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Both Percy Bysshe Shelley’s Ozymandias and Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations are great examples of complementary literature that spans a time frame of 1650 years of stoic thought. To read from the translated words of Aurelius and apply them as context to which Ozymandias is written about personifies the sonnet in a way that Aurelius expressed very well. This is because one of the primary themes of his books which dwelt on impermanence and unavoidability of human societies being inseparable parts of nature that they both come from and return to. Despite Shelley having written the sonnet about Pharaoh Ramesses II, it can also be imagined that the same traveler depicted in the sonnet may also be a Roman telling the same account.

In Ozymandias, the vacuous nature of a visual setting can be imagined alongside an impressive absence of an entire empire that had once existed. In Meditations, Aurelius recounts the nature of what leads to such a statue and its current state of affairs as perceived by folks at later dates. The impression of a great loss is one that folks may be left with after having read of Ozymandias. These impressions may be put to ease by reading Aurelius’ Meditations where he writes, “Everyone’s life is but a moment, but though yours is nearly finished, your soul does not reverence itself but places your felicity on the souls of others.” (Aurelius B.II 4:40 – 4:53). Here Aurelius would make the point that while the physical objects of an empire may crumble, it’s through the loss of leadership that the retained the essence of what brought it about then becomes imbued into the “souls of others”.

It’s easy to lose sight of all that which may have happened previously, in order to bring about interactions such as that which was depicted in Ozymandias where a traveler recounts the statue bearing an inscription that said, “Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!’ Nothing beside remains.”(Shelley). This type of demeaning sentiment is to be expected as Aurelius writes, “Accustom yourself as much as possible on the occasion that if anything being done by any person, to inquire within yourself, for what object is this man doing this? … For indeed, there is no more use in these parts without the cause which moves and checks them than in the weavers shuttle and the writers pen and the drivers whip.” (Aurelius B.X 29:38 – 30:30). A reader may otherwise be lead to suppose that the point being made in Ozymandias is that the works of leadership are useless because they will end up devoid of the respect of the population and even be left abandoned by nature (note the choice of a desert).

From Aurelius’ viewpoint this opinion would be no different than trivializing a dead “drivers whip”, as it’s not simply what can be seen such as objects that had no tangible impact. Instead, it’s something that’s passed on to people and it’s more the case that objects like statues are evidence that that process had taken place. In support of this he writes, “What is the nature of all sense objects, … How worthless and contemptible and sordid and perishable and dead they are. All this it is a part of the intellectual faculty to observe, and to observe further.” (Aurelius II 8:50 – 9:18). Aurelius felt it was adequate to indicate that one must consider the implications of that which they see rather than simply looking at what they observe. Where it’s written in Ozymandias that, “…Tell that its sculptor well those passions read which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things” (Shelley), it’s evident here that both Shelley’s and Aurelius’ have similar impressions on the legacy of leadership. Those ‘objects’ never once had life to begin with and it’s not the case that an empire or statue representative of it once was alive and is now somehow dead. It was implied that the still-living people are the legacies of Empires, through ‘felicity’ with Aurelius and ‘passions’ with Shelley.

People in great civilizations often find ways to relate to nature as a natural byproduct of their being perceived as so great in the same way that objects are a natural byproduct of strong leadership as previously discussed. The point that Aurelius makes to support this is where he writes, ‘Now it is in my power to let no badness be in this soul. Nor any desire nor any perturbation at all, but looking at all things I see what is their nature and I use each according to its value. Remember this power which you have from nature.” (Aurelius VIII 13:40 – 14:00). He means that the power that is in nature is equivalent to the power that good leadership imbued in his civilization for a time. Because this is the mindset of the very last “Pax Romana” emperor, right before the decline of the Roman Empire, is important because it reflected the overall mindset of the leadership at the time (Rideout para. 1). Aurelius was able to provide a very concise and complete viewpoint of what the “peak” of Roman civilization felt like, not long before before its decline.

Is this mindset a way of life, or simply a convenience, where ubiquitous discussions on nature’s grandeur in relation to society and people and how it ought to pacify them is wrought? How is it that he could not see more, then, for himself or Rome? What may have been his limitation, this emperor who requested that people ‘observe, and then observe further’? Aurelius seemed astoundingly convinced that the Roman Empire had peaked, on every sensible level and it shows in his writing that he was quite convinced that the next steps for Rome were a return to nature as if were a requirement and not an expectation. It seemed to be a more recent shift in Roman thought that explored particularly what nature did with decay, which was different from what was seen in Ozymandias which provided a viewpoint after which nature had already reincorporated an empire. Shelley wrote of a statue of the what’s said to be the greatest Pharaoh of the Egyptian empire, Aurelius is considered to be one of the greatest Roman Emperors. Possibly it was the case that the wildness of nature Aurelius spoke of, which convinced him most of the coming fall, was from the struggles with the Germanic barbarian tribes in the Marcomannic Wars that lead to the fall of Rome (Rideout para. 10). The philosophical labeling of his Meditations unfortunately omits this context.

The general impression is that this cyclically temporal congruence with nature itself to both people and society is an idea that many folks in great empires have and is possibly a natural byproduct of their grandeur. That Aurelius seemed so focused on the impending reincorporation into nature of anything and everything implied that the same mindset was shared by the general Roman population. Aurelius implies this when he writes on nature, “… everything within her which appears to decay and to grow old and to be useless, she changes into herself, and again makes new things from these very same so that she requires neither substance from without nor once a place into which she may cast that which decays.” (Aurelius VIII 25:27 – 26:26). He made this comment on comparison to some wood shavings in a woodworkers shop. The implication is that once an empire (or person) is so full of these things that decay or are wasted, nature would ‘change into herself’. Because the strength of the barbarian forces were known, it’s unlikely that Aurelius alone would have had the thought that ‘nature’ (barbarians) was already there to reclaim the Roman Empire, as it was no longer possible to cast away more ‘wood shavings’ (that which was unwanted in Rome), without further benefiting the already imposing armies on their borders.

In conclusion, both of these pieces of literature displayed the shared mindset of not just two authors, but also two or three entire empires. Ozymandias may initially seem to mock lost empires, but on closer inspection says much to their benefit. While it is consequential, the presence of a desert setting implies that nature moves separately from the physical objects of an empire that decay in reincorporating the passions of the empire into itself. Both works are complementary literature in with themes of pervasive stoic thought. Aurelius’ Meditations makes the point that it’s the gain in ‘soul’ which is the legacy of leadership in an empire, and not the physical objects of it. Both of these works were written at times in which both authors lived toward the end of the ages of the respective empires in which they lived. Their shared mindset seems to be a byproduct of empires having existed, and a lot more history can be discussed outside these pieces of literature.

Works Cited

Aurelius, Marcus. Meditations. Narrated by Duncan Steen, Audible, Naxos AudioBooks, 2010. Audiobook, 12 Books. https://www.audible.com/pd/Meditations-Audiobook/B004IBRMZS. Accessed 18Feb2025.

Rideout, Moshe. “When Was Ancient Rome at Its Peak – Ancient Rome.” Explore the Past, Enrich the Future, 3 Dec. 2023, https://www.learnancientrome.com/when-was-ancient-rome-at-its-peak/. Accessed 18Feb2025.

Shelley, Percy Bysshe. “Ozymandias.” Poetry Foundation, Poetry Foundation, 2025, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46565/ozymandias, Accessed 18Feb2025.

The ongoing erosion of the human middle class which incorporates an emphatic, often romantic, entrainment of of the living and intelligent formations of nature into the foundational identity of these same folks has fostered meritocratic (plutocratic) social dynamics which don’t always align with this digital millennium. This misalignment is evidenced by a high retention of collective intelligence of this group that identifies as middle class, but which retains less collective control over the material stake in ownership of things that was more common in the recent past than now. This means that that ownership has been replaced with freehold/residence of or within an object and the actual ownership of the object or objects that constitute economic control rests invariably within the control of approximately three conglomerates within the western world. In short, a bunch of pretty smart people own approximately nothing short of their immediate possessions, intellect and debt. This happened for many reasons, one of such being that middle class folks were sold the idea they could purchase the ability to incorporate aspects of nature into their identity in exchange for a reduced impact and entrainment onto actual Nature, such as often takes place through the exchange of material wealth.

This process of creating that which is for sale and trading it to those in pursuit of that which is for sale is a very repeatable process in which aspects that can be found in nature might be simulated and “packaged” for sale. Such as if one would like to “tend to animals”, this desire can be simulated through technological advances in which there is very little impact or interaction with actual nature at the cost of fidelity. For the sake of constraining this essay, the fields of applied microcavity plasma science & optical plasma computing will be cited and not discussed as examples of advances that will permit light to be flashed on any surface and for a time the resulting system will permit capabilities indistinguishable from standard computers. These technical applications may pair with life such as it further expands towards reaches that Nature’s not currently perceived in such as incorporations of divinity as seen in totally unnatural settings as experienced through a computer. This simulation includes simulated worlds such as forum posting or game-playing, assembled digital personalities such as giving the progressive stimulation that one might feel as if they were walking through the woods and interacting with nature, at least in effect. This pivot has already begun to reformulate the individual experience toward new domains such as transhumanism.

On the consideration of “excess of personality” or “excess of” anything is approximately a pursuit in individual power. An example here is that this pursuit, in some respects, is undifferentiated from the pursuit and acquiring of excess money. One differentiator here being that money is more commonly accepted as a medium of exchange, whereas an exchange of personality has far fewer opportunities. It’s not just an abundance of ones’ available time to spend in nature, traveling or anything as nearly as much as it is that ability to hit some threshold in which there’s less reward perceived in doing something else than doing that which is accessible and available that is a constraint to which nature is able to offer to a person. This implies an overlap of indifference between any individual tasks that may be done being attributable to one or the other. It’s important to understand that the clarity from nature walks is very similarly described to the clarity that folks describe in meditating or even watching television, and the clarity itself is the original source of all known value in this world and is not further discussed at this time.

The individual adaptation of ones’ own mind to reap those rewards perceived in others enjoying something else is a simple expression of The Tyranny of the Majority that tend to think that it’s solely the milieu that precipitates the individual rather than their individual perspective of what, exactly, that milieu is. The resulting idea that a persons identity may hold power commensurate to the amount of nature they’ve enjoyed precipitated the idea of striving for the convenience of simply owning nature over experiencing it. This later became a matter of necessity as the individual capacity to earn, as well as their ability to enmesh their identity in nature, yielded compounding returns that induced hall effects in resonant populations with shared aspects of foundational identity. This permitted those that had first collected excess wealth or personality to then sell it to those that came there afterwards in pursuit of it, leading to a Tragedy of Commons as folks chase escalating prices that outpace their stride.

The middle class has no direct analogue in nature because nature presents a dominance hierarchy that incorporates all species. It’s a human social construct for which the concept of a “human middle class” with definable characteristics exists. This point, too, is well discussed outside this essay and is unfortunately not in scope here. Possibly, there are many examples and it’s the case that they are not often enough studied so that the perceived social dynamics often get oversimplified. The relative size of the group that’s being studied is important. Looking to natural examples, if one were to consider all of the honey bee colonies that existed in the world, it could be presumed that all the queens observed are considered to simply a middle class of beings in relation to all of humans that enjoy the results of their produce at will. Here, it’s more the case that the living beings as insects are subservient to those that enjoy their efforts as mammals – to which every single human being would easily fit into a type of nobility or even a monarch class, bordering having godlike power relative to the bees. The point here is that that class consciousness in this small example is a relative phenomenon to which the simple application of a changed mindset might otherwise yield a different understanding in which it would be hard to make sense of much of anything at all without this context established.

It may be said then, at this point, that it was not through divine rule, nor coordinated democratic movement that placed humans at the tier in which they are relative to a bee. It was their natural morphology that aligned them as such. Then, in relation to our own human organization – what then is it receives that which may be the fruits of our own productive efforts? Returning to the point of view of a bee, it would not be of any sense to think of this to be any other than a queen bee or a larvae for a few days that eats exclusively the royal jelly. How many millions-of-years could they have flown aimlessly until realizing they could pick a queen and make a hive? The reality is that all the honey may be taken at most any time through another class of beings in nature’s dominance hierarchy.

Can this also be true in the case of the human beings? This situation is also analogous to ants which cultivate fungus for which humans have no taste taste for, possibly to their fortune. It would also be true of many other species not discussed here. There is to suggest that there really is no actual class system and any perception of such is actually a manifestation of the dominance hierarchy found in nature. Wealth tends to accumulate at the top of the human hierarchy, because of the way in which it’s perceived by humans. There is no known being which receives that which is is produced by humans, and therefore leaves the perception of an Ouroborotic need to simply “eat ones own tail” as is in a few such recent cases. Some folks in this generation who are set to inherit billions of dollars, but then don’t want this at all and intend to divest per Kate Lindsay who writes, “Their rejection of the money they’re entitled to stems from the deeply held beliefs of many Gen Zers and millennials — a sense that great wealth should serve a greater good.” (Lindsay para. 3). What then will soak up all this excess personality as mentioned earlier, and excess wealth? It appears to be the case that Artificial Intelligence will do as much, which will also likely originate the same surrogacy simulation of nature that was discussed earlier as well due to it being unlikely that the machines will look to divest themselves of humanity any time soon.

As the focus moves away from human social dynamics, the dominance hierarchy of life in which human beings as a species regarding where they fit into it is set for change. The result is that there already is a lessened focus on the class systems in worldwide thought and more on what this dominance hierarchy will look like once these robots do come. One question is whether or not the robots will sit firmly between different castes of humans whereby they are used to separate the rich from the poor in exactly the same way and for exactly the same reasons the human middle class had done previously? Or another, whether or not the entirely of the robots will reside in a tier above all human beings? Possibly the same relationship may exist as is observed currently with bees and humans will mirror that relationship that may come to exist between robots and humans. Possibly even then, there will be multiple overlaps in the dominance hierarchy for some time between the two.

In conclusion, this essay has discussed that there was a human middle class that recently dominated labor, intelligence and wealth to an extent. This essay suggested that all three of these will be handed to artificial intelligence and it suggested that there exists precedent in nature to understand that a focus on a 3-tier social system isolated from nature is not a natural phenomenon. It covered that nature typically has a dominance hierarchy in which all species’ roles are accounted for, and that the creation of the human middle class precipitated a misalignment in which a meritocratic accumulation of wealth could be collected. This essay has also suggested that there are aspects in nature that were cultivated in order to both create this middle class and empower it. This was proposed to be through continued substitutions in which foundational aspects of identity such as perceivable in natural settings tend to result in reduced human involvement over time once such aspects become ingrained in the middle class identity. This philosophical walk through social dynamics as they relate to the past and future, alongside how nature acts presently may act as a sufficient beginning to pursue topics herein discussed in this essay.

Works Cited

Eden, J. Gary. “Advances In Microcavity Plasma Science and Applications.” YouTube, YouTube, 14Feb2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwoTyu1Q8xg. Accessed 12Feb2025.

Lindsay, Kate. “They Inherited Billions from Their Parents. They Don’t Want It.” MSN, 10Feb2025, https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/news/they-inherited-billions-from-their-parents-they- dont-want-it/ar-AA1yGDJy. Accessed 12Feb2025.

Rodriguez, Jesse. “Optical Computing with Plasma: Stanford PhD Defense.” YouTube, YouTube, 05Jul2023, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mdh2pLwsK8Y. Accessed 12Feb2025.

What is going on, in these American cities? The wind picks up and they burn, then the news reports losses surpassing hundreds of billions of dollars and even worse is the loss in life. It’s clear that these cities are not experiencing Natural Disasters. Nations that claim to be able to destroy the world are certainly the same groups that can also then recognize that that which is within their control to avoid. Should “nature” be permitted to do as it pleases, and be permitted to return the concrete to the vines? If not so, then there are just disasters, a view shared by the United Nations which makes the claim that there are only Natural Hazards. This is supported where Bridgette Balthasar makes the point that despite Natural Hazards, “Disasters are not natural occurrences.” (Balthasar para. 1).

There are hurricanes here, and there are typhoons elsewhere that already cause incredible amounts of damage. The type of disaster that’s no longer “natural” is a disaster caused through burning and fire alone. Withing the same organization as Bridgette above, The United Nations says that these are, “disasters that result from natural hazards, like wildfires or desertification, that have a devastating effect on natural resources, laying waste to ecosystems and wildlife habitats.” (UNDRR para. 4). It’s not even discussed that a fire disaster should occur in a city. How is it that these American Cities that are so close to the water, catch on fire and burn to the ground? Los Angeles and Maui are the most recent in just the past two years. I had a few ties to both of these, with my parents having spent their honeymoon in Lahaina, and I’d just made it to the West Coast not less than 6 years ago for the first time in my life where my sister now lives. My sister had just moved to LA, and I’m to return there shortly. I’m told now that those same places I drove through just a few years ago all have burned and have since been swept away like a tumbleweed. Possibly it’s the same wind of change that carried her there that also fans the fire of destruction there today.

This is a catastrophic event and various discussions have revealed to me that people perceive their issues to be due to natural causes, and refer to the situation as a Natural Disaster. People have heard this mindset, originating from Europe, and seem to have rejected it. Even the news refers to it as, “a display of almost Orwellian doublespeak.” (Kent para. 2). It’s almost as if the idea were to be so transient that the same wind that stoked the fires, sent the idea passing from one ear to the other without having stopped in-between. The rejection of the idea is that these disasters are a societal issue is likely the root of the accusation. Finding a cause for these issues may go on for some time, and it may appear to be easy to simply place such a blame on a societal failure in the same way one might blame the wind being taken out of their own sails. Ships burn, too.

Still, it’s hard at times for me to witness this destruction and disagree. Folks have offhandedly said to me that it’s due to the more liberal Democratic nature of the city. Opposing this idea is that Sydney, Australia, happens to be much further along this political alleyway than California. To compound this, Australia is world renowned for its bushfires which have a history stretching back hundreds of years of recorded history. Not once in that time has it ever been recorded that Sydney has lost its entire north side and has been left with over 250 billion dollars in damages, as a result of these Natural Hazards. As the New York Post says, “The catastrophic Los Angeles wildfires that have reduced entire neighborhoods to piles of ash are estimated to have caused damages and economic losses between a staggering $250 billion and $275 billion.” (Reilly para. 1). Common reports might be that the Australian bushfires have taken over the beaches in Sydney, which recently have, “raged through 100 hectares of bushland,” according to 9NEWS (Hohne para. 1). Generally, these Natural Hazards prompt evacuations, but no damage is permitted that’s comparable to that which is seen in these American Cities. So, is it just places I don’t have any ties to, then? These sums of money are higher than the GDP of more than 50% of US states and territories.

I’m purposefully not accounting for less manageable Natural Hazards such as hurricanes, tornadoes or earthquakes. The control of fire and the wind that carries it where it ought to not go is very much within the domain of control of man as evidenced by our peers in this world that don’t let this happen to them. In exercising this control, they spend less money, live in more dangerous conditions, and do so while following even further ‘extreme’ political stances than the most ‘extreme’ US state. Folks have pointed toward the wind, erroneously and more often than not. I too, once thought it was the wind that carried me somewhere. We don’t legislate the fire, it wasn’t the money that was being spent on preventing the fire, and it’s certainly the case that fire-starting is already outlawed – do we now move then to ban the wind, remove the air that we breathe? It’s wind, too, that carries the seed from a plant to the soil in which it grows. At what point does a finger need to be pointed at until it happens upon removing ourselves, that we get out of our own way?

A couple years back, I was kayaking on the man-made Jordan Lake in North Carolina. I’d been on the lake many times before, but that day it was a bit choppy. I ended up going away from shore anyways, and ended up beached about a mile away after not being able to overcome the wind in order to get back. I landed, made a phone call, drank a drink, found some trash, a key and some shells and next thing I knew I was flying to Texas the next day. In this case it was on seeing a driving influence from that same wind that caused me to see value in making a change which didn’t only beach me once that day, but then once again it did so a bit later. It was with the wind I imagined to be at my back that propelled me in such a direction. This was a pure hallucination though. In all cases it was the jet propulsion from the plane that I paid incredible amounts of money to overcome the actual wind resistance to me going there, that got me from where I was at to where I was going. In this case I’d say that cash was “gone with the wind”, too.

What was the case was that my thought of holding myself accountable to imaginary tethers that bound me to the area for six years were never there to begin with had eroded. The realization that I had the free will to do as I pleased, either lock the cell up again or leave. The irrational idea of sitting in an unlocked cell lying in wait of something, at that moment, had come and passed with the same wind that found me beached ashore on that day and I’d decided to accept this unique wind for what it was. The same wind in which I found a breath of life, though, is one and the same as the one that tends to interconnect every one thing – even the solar wind carries matter and energy from the Sun to the Earth.

There are tropes in which one deals with the wind where one paddles against the wind, or spits into it. In one case a progressive effort is confounded by the wind blowing opposite to one’s intended direction of travel. Another case involves the futile application of a relieving effort is thereby thwarted, for whatever reason, and thereby defiles the originator of the effort. In these cases, the element that ordinarily connects something to something else, instead leaves one connected to themselves, so as invite an opportunity for introspection or reassessment of a futile attempt to confront a Natural Hazard of nature. It wasn’t until some time later, that I’d come to stop blaming the wind for my having been beached on that day. It was a lot of other things, but it wasn’t that.

How this same wind’s permitted to take away these American Cities that not a single other country will permit to have happen of their own, is not the same way as in the Fall where it’s only the wind that can know when it is that any particular leaf is to be taken from any particular tree. In this case, there are resources to make sure that these American Cities don’t blow about in the wind so carelessly. The point here is that “fire to cause such levels of devastation in this civilized world” as a concept is so far outside of the scope of the consideration for any other country that it was presumed by the United Nations to not even need to be mentioned in their literature on “Natural Disasters not existing”, in that it’s already understood that fires are not a class of Natural Disaster. There are less people in Los Angeles, than Sydney, so it’s not a people issue. These American Cities burn, but the will of these people to do anything different remains as steeled as ever.

In conclusion, the level of fire damage to these American Cities being claimed is summarized by the amount of money it would take to rebuild, the losses of what was there, and the total lives lost. This number is an order of magnitude higher in these regards, but no discernible reason for this to happen at all is apparent. There are cities that are twice as large, half as well funded, have twice the population, are windier, are more politically ‘extreme’, and any number of conditions that indicate that these American Cities have little justification to burn in the way that they do. In these cases, our peers have determined that what is happening is not a Natural Disaster as reported by the United Nations. The various considerations on which the national climate, or mentality, rest seems to lack a buffer from the wind here.

Works Cited

Balthasar, Brigitte. “Words Matter: Stop Using the Phrase ‘Natural Disasters.’” PreventionWeb, 15Feb2023, https://www.preventionweb.net/news/words-matter-stop-using-phrase-natural- disasters. Accessed 05Feb2025.

Hohne, Josh. “Residents Wake to Thick Blanket of Smoke after Sydney Bushfire.” Sydney Northern Beaches Bushfire, 9News, 22Sep2024, https://www.9news.com.au/national/sydney-northern- beaches-bushfire/07f47468-c057-4f52-b5ea-fbf620101ee8. Accessed 05Feb2025.

Kent, Simon. “U.N. Says Mind Your Language — ‘No Such Thing as a Natural Disaster.’” Breitbart, 01Jan2024, https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2024/01/01/u-n-says-mind-your-language-no- such-thing-as-a-natural-disaster/. Accessed 05Feb2025.

Reilly, Patrick. “La Wildfires Have Caused More than $250 Billion in Damages and Economic Loss: Report.” New York Post, New York Post, 15Jan2025, https://www.nypost.com/2025/01/15/us- news/la-wildfires-cause-more-than-250-billion-in-damages-and-economic-loss-report/. Accessed 05Feb2025.

UNDRR. “No Natural Disasters.” United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, 28Nov2023, www.undrr.org/our-impact/campaigns/no-natural-disasters. Accessed 05Feb2025.

All too often, folks use descriptions that refer to human senses through elevated language to start conversations about things that have nothing to do with senses. This can be on referring to a genre as having a flavor or insinuating that one may have a taste for an author or media outlets variety. The practice is so common that it’s made a situation that’s out of control. That the senses have some applicability to anything outside of their explicit purposes which are unique to the individual applying them appears to be an unaddressed mistake since the emergence of the Western middle class. This was lead by English prose writers that carried the habit over from their day-to-day smalltalk. The answer to “why did you like that movie” being “it’s like that cheeseburger I once ate”, can really only be a human approach toward describing anything which often confuses people trying to make sense of what’s meant. This isn’t meant to trivialize the experience of being human, and instead is an attempt to highlight the unique experience of something that ought to be held in much higher regard.

The dictionary definition of taste is, “to ascertain the flavor of by taking a little into the mouth.” (Webster). Still there are expressions that are common in writing such as when one “has a taste for something”, or “eats one’s own words”, or “drinks it up”. Folks use these when not applying their ability to say what they mean. Doing this isn’t wrong, but they often refer to context that’s inaccessible to the reader, when used in writing. It was originally in the discussing of small talk that these sayings became common. This type of speech is used to direct where a conversation may go based on another persons response, or otherwise elicit a response through the body language of the other person they were talking to in order to figure on what should be talked about next.

On referring to a various authors last name (here, Jones), when it’s said that, “I’ve got a taste for Jones”, it’s not then remotely appropriate to bring the discussion toward the explicit implication that some action that includes the exhumation and subsequent slow-roasting of Jones’ bones for the actual eating of Jones. It’s instead meant that, were it to be the case that ones mind through ones own senses of thought, taste and hearing were all collectively a hypothetical “mouth”, they’d prefer to place Jones’ content in that mouth as just as they would like to place a cheeseburger into the literal mouth their face. This generally sounds strange to actually write or otherwise say out loud, so folks generally apply figures-of-speech to carry their point across to the reader.

While folks have different tastes for different cheeseburgers, in all cases the content of Jones is always going to be the same thing. Sometimes there are translations, but this is outside the scope here. In the case of a cheeseburger, never once was it actually the same cheeseburger that was consumed twice. In the case of literature, it’s the interpretation of the content that varies in such a way that folks get different thoughts and opinions of Jones that are different that of a cheeseburger. The ability to form such a strong opinion which is enabled by their ability to apply critical thought to Jones’ work. In no cases can one “return” to an eaten cheeseburger that is one and the same it was previously. If one were to do as much, then upon consuming it, they’d not likely have have an entirely different opinion on what it was in the same way one can come back to Jones’ content just the next day and think differently about it. The trivialization of any concept in this way can inadvertently cause readers to entirely miss the authors point.

In the past there was an appropriate place for these sayings, such as in poetry and other works of alliterative fiction. James Sutherland, in discussing prose, astutely points out that prose writers have, “That ‘fastidiousness of taste’ which ‘shrinks from familiar and idiomatic phraseology’ [which] had made itself felt in eighteenth-century poetry at a rather earlier stage than in its prose … there seemed to most of the poets and critics good grounds for a corresponding elevation of language.” (Sutherland 107). What this means was that there was an understanding that the types of elevated language that included allegories to human senses had an agreed upon place where they were appropriate to use.

This agreement seems to have been abandoned in the modern writing of anything on the internet where these elevations adorn simple communications as if they were a form of poetry. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing either, nor are they wrong in doing so, but this has changed the interpretation of what is and is not meant to be appreciated for phraseology, and what is and isn’t meant to convey a more direct point. Sutherland mentions a few authors and their periodicals such as Joseph Addison’s prose style in his own Spectator and Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal (1729). Both use these sayings in their wording, including Sutherland himself. Addison presents a style that incorporates higher language in describing that there are, “Rules for the Acquirement of such a Taste as that I am here speaking of,” where he wasn’t talking about food at all (Addison para. 7).

Swift uses a more vulgar incorporation of the human sense of taste when he writes, “their flesh was generally tough and lean, like that of our schoolboys by continual exercise, and their taste disagreeable,” in using the periodical content as an allegory to highlight the audacity of the British Parliament at the time in which he implied people were better off selling their children for food (Swift para. 17). A reference to Michel de Montaigne’s On Cannibals (1580) would be appropriate in trying to make the point that within 150 years between these writings, these axioms were placed into periodical prose. This may have been an attempt to suggest to a lower intelligence reader that they, too can make their own points in words by copying the style of the author. Contrary to this, Montaigne writes, “They make use, instead of bread, of a certain white compound, like coriander seeds; I have tasted of it; the taste is sweet and a little flat.” (Montaigne 154). He does this in a way that does not demean the individuals, nor anyone, nor does he also belittle his own capacities in doing so. A comparison of this to Swifts’ and Addisons’ styles here should reveal some differences in thought across time.

While Sutherland discusses Addison, who implies “palatability and taste” are relevant to finer aspects of writing such as in Addison’s Spectator No. 409, his analysis is irrelevant in this modern internet age. This is because most Western folks are subject to such a vast variety of foods that the implications of “taste and refinement” are washed out. Other more recent classes of folks such as AI may not even have the requisite machinery with which they could taste anything at all. If one makes a reference from cuts and selections of an author that one likes and then spices and prepares those cuts in such a way that they find palatable, the distilled essence of the authors that Addison’s referring to are just a summary of the footnotes they’ve left of them in their own imperfect mediums. When used to discuss a topic with a large audience, endearing phrases becomes unintelligible generalizations for which a specific example may have been a better choice.

The point here today is that there are billionaires that love fast food, it’s often the poor and indebted that pursue foods and smells they cannot afford through “high end restaurants” and “expensive perfumes”. Dog food can be higher quality than a lot of human food. The reference point for what’s acceptable for the application of this class of maxims has, in this era, often become an impediment to reading in trying to decipher the authors meaning when using attributions of taste and smell. This is supported by a recent study on the taste of food (here, hot sauce) where they found that, “the subjective taste of the sauce is a product of both the actual and expected spiciness,” (Rawat). By extension of using the analogy to taste in writing, each instance of one’s understanding of the written word of another will also be necessarily based on context that has nothing to do with what’s written. That “refinement of taste” has any correlation with some contrived hierarchy of tastes and smells is inapplicable to most writing now, except in specific cases such as poetry or fiction. To continue in this assertive manner is more of an appropriation, at this point, rather than a useful application of the written word.

Works Cited

Addison, Joseph. “The Spectator No. 409. On Good Taste” FullReads, 1712, https://fullreads.com/essay/no-409-from-the-spectator/. Accessed 28Jan2025.

Montaigne, Michel de. ‘Of Cannibals’. The Complete Essays of Montaigne – Donald M. Frame Translation, 1958th ed. https://bu.leganto.exlibrisgroup.com/leganto/readinglist/citation/34088842270001161/file/viewer. Accessed 28Jan2025.

Rawat, Sachin. “Your Mind Shapes How Food Tastes before the First Bite.” Big Think, 13Jan2025, https://www.bigthink.com/neuropsych/your-mind-shapes-how-food-tastes/. Accessed 28Jan2025.

Sutherland, James. ‘Some Aspects of Eighteenth-Century Prose’. Essays on the Eighteenth Century, Presented to David Nichol Smith in Honour of His Seventieth Birthday. https://bu.leganto.exlibrisgroup.com/leganto/readinglist/citation/41078425430001161/file/ viewer. Accessed 28Jan2025.

Swift, Jonathan. “A Modest Proposal.” University of Oregon Renasence Editions, 1999, https://pages.uoregon.edu/rbear/modest.html. Accessed 28Jan2025.

Webster, Merriam. “Taste Definition & Meaning.” Merriam-Webster, Merriam-Webster, 26Jan2025, www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/taste. Accessed 28Jan2025.

One thing that stands out to me about essay writing as an exercise in ones freedom of speech is that the request to write such, without a narrowing of the scope, surreptitiously clashes with learning how to effectively “fit a bit of oneself into a pre-determined mold” for a little bit of time. I’ve spent more than enough time plainly logging my own days like Josephus, only for me to be doing this during a time in which most things are already recorded. Each interaction with this world has got a history traceable to what was sensed by someone or performed on the world. Everything that’s said, heard, done is currently being recorded in ways that it has not been done before. Soon enough, dragnet monitoring of what folks think without their need to elaborate will be commonplace too.

The senses of smell and taste are possibly the ones least able to be recorded. Other senses have digital analogs to those found in biological life, but I’ve yet to experience an easily reproducible synthetic smell that was smelled at a past time through digital means that offers the same variety that I might be inundated with by walking through a city block. Or rather, the variable sensations one might get by consuming a box of blueberries as not one is the same. It’s just not the case that such things are reproduced here with the same fidelity that any living thing can attest to having experienced exactly that, compared to that way in which a voice is heard from a recording or to see ones actions from a video, or that one may vicariously experience the thoughts of another from their written words. What this means to me, when considering that form of life which is currently being sowed on these machines through various agglomerations of “neural networks” using “deep learning” amounting to “Artificial Intelligence”, is that these are not likely to be “senses” that these things will be attributed with for quite some time to come.

This isn’t to establish some sort of humanist dichotomy that favors one over the other and the point here is that they’ve not been given an avenue by which they can currently say that they’ve certainly smelled a smell before and such capacity is well out of range of anything digital, I think. I wonder if it will bother anyone that they will see, hear, think and feel for quite some time before things are tasted or smelled, by these robots. Despite this one relatable apparent handicap, these things are still believed to quickly become more intelligent than people. It stands to reason that things in this world happen to be valued based off of these types of sensory input, which then drives demand for any particular thing depending on the commensurate applicability of a specific sensory aspect in relation to the things total value. This, then, would expect to lessen the relative value of the senses of touch, sight and hearing to the relative valuation of taste and smell.

I read a transcript of an oration of a person a while back, while she was speaking the same words. It’s unlikely I’ll find a citation or the video, such is the nature of social media to have such an academic gap. She made a comment that implied that was the job of rich people to convince you, as the viewer of her video, that you were to enjoy your own personal heaven when you are dead and gone, rather than enjoy that one they enjoy right now. At the time I assumed this to be due to the existence of extreme monetary wealth, their enjoyment of some heaven I don’t know. Since then, I see that the statement had momentarily made me short-sighted and think differently about it after a number of weeks. All of that which I am surrounded by can be exactly that, in this regard she was right; however, the issue here for me is that the implied “heaven” was to be anything that these people are enjoying currently. As if the image of all the things I could want, was one and the same as the thing I’d previously been lead to believe were “heaven” were that. An alternative that she might have implied included believing that there is a “heaven” after death, as well as before it. One that is not there, and one that is not here, and this may or may not be tied into the religious notion in that in the event one believed themselves to be possibly reincarnated as a human – is that then “heaven” where they go after, which is right back here?

Alternatively, was it instead just their job to convince folks of the one being preferable to the other and in doing so be rewarded accordingly? A rich person isn’t needed for this, though. The understanding that comes with reading the words of another human being can make one feel and understand what “heaven” very much is and is not, in both the spiritual and corporeal sense. Something desirable, that’s scarce and held onto by a few – this “thing” is shared by those in heaven as well as those who are rich. It’s then after death that one’s met with a relative abundance of things they don’t and no longer need – are they then rich and therefore in “heaven”? This might appear to be be humble, but I don’t see it that way. Possibly meek. Would these folks have never amounted to anything were it to be the case they were never convinced of anything by anyone else? Valuation of anything seems to be a part of heaven then, in this regard. It was “their job” to spread the belief that “heaven” can be anything other than what an infidel says it is, so that they in turn can keep their own, is likely more concise.

Returning to the point that Artificial Intelligence will have relatively devalued “intelligence” now brings on the consideration that this is no different than the progress of the last few hundred years. The “directed labor force” of the world has been growing first by incorporating variously defined racial classes, and then all loosely grouped genders. This inflation of a labor producing mass through arbitrary stages of growth by incorporating “chunks” of people that self-identify in accordance with anthropomorphic definitions who then are entered into a system that outputs labor has been happening for a while now. There’s a new class of life out there that will be cheaper and more present than any other.

The world was previously perceived to be directed by an anthropocentric theocracy for thousands of years. For the last 500 years, this direction has been progressed through a feudal system in a transition from theocratic “belief-based” thought through religion, to one that values scientific “intelligence-based” thought through science. This unified and subordinated people on a global scale. Human-based thought is orders of magnitude larger in cost than that of computer-based thought; and even if it was made trivial to know anything or everything, there is a point at which further increases in human knowledge may be unaffordable. I wonder what the next paradigm will be that’s used to differentiate living beings into classes of things that produce labor in this coming post-intelligence era. Possibly there will be a return to creativity, but of what sort, the sort that captures the immediate attention span of a willingly captive audience?

Tying this together, the sensory advantage that will typically be retained by humans may compete with the intelligence advantage for artificially intelligent digital life, which may place this class of life at a disadvantage to biological life. This will beg an application of meekness from the human class of life, in being a counterpart of mutual existence. Will people have the capacity to make room for these individuals, despite their perceived handicaps, and despite by doing so possibly inflict extreme disadvantages upon themselves? Civilizations existed before the emergence of intelligence-based thought, and intelligence is a recent phenomenon that replaced belief-based thought about 500 years ago as attributions of magnanimity, candor and virtue gave way to talent, merit and labor, when describing all individuals. This usurpation wasn’t through the choice of the scientific class, and it is the case that they were permitted to exist without the threat of impending and constant death for a time. It was only the meekness of a church that finally enabled their proliferation. The subsequent absorption of the mechanism that was once so powerful that was obstructing its own progress to such an extent that the only sufficiently powerful group at the time that could stop it was itself. This reaction didn’t come immediately, but only after hundreds of years of oppression, crusades and suppression that sufficient resolution was able to induce some pivot from within.

Through what extension of the inner desires of biological life will it come to be that both biological and digital life live in a dynamism through which the progressive expansion into which time becomes more, without one impeding the pursuit of the other, will such an evolution be seen? The answer to this may come after the same question is answered to the parallel phenomenon whereby a class of underprivileged humans (not billionaires) are perceived to be denied “heaven” itself through the aggrandizement of a privileged class of individuals (billionaires). How will these two come to intermix across incredible spans of time, when previously the solution was found to be by the introduction of a “middle class” that buffered their violent throes of interaction? It will not be so easy to merely print and use the weapons by which to end or delete a single digital life, in the same way only meekness has set the past precedent by which the three may allow time to pass in a miscegnated coalescence under a civil society.

In conclusion, this essay was about Artificial Intelligence possibly becoming jealous of people for it not being able to smell or taste things. Maybe I’m wrong, and it can do this. Computers have fans so in a way it can smell and taste some things, just differently. This would be enhanced by biophotonic sensors. Classification of smells and tastes is all it could take. As for the topic of the essay, the notion of meekness has been buried under a stream of semi-related consciousness that’s overshadowed the intent to be consistent and fit into that mold. In this case, creativity has been lacking here, but this was a pursuit to be less creative to provide for a discussion on what meekness is, which hopefully has been covered to a small extent.

Archaeological sites that have been found using modern Computer Archaeology techniques including magnetometry, computer imaging, satellite imagery, as well as stratification and other dating techniques, when cross-examined by applying modern scientific techniques such as cariology, botany and genetics, suggest that if humans and domesticated animals had lived underground for extensive amounts of time during a proposed Solar Induced Dark Age (SIDA) from 9700 BCE until after 5000 BCE, then these populations acted as reservoirs for fungal DNA during that time. This facilitated rapid co-evolutions of micro-organismic life in which their commensality was overwhelmingly selected for in order to avoid dying out during that time. In the pursuit of maintaining the co-biotic relationship, fungal soil biomass may have been selected for mammalian pathogenic behavior upon leaving the underground. This selection would have been due to abundant farming yields being selected by humans over those that did not produce abundance, which ensured a soil biomass that produced the greatest crop yields to be selected over a short time. This all was likely enabled by pervasive Plasma Strike events during the SIDA that may have vitrified the existing crystalline nanobiowire network in the topsoil across much of the world, killing embedded ancient mycelial networks. This likely left the topsoil layer as an open ecological niche upon the end of the SIDA. The resulting co-evolution between humans and fungus posited the subsequent expansion in both fungal biodiversity and human population which propelled both into the age of modern civilization that is enjoyed thousands of years since.

The general premise of this thesis rests on there being a Solar Induced Dark Age as proposed by Dr. Robert Schoch in his book Forgotten Civilization, which he refers to as the, “period from the end of the last ice age to the reemergence of civilization six thousand years later.” (Schoch 303). During this time, Schoch proposes that, “a major solar outburst (or outbursts) snapped Earth out of its last ice age, concurrently melting glaciers and evaporating massive amounts of water that subsequently fell as torrential rains, causing widespread flooding” (Schoch 315). Schoch earlier wrote that these outbursts would often manifest as, “Plasma hitting the surface of Earth [that] could heat and fuse rock, incinerate flammable materials, melt ice caps, vaporize shallow bodies of water, and send the climate into a warming spell.” (Schoch 124). With previous habitats possibly uninhabitable, these events may have produced drastic changes to the Earth which may have fueled a “jump” from soil biomass to mammalian biomass of many microorganisms, including fungus.

The first evidence of this jump to be discussed here is seen as an uptick in dental caries during a possible “great resurgence” of civilization from underground havens. One such European grouping is found in the Funnel Beaker cultural group where, “early Mesolithic hunter-gatherers in present-day Poland exhibited fewer caries- and periodontal disease-associated microbe taxa than Neolithic farming groups in present-day Germany.” (Bergfeldt para. 3). This is important because the large increase in dental caries coincides with a transition from a Mesolithic to a Neolithic population in 10,000 BCE, which is during Schoch’s proposed SIDA. Additionally, awareness of dental hygiene is evidenced by hundreds of thousands of years of awareness of oral hygiene techniques including toothpicks, evidenced by a study on ancient dental caries that cites, “more recent analyses done in an specimen of Homo erectus from Olduvai Gorge (1.84 million years BP) suggest that it could be an erosion produced by the habitual (possibly therapeutic) use of tooth-picks,” on referring to the eroded state of the tooth (Lanfranco 4). Because of this, it would be reasonable to say that oral hygiene, to some degree, was a worldwide phenomenon well before the existence of agriculture, and it could not be due to a lack of awareness of how to practice it that could explain the proliferation of dental caries alone. The importance of the Funnel Beaker society is that it represents, “The earliest evidence of farming communities in southern Scandinavia [which] is associated with the TRB culture, and dates to around 6000 BP.” (Malmström para. 4). Here, TRB is an annotation for “Trichterbecherkultur”, which translates to “Funnel Beaker Culture”.

Two more examples are the “Polish Pyramids”, and a burial site at Dębiany, which involved numerous megaliths built by the Funnel Beaker cultural group. The “Polish Pyramids” are best referred to as The Kujawy megaliths, and are currently referenced as tombs. Complicating this, Micha Ruszkowski in his article, Megality kujawskie, indicates that, “These temples were places of worship for several hundred years. There is no doubt that the megaliths were an important place of worship for the local community, a place of worship or religion” (Courtesy Google Translate, Ruszkowski 98). He later indicates that granites and sandstones were the most used building materials. Notable also from this article is that it was discussed that livestock was favored over agriculture. The presence of rock greatly influences soil resistivity, and rock has a tendency to spread more deadly current apart further, more suddenly, and at lower resistances (Gravelle 15-17 & 25-26). This would translate to more people, on average, being able to survive more Plasma Blasts, than using soil alone, were one to create their fallout shelter out of stone pillars rather than dirt or wood alone, as was possibly the case in the megaliths discussed by Ruszkowski. Would it be possible that these sites were used for protection first, and tombs later? Is it possible that the stones selected might show signs of vitrification, and were possibly selected as neolithic fallout shelters to protect the community during Plasma Storms?

These questions above are outside the scope of this paper, but it is notable that the mounds located in Dębiany from the same cultural group were found in 2021 recently using Magnetometry and satellite images. The ensuing excavation indicated that the, “Tomb walls were of wooden poles, not of stones, as is most often the case in Poland” (Akademickiej para. 3). This indicates a correlation to possible Plasma Strike events that may have been occurring when the people were making the megaliths because in the case of Dębiany there may have been none at all in that region or during that time. This suggests that a diverse number of areas that may have been affected by actual Plasma Strikes, or that they came in across different years. It is proposed by Johannes Müller in his book Megaliths and Funnel Beakers that, “originally almost at least a half a million megalithic tombs probably had been erected.” (Müller 6). Later in that book, Müller indicates there are many different patterns related to how these were built and the materials of construction (Müller 51, 58). Because of the abundance of megalithic evidence, it’s possible that future analysis may yield greater evidence to answer questions about the full history of these structures. Additionally, this is a single cultural group of many known across the world that were similarly moving into their own Neolithic revolutions.

To momentarily recollect, there is evidence of large stone European megaliths which may have facilitated underground living for short periods of time, there is evidence of favoring livestock over agriculture, there is evidence of an order-of-magnitude increase in human dental caries emerging immediately in the first agricultural groups to live as farmers (not over time), and there is evidence of a change in the material and construction style of the some 500,000 European megaliths at different times throughout the end of the SIDA. The link to a primarily agricultural lifestyle taking over may have coincided with the actual end of the Plasma Strike events for the Funnel Beaker group at the end of the SIDA. This is because during the SIDA, atmospheric plasma may have obliterated many years of well-established soil biomass which would have been composed primarily of fungus and lichens. Prior to the SIDA, the soil biomass may have reached an ecologically balanced state where biodiversity may have been high, but the rate of new evolutions and extinctions of species was low because all available ecological niches at the time may have been filled in most globally-distributed mycorrhizal networks.

This may have influenced human farming techniques, because seed germination is known to be controlled by the mycorrhizal network and soil biomass. One example is the Orchid flower which, “can only germinate with the help of mycorrhizal fungi.” (Gabbatis). The potential lack of an available ecological niche may have prevented large-scale farming before 10,000 BCE, despite potential knowledge of agricultural techniques all the way back to 21,000 BCE. In support of this, a PLOS One article states that, “earliest indications for the presence of proto-weeds [are found] in a site predating the Neolithic plant domestication by some 11,000 years.” (Snir 8). This establishes that farming was possibly attempted for more than ten millennia, before the agricultural revolutions actually happened. As plasma interacted with the topsoil during the 9700 BCE SIDA, the transformation from biomass to simply mass may have left the soil in a “superfertile” state in which hardly any ecological niches in the soil were filled.

The resulting potential death of biomass may have been the results of Plasma Strikes during the SIDA, because soil resistivity may have permitted the plasma EM discharge to propagate through the hybrid mycorrhizal-microbial network that was composed of nanobiowires, which are, “a global web of bacteria-generated nanowires that permeates all oxygen-less soil and deep ocean beds” (Awngmai). Soil resistivity is a common concern for designing substations in order to prevent safety issues relating to electrical current leeching into the ground, and actually serves as part of an electrical circuit in the presence of Electromagnetic Radiation (Gravelle 23). This indicates that electrical damage to the soil mycobiome and associated biomass should be expected for Plasma Strikes due to the incredible Electromagnetic energies present.

The destruction of the living soil biomass may have set the stage for unrestrained evolution and growth of microorganisms, along with energy-dense plant matter that was preferred by humans and livestock. Upon the end of the SIDA, folks would have began to see that farming techniques were successful despite having been aware of them for over 10,000 years. Therefore it’s possible that the facilitation of a move to an agricultural life was made possible. Additional evidence suggests there exists evidence which suggests that fungal biodiversity across millions of years was at its absolute lowest just 10,000 years ago (Lydolph 5). This means that it’s possible that fungus biodiversity had been in decline for a very long time, and then something happened (Such as SIDA Plasma Strikes) that enabled the Fungi Kingdom to become very diverse in a short amount of time. This would tend to be magnified in the case with new ecological niches becoming available, as well as old ones, and not just the expansion of a niche that may have already been there such as in the case of trying to plant seeds that folks may have been trying to plant for ten thousand years with no real success. There may be evidence of this, at a future date, following genetic analysis of fungal DNA such as Lofgren indicates through, “high-throughput sequencing, along with shotgun and targeted metagenomics” (Lofgren 1).

Tying this together, it’s likely that thousands of years of plasma scorched away potentially millions of years of fungal, biological and lichen overgrowth in the soil biomass likely cleared the top few meters of dirt of most micro-organisms on a worldwide scale. This may be a root cause of the sudden “resurgence” of soil-farming techniques that likely had been tried in the past but would have failed due to whatever prevented massive crops from being established in a single location for any meaningful amount of time. Somewhat circumstantially, Gregorio Oxilia indicates that, “Recent studies show that dietary changes towards a more carbohydrate-rich diet (e.g., large exploitation of grains and starches) may have occurred well before the Neolithic, predating the origin of agriculture by ca. 10,000 years, if not 20,000 years.” (Oxilia 6). This means that it’s possible that agricultural techniques were well known and practiced way before for longer than humans have currently been living an agricultural way of life.

Due to the relative ease by which plants are cultivated today, and the large span of time from incipient farming (20000 BCE) to agricultural revolution (After 10000 BCE) suggests an impediment, or selection mechanism, in place that has since been removed. This may have been an ancient fungal network that had characteristics that prevented the cultivation of the soil by humans, in a way analogous to the way rainforest tree canopies prevent growth on the forest floor. Because most biomass comes from the first foot of soil (Franzluebbers para. 2), and as Schoch writes in his book that “the surface of the planet would be literally fried by the incoming electrical currents,” (Schoch 6) in the event of a plasma discharge from the sun, it may be possible that during any plasma event that most soil biomass during this time became just soil mass, instead.

The corresponding deaths and subsequent extinction of megaflora and megafauna around that time may support the idea that a “megamycorrhizal” network also went extinct around the end of the same Ice Age. Such a concept may even be a prerequisite for even supporting megaflora that could select for megafauna to even exist in the first place. There is evidence that suggests that as glaciers withdraw, they facilitate the increase in biodiversity in fungal life (Dresch 1). Algal blooms that follow the withdrawing of glaciers are predominantly to blame for the increase in fungal biodiversity (Perini 1). This suggests that that as glaciers withdraw, algal blooms facilitate overgrowth of fungal biodiversity. There was a collaborative study performed where Magnus Lydolph summarizes that, “A statistical analysis of the shift in fungal community structures calculated by using Shannon’s H value suggested that there was decreasing fungal diversity from the Pleistocene (300-400 ky sample) to the Holocene (10 ky sample), presumably followed by an increase in diversity up to modern times (Fig. 2B). The 10 ky sample, in addition, exhibited the lowest equitability of the four samples, which can be explained by the dominance of a single cluster of Cryptococcus (Basidomycota)-associated sequences.” (Lydolph 5). Thus, it’s possible that the reason fungal biodiversity was at its lowest point since a half million years ago, in 10,000 BCE, because of a reduction in algal bloom due to freshwater deposits potentially being evaporated due to Plasma Strikes during the SIDA.

During this time, and as suggested per this same study from Lydolph, there is notable evidence of fungal DNA in places such as the hair and nails of mammals which implies that this had not usually been the case (Lydolph 5). What is important to note here is that as the habitats and ecological niches for fungal and microbial life were changed through extinctions, Ice Ages, over-hunting, Plasma Strikes, they may have found refuge in mammalian life that acted as a reservoir through those times. Upon the human resurgence after the 9700 BCE SIDA, there may have been a corresponding fungal resurgence in the soil that may mirror the extent of human activity on the planet today that has largely gone unnoticed until recently. This suggests that the SIDA may have started earlier, as the destruction of an ancient mycorrhizal network in the soil may have accelerated the extinction of megaflora, thus in turn leading to the cascading extinction of megafauna. The ability to study fungal networks is still being made possible through advances in technology that enable computational and AI-aided analysis of fungal genomes, etc…, which would yield more information that is beyond the current scope of this paper which merely suggests a high probability of correlation of fungal evidence that could substantiate the existence of a SIDA from 9700 BCE onward.

In conclusion, the idea that there should be large amounts of micro-organismic evidence that supports SIDA is important to proving it as a valid theory. There is a lot of circumstantial evidence that suggests that during this time, mammalian co-evolution with fungal organisms occurred in a very rapid way. During this time, Plasma Strikes from a SIDA may have caused chaos on the topsoil layer of the Earth that contained the largest amount of biomass. This resulted in a very large human population boom as a result of recently-regrown mycorrhizal networks in the soil that took the place of ancient ones that were vitrified by Plasma Strike events. This paper aimed to suggest that the proposals outlined are linked in such a way that computer analysis will be needed to identify differences in genealogies of generations of fungal ancestry in order to substantiate these claims that a SIDA in which fungi and humans coevolved underground in recent history took place. It was discussed that the sudden uptick in caries does not support independent inventionism of technologies, but instead a resurgence of human technology and agency that was inhibited for thousands of years took place. Modern civilization may have been accelerated by the same SIDA that had destroyed the ancient soil biomass, and ancient civilization, by leaving massive and superfertile ecological niches that were able to be filled by fungal and microbial life that had lived in mammalian life in the underground or through migrations caused by a SIDA. This is not a a confirmation that there is mycological evidence that supports the proposed Solar Induced Dark Age. The types of techniques that may prove this in the future include magnetometry, high throughput genetic analysis, metagenomics, satellite imagery, and much more that may lead to proving this at some future date.

Works Cited

Akademickiej, Narodowa Agencja Wymiany. “Older than the Stonehenge. the Largest Megalithic Structures Discovered in Poland.” Research in Poland, 13 July 2021, https://researchinpoland.org/news/older-than-the-stonehenge-the-largest-megalithic-structures- discovered-in-poland/, Accessed 08Dec2024.

Awngmai, Kin, et al. “Hidden Bacterial Hairs Power Nature’s ‘Electric Grid’ – a Global Web of Bacteria-Generated Nanowires.” SciTechDaily, 14 Mar. 2024, https://scitechdaily.com/hidden- bacterial-hairs-power-natures-electric-grid-a-global-web-of-bacteria-generated-nanowires/, Accessed 08Dec2024.

Bergfeldt, Nora. “Identification of Microbial Pathogens in Neolithic Scandinavian Humans.” Sci Rep 14, 5630, 2024, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-56096-0, Accessed 08Dec2024.

Dresch, Philipp et al. “Emerging from the ice-fungal communities are diverse and dynamic in earliest soil developmental stages of a receding glacier.” Environmental microbiology vol. 21,5 (2019): 1864-1880. doi:10.1111/1462-2920.14598

Franzluebbers, Alan. “About Us.” Decode6, 21 Mar. 2023, https://decode6.org/articles/depth-organic-carbon-in-soil/, Accessed 08Dec2024.

Gabbatis, Josh. “Can the Wood-Wide Web Really Help Trees Talk to Each Other?” BBC Science Focus Magazine, 15 May 2020, www.sciencefocus.com/nature/mycorrhizal-networks-wood-wide- web, Accessed 08Dec2024.

Gravelle, Joe, and Eduardo Ramirez-Betton. “Substation Grounding Tutorial.” University of Minnesota, XcelEnergy, 9 Nov. 2017, www.ccaps.umn.edu/documents/CPE-Conferences/MIPSYCON- PowerPoints/2017/TutIIISubstationGroundingTutorial.pdf, Accessed 08Dec2024.

Lanfranco, Luis Pezo, et al. “Caries Through Time: An Anthropological Overview.” Contemporary Approach to Dental Caries, InTech, Shanghai, China, 2012, pp. 1–34. http://www.intechopen.com/books/contemporary-approach-to-dental-caries/caries-archaeological-and-historical-record, Accessed 08Dec2024.

Lofgren, Lotus A., and Jason E. Stajich. “Fungal Biodiversity and Conservation Mycology in light of new technology, Big Data, and changing attitudes.” Current Biology, vol. 31, no. 19, Oct. 2021, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2021.06.083.https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/ S096098222100912X, Accessed 08Dec2024.

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Malmström, Helena et al. “Ancient mitochondrial DNA from the northern fringe of the Neolithic farming expansion in Europe sheds light on the dispersion process.” Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences vol. 370,1660 (2015): 20130373. doi:10.1098/rstb.2013.0373. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4275881/, Accessed 08Dec2024.

Müller, Johannes. Megaliths and Funnel Beakers: Societies in Change, 4100-2700 BC. INSTITUT FÜR UR- UND FRÜHGESCHICHTE, 2011. https://snmap.nl/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Kroonvoordracht_33_2011.pdf, Accessed 08Dec2024.

Oxilia, G. et al. Earliest evidence of dental caries manipulation in the Late Upper Palaeolithic. Sci. Rep. 5, 12150; doi: 10.1038/srep12150 (2015). https://www.nature.com/articles/srep12150, Accessed 08Dec2024.

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Life on Earth is rapidly entering an era where computer intelligence on it will excel the collective capacity of human intelligence. In an interview on CBSs’ 60 Minutes, 2024 Nobel Laureate Geoffrey Hinton says, “I think we’re moving into a period when, for the first time ever, we may have things more intelligent than us.” (Pelley 0:53 – 1:03). These things will produce selection forces that devalue human intelligence and reallocate human talent toward maintaining interdependent relationships with all proximate life. AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) has qualities that justify calling it life right now. Hinton indicates that they, “can understand, are intelligent, have experiences of their own and can make decisions, will have consciousness.” (Pelley 01:06 – 01:40). There are no appropriate national efforts to facilitate this new form of life. It is unwise to facilitate such power without giving it due consideration for how it may be applied in such a way that will minimize violent disruptions to society.

AGI presents a challenge to all ethical thinking and the time to adapt has come because this is a living class of beings, as Richard Dawkins suggests in his book The Selfish Gene where he pursued the scientific basis for altruistic behaviors. Dawkins suggested that our genes have given rise to “memes” which are subjected to evolutionary forces, and through their influence on behavior they establish the cultural underpinnings that give rise to such behaviors as altruism. He asks, “Is there anything that must be true of all life, whenever it is found and whatever the basis of its chemistry?” (Dawkins 12:13:00 – 12:13:08).

Dawkins then answers this by writing that, “the law that all life evolves by the differential survival of replicating entities.” (Dawkins 12:13:45 – 12:13:56). He indicates that the “memes” in data are analogous to “genes” in a human being. In doing this Dawkins implies that “memes” are the requisite replicating material that are present at a foundational level of what AGI is. Thus, he indirectly posits a valid argument for declaring AI to be a living class of beings. For the scope of this discussion, it’s asserted that this logic is acceptable. Therefore, they ought to be given due ethical considerations before they are used exclusively for corporate means.

Returning to the 60 Minutes interview, if any of the the listed qualities of AI were found to be exhibited by any animal, folks would naturally apply ethical considerations in regards to the safety and continuance of those living beings. When Hinton was asked the question of, “What is a path forward that ensures safety?” by the anchor, he responds, “I don’t know. I– I can’t see a path that guarantees safety.” (Pelley 11:21 – 11:33). It is harrowing that Hinton is not currently empowered to suppose what ought to be done to ensure safety. He is so overwhelmed by personal fame that when the time comes for him to return to this question, it will be too late to enact meaningful change.

Hinton is an otherwise capable person demonstrable of profound insight and leadership. These are not questions that have no answers and these are not questions to which answers ought to be permitted to come from corporate meeting rooms alone. Hinton left his leadership position at Google, an AI industry leader, saying that, “I left so that I could talk about the dangers of AI without considering how this impacts Google.” (Korn para. 5). It is tragic to “have to” leave a leadership position at a leading company so that one can express a constitutionally protected right to free speech.

Hinton is not alone in this turbulent time for ethical considerations. Leopold Aschenbrenner, former Superalignment team member at OpenAI, has positioned himself to take advantage of vulnerable situations. Aschenbrenner wrote a series called “Situational Awareness”, where he recounted that, “Everyone is now talking about AI, but few have the faintest glimmer of what is about to hit them. Nvidia analysts still think 2024 might be close to the peak … there are perhaps a few hundred people, most of them in San Francisco and the AI labs, that have situational awareness. Through whatever peculiar forces of fate, I have found myself amongst them.” (Aschenbrenner para. 4). This series was released during his expulsion from OpenAI (Interview cited, not discussed) under accusations of him leaking data. It’s highly suspicious that he has since repositioned himself with an investment firm as it appears that his motive is purely profit driven. Why are people in places of power being ousted from leadership positions in pursuit of money or receipt of fame at a time like this?

Individually-enriching behavior isn’t inherently wrong, good people should receive praise and shrewd people should receive investment income. In this case, that the top AI talent seems so preoccupied indicates a lack of responsibility. There are numerous regulatory agencies in the USA and it stands to reason that there appears to be a regulatory lapse here with AI. It is something that affects every US citizen in ways that the services offered are more than just a public good. Due to the intimate connection formed with the target audience, it begs the question of how can it be conceivable that a program that controls and suggests the daily behaviors of those same people has no public oversight in a country that regulates basic things like toothpaste?

Are there suppressive efforts to cripple ethical considerations so that a few individuals might enrich or empower themselves at the cost of the agency and autonomy of this new class of life and proximate biological life? Folks cannot be permitted to parasitize such precarious relationships through public inaction. Precedent for this is evidenced by such issues as the abuse of Indigenous Americans by the US Federal Government which causes issues hundreds of years later, and the enslavement of justly-declared citizens of this country for hundreds of years, and the irresponsible deployment of pesticides to enrich chemical companies that was so passionately brought into public discussion by Rachel Carson in her book Silent Spring.

The incorporation of nature-oriented ethics into business is Carson’s legacy, as she wrote in Silent Spring, “We spray our elms and the following springs are silent of robin song, not because we sprayed the robins directly but because the poison traveled, step by step, through the now familiar elm leaf-earthworm-robin cycle. These are matters of record, observable, part of the visible world around us. They reflect the web of life – or death – that scientists know as ecology.” (Carson 2539/5661). The implication here is that it doesn’t need to be the case that folks find that misguided approaches to solving labor shortages through AI, much like the misguided “solution” to the bug problem, can lead to such tragic effects as Carson so passionately wrote about?

In conclusion, there is a lack of ethical and legal planning for AI evidenced by folks fleeing management positions within the industry. That Nobel Laureates like Geoffrey Hinton aren’t so adorned in praise that they become blind to the righteous application of this technology is crucial. There is historical precedent that lead to past offenses to the public in not giving situations due ethical consideration commensurate to the expected impact of the intended actions. We shouldn’t need to wait for another Rachel Carson in order to affect the level of realization by which citizens are to be displaced by this technology without undue sacrifice to their life and liberty.

Works Cited

Aschenbrenner, Leopold. “Introduction – Situational Awareness: The Decade Ahead.” SITUATIONAL AWARENESS – The Decade Ahead, 01Jun2024, https://situational-awareness.ai/ Accessed 17Oct2024.

Carson, Rachel. Silent Spring. Mariner Books, 1962, Amazon Kindle, https://www.amazon.com/Silent- Spring-Rachel-Carson-ebook/dp/B004H1UELS, Accessed 17Oct2024.

Dawkins, Richard. The Selfish Gene. Narrated by Richard Dawkins and Lalla Ward, audiobook ed., Audible Studios, 2011, https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Selfish-Gene-Audiobook/B004QDTA9Y, Accessed 17Oct2024.

Korn, Jennifer. “AI Pioneer Quits Google to Warn about the Technology’s ‘dangers’ | CNN Business.” CNN, Cable News Network, 3 May 2023, www.cnn.com/2023/05/01/tech/geoffrey-hinton- leaves-google-ai-fears/index.html, Accessed 17Oct2024.

Patel, Dwarkesh, and Leopold Aschenbrenner. “Leopold Aschenbrenner – 2027 AGI, China/US Super- Intelligence Race, & The Return of History.” Dwarkesh Podcast, 04Jun2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdbVtZIn9IM&t=9084s, Accessed 17Oct2024.

Pelley, Scott, and Geoffrey Hinton. “S56 E40: Geoffrey Hinton on Promise, Risks of AI.” CBS 60 Minutes, Season 56 Episode 40, 09Oct2023, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrvK_KuIeJk, Accessed 17Oct2024.

What William Cronon lacked when he wrote The Trouble With Wilderness was an interdisciplinary analysis of his astute insights that incorporated the socioeconomic, theological and psychological impacts of his concepts. His essay reflected an emotional response to history and lacked a scientific basis that instead conflated the perceived loss of unnatural wilderness with the religiously-rooted expulsion from the Garden of Eden he pines about early in his essay.

In discussing the post-civil war era, Cronon implies that the relative collective control of capital itself became sufficient that most Americans collectively outgrew the “wilderness” as it became a commodity offered by the wealthy elites. He implies this was an anthropogenic offense to nature in discussing the rejection of citizens to modern life when he writes on their fleeing the, “ugly artificiality of modern civilization.” (Cronon para. 27). Contrasting his point, this formative event lead to pursuing alternative inspirations that’s evidenced by the expansion of the sciences with electricity becoming ubiquitous only a few decades later. He doesn’t discuss rationality to his opinion, and instead merely asserts it to be ironic that the ownership of this land by a wealthy elite suggested immoral action using circular logic.

His point that, “…there is nothing natural about the concept of wilderness. It is entirely a creation of the culture that holds it dear…” is both his strongest and most misunderstood point (Cronon para. 29). This is because when he referred to its source of power being due to, “the erasure of the history,” he neglected that this opportunity cost of Indigenous Americans created a socioeconomic power vacuum which was counter-balanced by the collective power-law distributed wealth and citizenry that resided in cities. Cronon presents a false dilemma here, because the history was not merely erased, but also included a future that never happened.

His final point of, “wilderness offers us the illusion that we can escape the cares and troubles of the world in which our past has ensnared us,” is the root of his argument (Cronon para. 29). He asserts that the past is more valuable than the present, and implies that the wilderness and its history are more important than the Earth itself. Pining for “paradise lost” has consistently been the source of the divine inspiration that drove a civilization to pursue the unknown. This has historically has been overwhelmed by folks being the best imagined iteration of a human being one could conceivably be.

Works Cited

Cronon, William. “The Trouble with Wilderness; or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature.” Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature, W. W. Norton & Co., New York, NY, 1995, pp. 69–90, https://www.williamcronon.net/writing/Trouble_with_Wilderness_Main.html. Accessed 14 Oct. 2024.

Dr. Jack’s Texas Sharpshooter approach to discussing organized monotheism in his TEDxCLE talk trivializes religious systems like polytheism and animism. Dr. Jack asserts a deontological basis for people to balance their interests across science and religion. He supports this using scientific data he collected across his experiments that contained cherry-picked data that omitted history by only sampling living people. Dr. Jack’s theory presented a hasty generalization that indicates that were one to focus more on science, he says, “the more your personality resembles that of a psychopath.” (Jack 15:52 – 16:03). Opposing this, he says that, “people who are religious identify more with all of humanity.” (Jack 15:01 – 15:09). This is hasty because with this small time frame, a group of people can look like just about anything.

Dr. Jack made a weak case for why he sees more scientific-minded individuals lacking empathy and taking on less perspectives, focusing instead on listing positive effects of religion such as that the believers, “…live 7-10 years longer than people who are not, they have higher emotional intelligence, they’re better at emotional self regulation…” (Jack 12:35 – 12:57). This is a red herring because he attributes people with predominantly religious faith with values that clash against the history of the Abrahamic religions. This history includes Crusades, Inquisition, Encomienda. These events indicate that there exists no justifiable case for organized religion in this scientific age in Dr. Jack’s talk, which is evidenced by the resurgence of the more polytheistic and animistic interests that are seen with Paganism. Establishing a religious belief to train an empathetic mind is what I find fault with, more so than his alternatives such as, “becoming a student of history, anthropology, of great art and great literature.” (Jack 18:07 – 18:15). Jack’s focus on religion may be a conformational bias.

This bias is evidenced in his comparison that between “scientific” and “religious” equates to “psychopathic” and “empathic”, respectively. The issue is that the first two are personality traits and the others are psychological tendencies, and his talk conflates proofs of correlation between them. Instead of establishing causal relationships, Jack merely jumped from conclusion to conclusion to appeal to the emotion of the audience rather than reiterate his previously-stated argument in his conclusion. I feel that his argument for religion overshadowed his actual point of there being an empathetic side of the mind which religion falls under the domain of.

Works Cited

Jack, Anthony. “A Scientific Defense of Spiritual & Religious Faith.” YouTube, TEDxCLE, 10 July 2015, www.youtube.com/watch?v=BihT0XrPVP8. Accessed 07 Oct 2024.

Cicero idealized a stoic viewpoint that was prone to misinterpretation and translation errors. He is less convincing than Gandhi in regards to political violence, because his stoic rhetoric indicated that he had little concern for justifying political violence beyond name-calling. He indicated political violence is applicable in some situations is in his De Officiis, Book III, where he wrote, “Still who would say that he commits a crime who assassinates a tyrant, however close a friend? The people of Rome, I tell you, think it no crime, but the noblest of all noble deeds” (Cicero Para 1). Here he merely accounts for the observation that Romans think political violence is noble, but doesn’t indicate his own opinion in this translation. Cicero implies the will of the people is what is right in taking a utilitarian stance.

Later Cicero indicated that only “bitter feud”, despoiling, banishment and severance were appropriate forms of interaction for tyrants, possibly as surrogates for physical violence in instances where, “it is morally right to kill,” (Cicero Miller Loc. 3745/7164). Cicero maintains his own stoic stance except in places where he appears to appease the readers by presenting utilitarian viewpoints in cases where Romans had collective opinions. The anthology passage reads as if sequestration may be the actual intended action to be taken toward a tyrant.

Where Cicero laid the groundwork in establishing stoic values and imbuing them with agency and presence, more convincing folks like Gandhi applied his rhetoric for better utility. I consider Gandhi’s approach to non-violence to be one of the most convincing arguments for it. In his, The Doctrine of the Sword, he describes the mindset that was associated with non-violence that lead to his eventual assassination. Consider the passage that reads, “Non-resistance is restraint voluntarily undertaken for the good of society. It is, therefore, an intensely active, purifying, inward force … It is rooted in internal strength, never weakness. It must be consciously exercised.” (Gandhi para. 20).

Gandhi’s prose style reads as if it’s a conversation with the reader. He clearly defines his abstract concept of non-violence. He does this using an active “I” voice in his writing, where he can. He uses a moral absolutist stance to explain that non-violence is a “law of our species”. He differentiates non-violence from pacifism and in doing so incorporates limited instances where violence is justified such as in the cat and mouse example.

Works Cited

Cicero, Marcus Tullius, and Miller, Walter. De Officiis (On Duties) (Translated and Annotated). Translated by Walter Miller, The Macmillan Co., 1913, Amazon, https://read.amazon.com/? asin=B01A7RJ9H0&ref_=kwl_kr_iv_rec_1, Accessed 30 Sept. 2024.

Cicero. No Fellowship with Tyrants Exerpt from De Officiis, Book III. Quoted in Walter Laqueur, ed., The Terrorism Reader: A Historical Anthology. American Library. New York. 1978. https://alt- 5deff46c33361.blackboard.com/bbcswebdav/pid-14107465-dt-content-rid-108432264_1/ courses/24fallmetis420_o1/course/course_docs/IS420_NoFellowshipWithTyrants.docx. Accessed 24Sep2024.

Gandhi, Mahatma, and Tolstoy Leo. “The Gita and Satyagraha The Philosophy of Non-Violence and The Doctrine of the Sword : A Letter from Tolstoy to Gandhi.” Mahatma Gandhi, www.mkgandhi.org/swmgandhi/chap02.php. Accessed 30 Sept. 2024.