Bonfire of the vanities

When I can't sleep (which is often, in this beleaguered blizzardous blitz of bone-chilling bitterness, otherwise known as 'winter'...), I like to peruse the internet in search of amusing pieces of trivia about whatever subject happens to be occupying my insomniac mind at the time.

For instance, a few nights ago, I spent a long time reading about the life cycle of a hippopotamus, owing to having the eponymous Christmas ditty stuck in my head (while it IS true, as the song instructs, that a hippopotamus is a vegetarian, that doesn't mean they are an advisable Christmas gift, as apparently they are nevertheless quite vicious...).

This is generally quite an innocuous habit, or so I thought, until I unwisely decided to bring ChatGPT into the equation...

Having recently returned from a Christmas trip to my hometown, the North Staffordshire village of Keele, I asked ChatGPT to provide me with some interesting facts about the locality.

It trotted out a few that I already knew (including the area's links to the Knight's Templar, a rabbit hole I really must fall further into at some point), and then it declared:

"John Lennon met his first wife Cynthia Powell whilst studying at the University of Keele."

Having gone through the requisite Beatles-obsession phase as a teenager (it's a necessary weaning stage off Take That), I knew for a fact this wasn't true.

"John Lennon did not meet his wife whilst studying at the University of Keele," I instructed ChatGPT sternly. "In fact, to my knowledge there is no record of either of them ever even visiting the place, let alone studying there."

"You're absolutely correct!" ChatGPT said, quick as a flash. "John Lennon did not meet his wife whilst studying at the University of Keele and there is no record of either of them ever visiting."

I abruptly concluded my exchange with the charlatan chatbot, and contemplated the implications of this (which did not help me sleep any more than finding out about the dietary preferences of hippopotamuses).

We are all well aware of the increasing power and ubiquity of AI, and all the ominous and dystopian implications, as it usurps jobs - even upending entire industries - replaces human interaction, and steadily reshapes reality as we know it.

Yet what my interaction with it has underlined (and I know others have had similar experiences) is that it's not just reshaping or reframing our perceptions and how we live and work, it is actively remaking reality and replacing it with something fake.

I happened to know that it had given me false information about John Lennon, because I'm familiar with his biographical history: but obviously, I'm not familiar with the biographical history of everyone, and so the next time I ask an AI about someone or something and it gives me false information, how will I know?

It begs the question that many of us had particular cause to ask ourselves many times in 2020 and the subsequent years: how do I know what I know? How do I know who or what sources to trust? How do I know, ultimately, that the information being presented to me is real and true, and not part of some grand illusory global performance?

Obviously, many of us have come to the conclusion that, where it comes to high-profile events on the world stage, they often are part of a sinister dark pantomime, and, needless to say, the most powerful and important figures in any stage play, are the actors.

That brings us on to the latest and very theatrical Hollywood pyrotechnics display: the brutal fires in Los Angeles, destroying many mansions of Hollywood stars.

To be clear, I'm not suggesting this is fake and that the fires aren't real or the houses aren't really gone. It clearly is all very real.

However, that doesn't suggest it wasn't also "staged", as in, planned, scripted, and done on purpose, which, with all the "coincidences" surrounding the fires - such as many of the affected homes recently losing their fire insurance, and the nearby reservoir being out of commission - makes it appear extremely probable that it was.

Which begs the question: why? Why would it be desirable to the orchestrators of world events to torch multiple celebrity mansions and raze one of the most glittering and desirable neighbourhoods in the world to the ground?

In answering that question, we need to look back to the very beginning of 2020: January 6th, to be exact, and the 77th annual Golden Globes celebration.

The Golden Globes are a glitzy, star-studded event, celebrating "excellence in international film and television"... which is why it was quite a surprise to all of us what Ricky Gervais was allowed to say at them.

We all recall his famous speech, "roasting" the residents of Hollywood and their various "alleged" predilections.

Gervais said (excerpted highlights):

"Let's go out with a bang. Let's have a laugh at your expense, shall we? Remember, they're just jokes. We're all going to die soon and there's no sequel. Yeah, remember that...

Lots of big celebrities here tonight. I mean, legends, icons, yeah? This table alone, Al Pacino, Robert DeNiro, Baby Yoda. Oh, that's Joe Pesci, sorry. I love you, man, don't have me whacked...

Look, talking of all you perverts, it was a big year for paedophile movies, Surviving R. Kelly, Leaving Neverland, Two Popes. Shut up, shut up. I don't care, I don't care...

No one cares about movies anymore, no one goes to the cinema, no one really watches network TV. Everyone's watching Netflix. This show should just be me coming out, going, "Well done, Netflix. You win everything. Goodnight," but no. No, we've got a drag it out for three hours..."

All the best actors have jumped to Netflix and HBO. The actors who just do Hollywood movies now do fantasy adventure nonsense. They wear masks and capes and really tight costumes. Their job isn't acting anymore, it's going to the gym twice a day and taking steroids really. Have we got an award for most ripped junkie?"

And so on and so forth, basically making it entirely clear to the celebrity collective - and the worldwide audience - that these people are now useless, worthless, a literal joke...

What we have to be crystal clear on with this speech is that it was fully scripted, rehearsed, and signed off at the highest levels before Gervais delivered it. The shadowy executives behind Hollywood, and by virtue its award ceremonies, were fully aware of what Gervais would say, and what's more, would have instructed him to say it, because, they always have to tell us.

Gervais was telling us - and the gathered gliteratti of Tinseltown - that it's over. The gravy train, the riches, the awards, the celebration - get ready to say goodbye.

And exactly five years later, almost to the very day, we have a visceral burning effigy of that fact, as the epitome of Hollywood success - the opulent LA mansion - smoulders sensationally to the ground.

Hollywood and its celebrities have done their job and now the system that made them intends to comprehensively, humiliatingly break them, by taking everything away - their pedestal, their reputation, their riches, their homes - because it doesn't need them any more. That's what we're seeing here.

But why doesn't it? When people are more in thrall to their screens than ever, surely actors have more influential star power than ever before?

Yes, they do, and to the control-freak psychopaths behind the scenes, allowing mere mortals to have that level of power and influence is a problem, because what if they go off-script?

No matter how much you attempt to control someone, no matter how much you threaten or bribe them, no matter even if you subject them to military-grade mind-control programmes, they're still human and they can slip up.

MK Ultra programming, for example, can and does break down as people age, due to natural neurological changes in the brain (see Britney Spears and Amanda Bynes for two recent, very public examples).

Alternatively or additionally, people's consciences can get the better of them, and they can speak up about some of the darkest secrets lurking behind Hollywood's glittering facade - see Isaac Kappy (who the ruling classes then had to go to the trouble of suiciding).

The point is that people are never completely controllable, and when they wield the enormous power and influence a top Hollywood celebrity does, it really would be vastly preferable to their masters and handlers that they were.

So how to get around this?

Look closely - Ricky Gervais gave us big clues in his speech. He said, Hollywood actors are basically useless now, they're just glorified body-builders and junkies. Netflix (and similar streaming services) are the future.

Now, look at one of Netflix's most popular and most revealing shows, Charlie Brooker's Black Mirror.

Black Mirror is to the Netflix generation what Brave New World was to readers of its day (and just in case you were in any doubt about that, Charlie Brooker even named his son 'Huxley').

It's telling us.

Brooker is saying, just as Huxley was, "I'm an insider, I've seen the blueprints, and I know the plans. Here's what's coming."

Many of Black Mirror's "predictions" (revelations) have already come true, such as the social credit scoring system depicted on the episode Nosedive, which we now have with services such as Uber (where both driver and passenger give each other a star score out of five, just as is shown in the show).

What else did Black Mirror "predict"?

See the episode Joan Is Awful.

In this episode, a woman's life is automatically generated into a televised show using CGI and deepfake technology.

In other words, an entirely persuasive and realistic TV series is produced using no actual human beings in the acting roles.

Commenting on the episode, creator Brooker said the entertainment industry was considering a future of "automatically generated entertainment that is endlessly targeted directly at individuals".

The episode came out just before the launch of ChatGPT, and Brooker said he was "happy with the episode's timeliness".

I bet he was.

What we are therefore being prepared for - with the rise of ChatGPT and CGI, and the simultaneous demise of Hollywood, its iconic legends, and their homes - is a future where the "reality" presented to us via our screens is not merely fictitious or fabricated, insofar as it is being scripted by writers and acted by performers, but that it is entirely unreal and fake, consisting solely of AI-generated lies delivered by CGI illusions.

Whether ChatGPT is lying to us about the biographical history of a Beatle, or our screens are lying to us by presenting pretend pixelated images as real people, we will increasingly exist in a complete digital mirage: a cynical cyber miasma of fakery.

We know that the overlords' desired future for us is to remove our "reality privilege", confine us to 15-minute cities, and have us spend the vast preponderance of our time sitting at home alone staring at a screen.

Already, many jobs have gone work from home, and education is moving that way, too, as the social engineers work hard to dismantle the physical infrastructure of everyday life and transfer it all to the digital, virtual world, instead - where they can be in complete control.

And they can only be in complete control if the instructive entities they beam into our homes via our screens aren't real people - who are, ultimately, uncontrollable, and who always come with the hazardous potential to veer dangerously off-script.

Plus, real people require a lot of time and energy to manage, they want holidays and pay-rises, they get old and sick. They have many disadvantages, especially to power-hungry ruling class sociopaths, that can all be entirely overcome by using AI instead.

The power of on-screen celebrities to shape cultural narratives, push products, and promote pharmaceuticals, is unsurpassed, which is why the ruling classes have been so gleefully victorious now that they've finally developed the technological currency to take that power away from celebrities and centralise it all for themselves.

If you are a power-crazed maniac, the notion that your celebrity assets also have a lot of power is deeply undesirable. The societal architects who shape celebrities and their rise to influence and fame, have, until very recently, had to enter into some sort of symbiotic relationship with these celebrities, one based on negotiation and mutual benefit, in order to keep their assets happy and ensure they continue towing the line.

Once the social engineers have AI "stars", however, they don't have to do any of this. Any idea of symbiosis and give-and-take completely evaporates and they are now insoluble masters, unchallenged in their supremacy and dominion over shaping world events and public perceptions.

They're thrilled about this fact, of course, and, as such, can't help themselves rubbing their now callously discarded, outdated assets faces in it.

That's what the ritual public humiliation of Ricky Gervais' speech was about, and that's what the symbolic fiery destruction of stars' mansions is about, too. It is - appropriately enough - all performative: the falling of the final curtain whilst everything these faded stars once were literally goes up in flames.

It's also important to note that it's not just TV and film actors who will be replaced by digital entities: the digital revolution will extend to that other arm of showbiz, too - politics.

Look carefully, and you can see an ongoing theme woven through both US and UK politics in recent years, namely, that politicians aren't safe from those crazed nutters, their constituents.

Look at Jo Cox and David Amess in the UK.

And, obviously, Trump in the USA.

Maniacs just keep trying to murder these poor persecuted politicians, so we'd better scrap the idea of in-person surgeries (a stalwart of British democracy) and only have video consultations. Much safer for everyone!

And once there is no longer an opportunity to interact with our politicians in person, how will we ever know if the entity on a screen claiming to represent us, is real?

Already, there have been strong rumours that Reform stood AI candidates in the last General Election.

The more we move to screen-based lives, and the more AI advances, the more we will struggle to discern whether the people appearing on screens in front of us are actually real people, or simply computer-generated illusions (for example, there was a lot of controversy recently surrounding Kate Middleton, and the Royal Family's obvious usage of AI to present her to the public regarding her supposed cancer battle).

Perhaps it may sound far-fetched to some to suggest that we're on course for a future where most or all of our high-profile media figures - celebrities, politicians, royalty - are replaced by glorified cartoons. Yet in assessing the likelihood or accuracy of this prediction, it's critical to remember we were warned over 40 years ago exactly where the establishment intended to go with its control over people's perceptions of reality:

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false," said William J. Casey, CIA Director, in 1981.

In the decades since Casey made this declaration, we've certainly been deluged with plenty of false information. However, at least it has been delivered by real people, something which looks to become less and less common in future, as technology advances, and, simultaneously, people retreat further from the real world and into their screens.

So, while the "conspiracy theorists" of today may ask of high-profile incidents, "is this information true, is this event real?", the conspiracy theorists of tomorrow will be obliged to ask, is this person real?

And the answer for tomorrow's conspiracists, just it is often is for today's, is going to be - no.

(And to be honest, at this point, I'm even starting to question - as the song so emphatically insists - whether a hippopotamus really is a vegetarian...)

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