IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - September 2015 - 22

It will happen. It is inevitable. A
significant portion of the people of
this world will reject this new religion, this new norm. They will feel
forced to, because it will be seen as
not only threatening their lives, but
their children's souls.
P r i m i t i ve ? Pe r h a p s . Un s o phisticated? Certainly. But such
is the reality of major historical movements. There is coming
a great revulsion at these unopposed attempts to blend man
and machine, at the hijacking
of our collective and individual
consciousness. I have no studies
to cite, no statistics to repeat. I
bring word of what the people in
the countryside are saying to each
other. The soul of the human race
is threatened. We may call this coming peaceful resistance the "rise of
the Reals," a spiritual movement
based upon rejection of the new
religion of Singularity.

We are witnessing the attempted
enthronement of a technological
god, one that claims omniscience
and omnipotence. Machines are
being created to replace us, billions of dollars spent towards an
Artificial Intelligence to control
us. Its "prophets" insist that soon
this machinery will need to come
inside us, or we into It. The very
notion of free will is under threat.
We are living through the process
of re-theism, the transition of ultimate earthly and spiritual authority from an invisible Creator God
into the developing brain of a great
machine. Such an effort will not go
unnoticed or unopposed, though I
suppose it is heresy to say so.
The network already lends itself
to expressions of unchecked desire,
violence, and power fantasies. Our
lives have not become healthier since
its introduction. From cell phone towers on distant mountain ranges to

Google's Internet balloons in Africa,
the network seems desperate to
cover the planet. These are tremendous clues to the people of Earth
about the nature of our situation.
This "brave new world" has
been nurtured by governments and
industries that have shown little historical precedent for valuing human
dignity. Now we are supposed to
trust them with our souls? This is
the crisis of the 21st century, dwarfing all other dilemmas. It is time to
confront what it truly means for the
survival of the human race.

Author Information
Sand Sheff is an American songwriter and entertainer with ten albums
to his name. He has written a book
entitled Real is Good: Reality, Freedom and the Computer Network.
Email: sand@sandsheff.com.

nEWS

IEEE-SSIT 2016 Officers Elected
A

t the monthly teleconference meeting
on August 11, 2015,
the IEEE-SSIT Board

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MTS.2015.2476829
Date of publication: 16 September 2015

of Governors nominated and elected officers for 2016.
For 2016, Greg Adamson of
the School of Engineering, University of Melbourne, Australia,
will serve a second year as SSIT
President.

IEEE Technology and Society Magazine

Philip Hall, a Principal Fellow at
The University of Melbourne, will
serve as Vice President in 2016.
Congratulations to the newly
elected officers!

∕

september 2015

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