freedom

In western culture freedom is stressed. We are told we are free, we value freedom, we consider it a right, and we fight and die for freedom. Looking back into the annals of history, an indentured medieval serf or an African slave would have freedom at the top of their wish list. The old economic systems that relied upon indentured servants and slaves came to end in both the 19th century and the first world war of the early 20th century and the United States became the model for freedom. Today, we think we are free. I doubt we will ever be free but we are less controlled since we have more jurisdiction over our situations and can make choices on how we wish to live our lives. Ultimately, in order to eat and be sheltered it is a requirement to join the workforce or start a business to make money. Starting a business is a way we are more free however there is still a reliance on banks for capital in order to launch the business but you assume responsibility and directly benefit from profits or shoulder the burden of losses. As a worker, you have a choice of where to work however that is curtailed by your level of education. You are paid a wage that allows you to raise a family of more potential workers, feed, clothe, educate, and shelter them. Health care is provided for the worker to maintain their level of productivity. Some money is left over so you can enjoy yourself a little bit. We call this freedom. It's not freedom. It's an escape from a historically miserable existence however don't delude yourself as you are working for someone else and making them lots of money so they can try and win the I am the most materially successful game and accumulate the power to control others. Whatever level of the game they are playing, whether small business or large corporation, make no mistake you are generally subsisting while they try to get to the top.

The second time I drank the profound teacher and plant medicine called Ayahuasca I had a dreadful time. One of the visions presented to me was this strange hypnotic scene accompanied by a feeling of being captive in the jungle where I was a slave to a faceless owner and living in a ramshackle abode in the middle of nowhere. I had this eerie feeling that I had lived many lives in similar situations. At the time I felt like the jungle was enslaving me. Upon subsequent visionary experiences where I gained valuable experience, I have come to realize visions deal in metaphor and they don't necessarily explain themselves right away. You know when you listen to someone tell a joke and you don't understand it but then later on you get it and laugh? Well, that in a way is a big part of working with plant medicines. Some will call this an integration period because a largely overlooked part of the plant medicine experience is sitting with them afterwards and figuring out what was meant by the visions or the conversations with different entities. A great deal of the time it is revelatory or an epiphany while you are doing something unrelated. It is the most magical and humbling experience when the answer reveals itself to you. And the kicker is sometimes the lesson was pretty basic but you totally missed it at the time. Well, that's what happened here. Ayahuasca was telling me, "Hey dumbass you are still a slave. You can candy coat it however you want but here is the stark truth." I was so beat down by the novel experience that it just played into my paranoia and delusion at the time. That's why you write down your visions and interactions so that in the following months and years you can then one day realize what the experience was getting at.

So what? I am enslaved. I have a good family and decent life. Isn't that how they want me to feel so I don't become angry and rebellious? It has been ten months since I went deep in a plant medicine journey. It was with Huachuma in the Andes mountains of Ecuador and the day with this Grandfather plant was spent describing the world system, all its connecting nodes, and the wiseman talking to me in my altered state described this system as sucking Satan's cock. I was shown how ingrained into our lives it is, the many nodes that pulse this noxious frequency, and the monumental effort it will take to change it. The change comes one at a time through the opening of the heart in conjunction with developing socially responsible technologies that work for the betterment of the world as opposed to being devices for profit and greed. The blockchain is a step in the positive direction. There will be setbacks; the blockchain will be co-opted and crypto-currencies that are free of state manipulation like Bitcoin will be preyed upon by those looking for a quick score but eventually the flood of a new technological era will enable us to throw off the chains.

This leads to artificial intelligence and maybe AI is the superman George Bernard Shaw was talking about in that play "Man and Superman" I had to read in high school? It all depends on perspective and your view of the fundamental view of what we call reality. If you believe consciousness is the result of tiny particles that exhibit charge, spin, and mass coming together until they reach a breaking point of awareness which develops into individuated consciousness then AI becomes something that eventually we will have to treat as sentient beings when they reach this perceived switch point. From artificial intelligence will develop artificial consciousness. The majority of scientists, psychologists, and philosophers take this worldview as reality without reservation. I bring this up really just because I want to espouse my viewpoint and knock down the robot consciousness one. There is only one consciousness; it is a top down system. The universe is energy and awareness of the energy. Awareness activates the energy; non-awareness allows the energy to coalesce. Thus energy creates form which catches the eye of awareness and through desire awareness becomes conscious and brings the universe to life. Fundamentally, that is the everything from which everything is derivative.

AI will be the golden child of the new technological era and AI in my estimation has the ability to lead to our emancipation as long as it remains open sourced. Imagine a world where a human at birth is gifted an AI double which does the work required of them for survival? We can then create a collective world of philosophers or pleasure seekers. Or both. Or, have we just exchanged one problem for another? Well, anyway I can dream.