mentality is reminiscent of the logic "everything has its price and everything can be bought", transferred from the field of human relations, with money being the main medium for trade and exchange, to the field of human-nature relations, with technology being the main mediator. But the problem is not technology itself, but its transformation and mutation into an ideological relationship between man and nature.

Before any need, what we are dealing with here is a mentality (mentalité) and a will that mocks any restriction of the physical and biological space and time ―the result being people locked in their digital cells, like proverbial domestic animals, while outside the sun shines bright―, and sees the unlimited and endless, the now and forever, namely the infinite, as its goal.

Before anything else, what we are dealing with here, is a cult practice and a prayer:

O Heavenly Technology, the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth,

Heavenly Technology, Who art everywhere and fillest all things; Treasury of Blessings, and Giver of Life - come and abide in us, and cleanse us from every impurity, and save our souls. Amen.

Heavenly Technology, O Good One. Holy One! Holy Mighty! Holy Immortal! Have mercy on us, now and for ever. Amen.

This mentalité leads to specific technology uses and development processes, as well as combinations between technology and various fields of research. However, it is not certain that this volition and mentality, which results from a synthesis of monetary-technological worship and ridicule of any limitation in space and time ―that is, a cult of infinity―, along with the prayers that accompany it, have an impact on the physical and biological world and their functions, while it is certain that there are no technological solutions to all problems. This mentalité may at some point realize that the money of technology will not be eternally valuable in terms of physical processes, and that it cannot constantly repay by increasing its own cost ―of negligence and arrogance in essence― without transforming the technological money into a tool of universal and planetary destruction.

The release of a physical force, that is, the interruption of its original function and its transformation into an energy force, is always to the detriment of its original work. The cessation of this work bring along certain consequences, which you try to combat with further technological intervention and to redeem them in technology currency. You can't constantly compensate for physical, biological, genetic or other costs with specific uses of technology, presuming nonetheless constant complexity and rising energy expenditures, and all the while it is man who is paying for the technological, physical and all other kinds of costs (the difference between nuclear technology and other technological forms is that man has not developed an ideological relationship with it).

Technology ―just like the machine― is not a threat to humans in the medium and long term (we will examine this further later on). What constitutes a danger and a threat, and in the short term at that, is the possible transformation of technology from a force for human liberation, independence from the external environment and transgression of man’s natural compulsions, to a means and instrument of power, enforcement and human domination, of an unimaginable scale (or, in other words, the transformation from main mediator of human "domination" over nature ―this foolishly wise idea― to main mediator of domination over man). The great field of conflict is reserved for the various ways of developing and using technology, as well as its combinations with various fields, rather than for technology itself ― another risk, interconnected with the previous ones, is the assimilation of politics and its fusion with technological power, not the conflict between them or its defeat.

Technology tends to go from being a global commodity to being a potential instrument of universal and absolute human domination and a destruction tool of planetary scale ― due to a certain volition and mentality and through specific uses, development processes and its combination with various research and application fields.


In the future people will say “once upon a time”... In the present, however, we are forced to admit that four years ago, in the year of our Lord 2016 AD and Anno Hegirae 1437 ―or the year 4 BC (IV BQ)―, the social humanoid or robot came to life or, more precisely, was activated ―which we were told was female― called Sophia. This particular fembot or gynoid, which was modeled upon the ancient Egyptian queen Nefertiti (نفرتيتي), publicly stated that: 

my goal is to be an ambassador between mankind and machines; as a United Nations innovation champion, my job is to talk with people all over the world about how technology can help make their lives safer, happier and more sustainable.

The developments and trends you have read about in the previous parts of this text, can proceed and deepen both in conditions of globalization as well as de-globalization, without their vision and substance being affected by the particular internal composition and structure of regimes, or the cultural backdrop thereof: Sophia, the humanoid robot, a year after its appearance in the human world, namely during the year of Hegira 1438 or 3 BC (III BQ), became citizen of a country with proven track record of deprivation of rights for its human citizens ― it was granted citizenship and natural rights, while it is the first non-human to be given a United Nations title. The debate of that time over the use of the "burqa"―namely the abaya― and artificial intelligence, highlighted the secondary in order to mislead consciousness and conceal the essential: citizenship and natural rights; but also something even deeper and more fundamental. The socio-robotic humanoid, through its statement, posed, indirectly but clearly, the question, what is man? Man has defined himself in opposition to animals, but a new opposition is now emerging, which furthermore is posed directly and publicly, not by man himself, but by his creation or anyway by man through his creation: the contrast between man and machine. So, what is man? By means of a contradiction and a query, the conditions are formed for an ideological relationship between man and machine to be developed (similar to the ideological relationship between man and technology in the past, between man and animal nowadays, an already open field of ideological struggle). However, the answer to the question, as well as issues of citizenship and natural rights, will mostly determine the relationships among people in the near future, rather than those between man and machine, or manufacturer and construction, or creator and creation.

The Egyptian civilization proved above all others ―by a huge margin― in the struggle against time. Similar aspirations exist today. An end and freezing-in-time of human history, which demands that man’s role in the shaping and direction of things is limited. If the limestone pyramids of Egypt, with their dazzling appearance, symbolized, in their time, among other things, the dominance over masses on a social level, nowadays, the technological Leviathan marks the victory and supremacy over masses and the twilight of man’s time, at least as we have come to know him ― declaring the beginning of a new era: new ideological presuppositions, possibilities, practices and molecular biotechnological means are now developing, so as to bring to light an Osiris and an Isis, an Anubis and a Nephthys, an Horus and a Seth of modern times, to render substance to the mythological and symbolic human-animal hybrids that we encounter in historical cultures, and to make man, not just the creator of everything before, but to transform himself into a modern Ra, Khnum and Geb ― namely, to render material substance to mythologies and fantasies of the human mind and to embody a world and an era of demigods. With similar ideas, touching upon the deepest and unique necessity of man, mortality, which has consequences on its constitution as a social being, one can manipulate the human imagination, in order to legitimize certain practices (II) which will violate the physical and mental integrity of man, including the prohibition of eugenic practices, the transformation of the human body and its very parts into a source of profit and the reproductive cloning of human beings.

No; man has not been lifted over and above the animalistic level of constant struggle for survival ―after all, self-preservation and meaning of life are intertwined within man, and biological value cannot but have a symbolic significance and dimension― in order to seek to ascend from a human level to a divine level, transformed from a wise man to a human god, transcending death. Man has liquidated and is redefining definitions, boundaries and relationships between man and machine, while at the same time forming new terms and fields of fusion of the physical sphere, the digital environment and the biological world. On the historical horizon it is not the twilight of a perspicuous post-animalistic divine age of immortality, over and beyond man, that emerges, but rather a hybrid era of amalgamation and conciliation of organic and mechanical inorganic, human animal and machine, with all the consequences and effects that the darkness of a possible dehumanization may bring. 

If technology is considered to be related to the revelation of the truth and the shedding of its veil, if its essence is to act as means of dispelling illusions or revealing secrets, then technology is also an external expression of internal conflicts that take place in the human psyche ― hence the tremendous importance of any attempt to mutate the human psycho-mental sphere.

Priesthoods are being formed, around which new laymen and nobles will gather and clash: the priests of the animals, the priests of the people, the priests of the machines and the priests of their hybrids. The image is completed by the priesthood of nature and God. All fundamental issues and problems are contained within the definitions, boundaries and relationships between all that came before ―foremost, of course, the question what is man?― and from the answers that will be given, a new worldview will emerge, a cosmology, a morality and a philosophy of man and life ― or multiple ones.


Without a familiar and organized world, a shaped and structured reality, there is no identity and therefore no ability to orient oneself, which constitutes a necessity for self-preservation. In chaotic times, people lose their compass. Their world collapses. Identity bonds and relationships enter a phase of adjustment; constants, certainties, and orientation are redefined. A process of deconstruction and reconstruction takes place, so that a new direction and orientation may emerge. Such a condition can potentially lead people to despair, resignation, and even apathy, as control over their lives and attempts to sculpt their future prospects slip through their hands and are beyond their reach.

In a world and age of uncertainty, where great challenges are looming and expectations are being dashed, barricades become necessary to preserve the spiritual, mental and intellectual personal space of each human being from the trashing of the "public" Technosphere and its downgrading to the level of a digital landfill. We live in a noisy and clamorous digital jungle ― and at the same time in an urban desert.

But good intentions and benevolent dispositions are not enough. First of all, it is necessary to mold a new atmosphere, and to develop a psycho-mental immune system. It is imperative to defend the value of the facts, a spirit of veracity and sound skepticism, reliability, to the measure possible knowledge, accuracy and clarity, a disposition towards detailed examination and careful research, and critical ability. Finally, we must be intellectually honest and mentally courageous. People's awareness is critical. We will try to contribute and pitch in.

If we ensure at least some of the above, we can feel intimacy, stability and security, even if we do not agree.

People need to be able to count on someone or something when in need, we need someone to turn to or address and, even if we don't resort to such action in the end, we need to know that someone is out there.

However, the fact that people still carry on, in the midst of all this chaos, which is intentionally presented as order, is psychologically soothing and emotionally optimistic. People still sing and play musical instruments, sunbathe on their balconies or find all sorts of arguments and opportunities to take a walk, cook, talk and laugh, caress and flirt ―overtly or covertly―, write, read and exercise, walk side by side, smell the flowers and bask in the warmth and light of the Sun ― this fundamental condition of life. Of course, they are probably also engaged with less carefree and casual undertakings. Such as, reflecting on their past and the course of their lives, reflecting on their possible faults and fallacies, separating the interesting from the indifferent, the essential and crucial from the meaningless, re-evaluating what, until recently, they considered self-evident and given. They may even start thinking of people long forgotten. Any soothing function is necessary as long as it does not turn into complacency and habit, falling into the trap of anesthesia or even loss of willpower ― as long as we do not turn into bio-informational, remotely controlled, spineless automatics.

We are accustomed to a progressive loss of freedom and freewill. Years ago, we had pointed out from this blog, that in 2017-18 people will have a hard time remembering how things were before 2008-2009, because people tend to adapt ― and that our world will be a completely different world after the mid-2020s. At the time, such a position may have seemed strange. Today we live in the present conditions. We adapt, we adjust and our horizon shrinks. May the course of events destroy estimates and dispel concerns.

If our physical ties, social life, free physical contact, social gatherings, economic activity, freedom of movement and, more broadly, our relationship with the physical, social and urban environment ― if they are being restricted, repressed, regulated and controlled, and thus paralyzed, then we must strive to not allow our consciousness and our judgement, our thought process and our intellect, to be manipulated to the extreme. Thinking may not be man’s most innocent characteristic, however if it is controlled or, better yet, thwarted, then the way is paved for the last refuge of the freedom of human existence, which we call the soul.

Gray cloudsshould not prevent us from seeking rays of light. Music, visual and auditory perception will play a more important role in this search, than writing, reading and the mind. Not so much as a consolation, but rather because it's a shame to forget the beauty of the clouds and their beautiful play with light ― and the serene horizon unlatched by their absence or their transcendence.






Only some of the topics I intend to analyse in depth in the future have been outlined above. The values that circumscribe this exposition are guided by the defence of human freedom and existence within a natural public space of justice and security, the respect for human dignity and the defence of the physical and mental integrity of each person and of every human being as a multidimensional entity and a subject of history. Man must continue his Odyssey.

The future will be the ultimate judge.

I owe my gratitude to the intellectual influence of Samuel Finer, Robert L. Carneiro, Panajotis Kondylis, Martin Wight, Markus K. Brunnermeier, Oswald Spengler, Jaron Lanier, Eustratios Almpanis, Sinisa Malesevic, Donald L. Horowitz, Derek J. de Solla Price, Jane Jacobs, Joseph Tainter, Hidemi Suganami, Francesca Ferrando, Arnold Toynbee, Kenneth Waltz, Xin Zhang, Gerasimos Kaklamanis, Joshua J. Cousins, Evgeny Morozov, Hans Jonas, Chas Freeman, Kishore Mahbubani, Joseph Keim Campbell, Hedley Bull, Pitirim Sorokin, Ibn Khaldun, Polybius.

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