“I HAVE SPOKEN TO this point about the form of government that rules the world. I call it oligarchic technocracies or technocratic oligarchies. Take your pick, as I speak of them interchangeably, although the authoritarian oligarchs would frown upon such names. They consider themselves magnanimous, the overseers of humans who are unable to manage themselves, with the Great Debacle being proof enough of that fact.”

“The oligarchies are symptoms of our larger problems, the pus and worms oozing forth from the open wounds in the flesh of society. They are contributors to our dissolution, working their way towards the final state of entropy for our species. The death knell, helping us reach the edge of the petri dish in which we evolved.”

“Can I say where it began with any clarity? Social Darwinists were in existence long before Darwin was born. The first cave man given a virtual crown of weeds certainly thought himself superior to his subjects due to his physical size, prowess, and likely viciousness and guile. I doubt that first crown was granted for selfless traits like compassion and caring.”

“You can’t blame the oligarchs of today who are wearing the same crowns. They do so, as their caveman forebears did, because they truly perceive themselves superior. Though few will attribute good fortune to their dominant roles, luck is indeed causal attribute number one for their positions; add to that greed, deceit, and other unenviable human attributes.”

“The twenty-first century has been no different, only amplified and levered by technology. It started early in the century as social dis-equities became embedded in the system through taxation laws, private ownership of once public enterprises, and the ongoing drive of business to become increasingly cost-effective.”

“Technology allowed these companies to operate more efficiently and hire fewer workers, further displacing the dispossessed. Couple that with favorable tax laws, influence peddling, distorted systems of justice, and other vehicles of increasing wealth for the wealthy, and soon the largest treasure was focused among the very few across the globe.”

“Indeed, this dynamic has occurred from time immemorial, and the outcome was always one where an overthrow of the ruling class was effected. Not this time, though, not by a long shot.”

“The technocracy and media they influenced allowed the ruling families, the thousand or so in what was the United States and another thousand-plus elsewhere, to gain control over all machinations of creation and value. The concepts of fair and equitable distribution of wealth and gains from technology, of social concern and assistance, were subjugated to the benefit of the few.”

“Of course, there were disruptions, and it didn’t only happen here where we once had a burgeoning middle class. It happened globally in starker contrast, where the disparities were even more pronounced. Yet technology came to the rescue again for the few, allowing for the grievous policing and silencing of troublemakers and dissenters, anyone who was not in line with the social order of the ruling classes.”

“That’s one important thing the oligarchs of prior centuries didn’t have. They had no science of surveillance into each person’s social network, their spending habits and finances, their media consumption and belief systems. But today’s oligarchs have all this and more. They have AI clouds with unrivaled predictive powers, and they can adjust their control structures to maintain power far before any unruly crowds take to the streets.”

“To say ‘the rich got richer and the poor got poorer’ during those decades is a laughable understatement. And you can guess that they were passing these riches to their progeny, to extend their dominant and holiest of gene pools forward into the eons to come.”

“Once the means of influencing human minds through the media and its content were under control of these powers, and once the ability to create a virtual monitoring state was under the auspices of the industrial-military-government complex, then the levers were further tightened and locked. No overthrows of the ruling classes are possible in these new technocracies.”

“One could see the first signs of unequal wealth as public places were renamed, not for the country or its people or its fallen heroes, but for the wealthy who could afford to immortalize their grandiose abundance and power into marble facades for all to see. They used these ‘donations’ to assuage their collective guilt in acts of false contrition for their sins of greed, building huge monoliths for the nominal good of the public masses, bathing in their presumed generosity. As if anyone cared whose name was on the building.”

“Carvings in stone had long been their means of ignoble immortalization – at least until anti-aging came along and allowed them to become truly immortal. Once anti-aging allowed these oligarchs to extend their lives for longer periods and ultimately forever, their generous and selfless acts of contrition dissipated.”

“Why immortalize yourself by other means if you were now indeed immortal? If you owned and controlled everything anyway? God or nature had deigned you as a superior being, and none remained with even a whimper to contest it.”

“You can imagine what a relief it was for these oligarchs to discover the added benefits of pushing ideas into the minds of people via directed beams of energy through their craniums. When the public got wind of this and began wearing special hats and headgear to disrupt these electrical fields and prevent them from being influenced by such surreptitious messaging, the oligarchs outlawed this apparel. You almost get thrown in jail anymore for wearing a simple baseball cap. It’s a shame.”

“During the post-Debacle turmoil, the stronger and more cunning of the oligarchs grabbed control of the power levers. Those few thousand families were savagely reduced to a few hundred who retain the primary grip on global society. They owned the means of production, capital and finance, and all future potential. Those who worked for them were effectively indentured servants, indebted to the company store that now encompasses all humanly needs.”

“As indicated earlier, the world has evolved into a multilevel marketing or pyramid scheme on behalf of the oligarchs. It propels riches upward and trickles-down crumbs to the masses. I’m not saying it’s just a few oligarchs and many poor at the bottom of the pyramid. There are clearly multiple levels of humans and hybrids that form the structure beneath them who are the enablers of their supreme Darwinistic dominance.”

“My description of the oligarchs is perhaps too restrictive. It is not just select trillionaires and their extended families who are advantaged. It is all that surrounds them – their sycophants, suppliers, business executives, politicians, judges, enforcers, military consorts, entertainers, and information infrastructures. The steaming pile is fabricated upon many rancid layers of maggot-seething dung.”

“An unfortunate outcome of their corruption became rather immediately apparent. With such disparity of wealth and social structures in place to ensure continuance of the ordained order, those young and entrepreneurial spirits who were once energized and enthused to work and contribute to society no longer perceive a viable path forward for gain. As a result, our youth winnows away in front of their vidscreens, consuming the media the oligarchs direct them to consume. They are placated only by the sweet and caustic foods of life and constant emotional tugs of either the meaningless glamour of the more fortunate or righteous propaganda to further elevate the oligarchy.”

“This dynamic was already emerging globally just prior to the Debacle, a sign that as we climbed the curve, far too many things started happening at once. These levers of power, wealth, and corruption were being pulled to their extremes.”

“Anti-aging was becoming a reality, creating unexpected, urgent social imbalances and the possibility for oligarchs to extend their Social Darwinist philosophies into the imperishable future. Then you had genetics with its growing threats and new variability in the concept of humanity, with chippers, clippers, and grippers growing in numbers and influence. It was a cascade of many things, a mudslide of overload from social networks, propaganda, populists, nationalism, religious bigotry, and climate change.”

“In the midst of this disarray, governments were becoming far less stable, overly influenced by competing corporate or military or populist interests who now had the only effective vote and voice. Term limits were dismantled, allowing each fascist or autocratic state to place its puppet rulers in charge perennially. Today, these shadow governments the oligarchs put in place serve only to amplify the oligarchies’ wealth and influence.”

“In an acid dream, you could believe an event like the Debacle that left half of our species dead might have been a wake-up call. You’d think we’d have changed our ways and established a fresh start for our species. You’d think we’d look at the past and focus on establishing a few norms of behavior between ourselves, creating a few rules about how we treat our planet. But then again, anyone who examines humanity’s history might have predicted the actual outcome of the Debacle. You don’t need an AI matrix to assess that.”

“Human behavior did not change. There wasn’t a moment of new thought for getting along with each other. There was only blame and indignation, followed by more extreme versions of the necrotic directions we had taken previously. On the bright side, if there is one, the oligarchs finally depleted the post-Debacle annihilations that were occurring across the globe, but only after another billion had died.”

“In the end, the oligarchs consolidated control and created their own demigod mini-kingdoms. In an odd way, it’s reminiscent of Earth’s Middle Ages, a feudalistic and protectionist system that elevates trillionaires to god-like status. And nothing exists in the world to convince them they are not indeed gods, at least until the ultimate conclusion arrives forthwith.”

“The demigods have everything they could ever want, living in wondrous realms of power and wealth, directed by or directing their AI systems to ensure their domination over all they control. Meanwhile, they maintain strict vigilance and military might to ensure other oligarchs do not exceed their own capabilities to dominate or destroy them.”

“If you listen intently in the vast quiet of space, you might hear our silent cry from this planet, the sound of a species whose social structures are in terminal demise, overcome by fear and entitlement, with individuals too encumbered or lazy or tired to set in place the few simple rules or norms to establish a positive, hopeful course for ourselves."