The Proverbial Pigeons

It might seem an unlikely philosophical topic, but there's a pretty deep and meaningful meme about pigeons doing the rounds on Facebook at the moment. If you haven't seen it, it reads as follows:

"My friend grew up in New England where they have pigeons. Apparently they also hate them. He was always saying bad things about pigeons until I pointed something out that he never thought of before.

"We domesticated pigeons. They are (nearly) all over the world because HUMANS BROUGHT THEM THERE. And, they were more than pets. They carried messages. People raced them. They lived spoiled lives as honoured human companions for centuries. Then we got telephones and we threw them out like trash. Literally, we threw them away. Their species had already been fully domesticated and they could not survive in the wild; they lost all their survival instincts during the centuries that they lived caged by people.

That is why they live in cities with people instead of in a forest somewhere. It's OUR fault. And not only did we throw them away, but now humans curse them as "winged rats", casting them as pests. But they don't know how to live without us, and their instincts tell us that they should trust us. So, they continue to come up to humans and beg for food, because it's the only survival skill left in their genes. They love us because they were bred by us to feel that way, and yet we hate them."

And as much as this, sadly, appears to be true for pigeons, the even sadder truth is that it's increasingly true for us, as well.

What we did to pigeons - removed them from their natural habitat, trained them to serve us, and then threw them away once technological advances meant we didn't need them any more - is currently being done to us, too, and for the same reasons.

Human beings now mostly live in towns and cities, but these aren't our natural habitats. For thousands of years, we lived in the countryside, in self-sustaining, intergenerational family and community groups, where we produced our own food, built our own homes, and lived natural and organic lives - much like how the Amish still live today.

Then came the industrial revolution, and a concomitant enormous need from the ruling classes who owned the new factories and machineries for human labour to sustain and operate them.

So, they enticed us away from our natural environments and trained us to live instead in their cities and work in their factories (the prospect of 'state schooling' being largely to create 'factory fodder' - predictable, formulaic human beings who cannot critically think or rebel).

The social orchestrators of the time also encouraged us to procreate, by putting a high social premium on early marriage and limiting or banning contraception and abortion, and they did this to ensure they'd have a robust future generation of workers.

In short, they needed us. And as much as they may have mistreated and exploited us in the long period from the industrial revolution until the present day, there's one good thing about exploitation - it means the other person wants something from you, and, as such, you have some leverage and power over them.

As author Mary Harrington said in a recent essay:

"One side-effect of industrialisation across the West was the widening of political participation. In England, a key group pushing for change was the 19th-century Chartists, who called for the working-class franchise along with other reforms to rebalance the political order. The threat of unrest, combined with the sheer practical necessity of having a relatively cooperative industrial workforce, ensured that many Chartist demands were eventually attained. In other words: the working class got their voices heard, and formally acknowledged via the vote, because they were needed."

That is the key concept: in order to have any meaningful faculty in a situation where you are dealing with a much more powerful class of people, then you must be needed by them in some capacity. As soon as you're not (and as our poor pigeon friends found), you lose all currency and will simply be tossed aside (often brutally).

It is, in effect, much more dangerous to be redundant than to be exploited.

I bring this up in reference to the rapidly shifting societal sands, where artificial intelligence (AI) is galloping ahead, and, as a result, universal basic income (UBI) is becoming more and more of an inevitability.

Many thought leaders in AI have made explicit that the technology will decimate the jobs' market as we know it - and that this will happen soon, within the next ten to fifteen years - leaving millions without the option to generate money through work.

That means that, to the global machine, these people are no longer necessary: no longer 'essential'. That is why we were taught to talk in these terms throughout the fake pandemic, to talk of some people as being essential - so they had to go to work - whilst others were non-essential - so they could just sit at home, being sustained by the introductory form of UBI known as 'furlough'.

This episode was prepping us for a future where vast swathes of the populace are to become permanently "non-essential" - not receiving a wage for working, because AI has subsumed their job, but rather, a government stipend for doing nothing.

That significant numbers of otherwise astute thinkers are celebrating this possibility as progressive and liberating, is extremely sinister, because, to repeat:

Once you have no utility to a more powerful and exploitative class whose society you live in, you no longer have any power in your negotiations with that class, and they are therefore motivated to do nothing but get rid of you.

To imagine that the world's governments - ruthless, war-mongering, psychopathic governments - will happily facilitate millions of people spending decades enjoying themselves on UBI, living comfortable and pleasant lives on the government's dime, whilst offering nothing (that the government values) in return, is completely - frankly - delusional.

It is akin to the poor pigeons imagining that, once humans had machines to replace their labour, they would build great pigeon palaces to enable the birds to enjoy a lengthy and luxurious retirement, continuing to provide amply for them, even when the birds offered no labour in return.

It didn't happen with the pigeons, and it won't happen with us.

The worst thing for the pigeons was to become useless, as the opening anecdote attests, and it will be the worst thing for human beings, too.

We have lost our 'survival skills', just as the pigeons did. We could not return to an Amish-like existence and survive, the necessary skills simply aren't possessed in any sufficient quantity by contemporary people, most of whom can't even sew a button, never mind build houses, farm land, or raise animals - and even if we could do those things, we'd need phenomenal amounts of money to buy the land and the resources to make it possible.

The reality is that we have, over many generations, been 'bred' for this system, and the options to live outside it are completely unrealistic and unattainable for most of us, so we have to negotiate a way of living within it that is maximally practical and possible and beneficial.

A key component of maximising our chances lies within vehemently resisting becoming a member of what Yuval Noah Harari has starkly described as, 'the useless class'.

This means, the class of people considered surplus to societal requirements. The "non-essentials", as they were described during Covid.

The way 'non-essentials' will be identified in the future is those who are solely dependent on UBI to survive (as opposed to those who are still able to access paid work and are simply using UBI as a bonus or top-up), because once someone is fully dependent on that, they are fully dependent on the government and have zero leverage or bargaining power left, because they are giving nothing back. The government doesn't need them, and only wants them - just like the pigeons - out of the way.

UBI is therefore going to be carefully calculated to ensure the amount provided is just enough to eat and pay bills.... but not do a great deal else. The sum repeatedly bandied about is £1,600 a month, and if you take away all essential living costs from that - rent, bills, tax (yes, of course it will be taxed), food, household goods, clothing - not a great deal is left (note this sum is considerably less than the national minimum wage).

So while £1,600 per month would certainly enable someone to survive (and indeed, many people currently survive on less) - would it enable them to thrive? Especially given that there is absolutely no possibility of ever increasing this figure? That, no matter what they do with their time - even if they do spend dozens of hours every week engaged in noble good causes, as starry-eyed advocates of UBI claim they will - they can never hope for a pay rise or enhanced financial good fortune?

The reality is that £1,600 a month will enable most to just about get by - able to eat, pay their bills, and afford a TV and internet connection, but not a great deal else, so they will inevitably spend almost all of their time at home, and that - as we know all too well - is just how the overlords want it.

We know they want us "locked down" - a prison term - just as they demonstrated to us throughout the Covid chapter. They want us living a prison-like existence, staying indoors almost all the time, where we lack liberty and agency and choice, in just the same way that prisoners do.

Note that the cost of actually putting someone in prison is £51,724 a year

Paying them UBI, conversely, comes in at just £19,200 per year.

If you want a nation of locked-down prisoners - and we know the overlords do - then relieving them of paid employment, and giving them a state stipend instead - just as they did in Covid - is a far more expedient way of achieving that goal than explicitly locking them up.

All the things that were out of reach to us throughout Covid - travelling, restaurants, gyms, theatres, concerts, leisure centres, pubs - will be out of reach to the UBI class, too, because they simply will not be able to afford them (and they won't be able to save up for them, either, because once we have CDBCs, these will likely be time-limited - i.e., UBI will need to be spent in the month that it is received).

So be assured that the £1,600 figure will have been calculated very carefully, to ensure that this so-called "useless" class of people have little choice but to become "indoor humans" - effective prisoners - living their lives through their screens, and entirely lacking so-called "reality privilege", which the moneyed elite wish to reserve for themselves.

Billionaire tech pioneer, Marc Andressen, who co-created the first internet browser and is heavily invested in AI, has stated:

"A small percent of people live in a real-world environment that is rich, even overflowing, with glorious substance, beautiful settings, plentiful stimulation, and many fascinating people to talk to, and to work with, and to date.

Everyone else, the vast majority of humanity, lacks Reality Privilege -- their online world is, or will be, immeasurably richer and more fulfilling than most of the physical and social environment around them in the quote-unquote real world."

The WEF's Noah Yuval Harari has vigorously endorsed this sentiment, by declaring that the best-case scenario for the new "useless class" is a future that consists primarily of "drugs and computer games".

Harari says:

"Unnecessary people might spend increasing amounts of time within 3D virtual-reality worlds that would provide them with far more excitement and emotional engagement than the drab reality outside."

This leads us to confronting the truth about what people would actually do if not compelled to work and had enough money to get by (but not to do very much else). Drugs and computer games are by far the most likely scenario, and emphatically more likely than the utopian visions promulgated by hopelessly naive advocates of UBI.

To ratify this, just look at what the average person does with their free time currently (and I am talking about the average person here, not exceptional outliers).

Do they compose symphonies, write novels, produce sculptures and great works of art?

Do they selflessly undertake noble voluntary work, assisting vulnerable members of the community?

Some people do these things, yes: but they are a small minority. What most people do with their free time is far closer to "drugs and computer games" (wine and Netflix) than great creative or philanthropic feats.

The average Briton currently watches just over four hours of TV and streaming services per day. They spend nearly two-and-a-half hours on social media. In short, virtually all the time they are not at work, they are being entertained by a screen.

And relieved of the need to work at all by UBI, that is what most people's daily lives would look like in entirety: TV, streaming services, video games, social media.

That is precisely why human beings need to work - not just for the money, but because work is what provides the framework, structure, and meaning for most.

Most people don't derive great purpose and satisfaction from the kind of visionary artistic projects and unpaid community labour UBI's champions insist everyone will suddenly immerse themselves in once their time is not taken up with paid work.

That's hopelessly idealistic and fails to take human nature into account at all. The reason we are not all Mozarts and Shakespeares and Florence Nightingales is not simply because of a lack of time.

Taking the imperative of work away from people will - in most, if not all, cases - bring out the worst in them, and see them decline into lives of apathy and self-indulgence, not to mention, depression.

The UK is already a depressive nation, with a staggering 8.6 million people prescribed antidepressants, and many more self-medicating with alcohol and other drugs. Overall, almost half of British adults are currently using some sort of drug or medication to manage depression.

Although there might be an initial 'novelty factor' and sense of exhilaration from the thought of not having to work, in the long-term, UBI will make mental health struggles and depression much worse, as unemployment generally tends to do. According to a 2021 study, more than half of those unemployed experienced an increase in mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety.

Human beings need to feel integral, necessary, and needed, and as we have seen earlier in this essay, it's critically important - especially when asserting their rights with the ruling classes - that they remain so. Otherwise, they lose all their power and become at risk of being rendered "useless" - and therefore obsolete, just like our poor pigeon friends.

An obvious corollary of this is, if a society possesses a large "useless class", it also possesses the motivation to stop this class from expanding itself any further. The last thing the ruling classes want is more useless people that they have to sustain, so they are highly motivated to subdue fertility to stop "useless" people reproducing themselves.

This is why the moneyed elite bang on about "overpopulation" all the time: not because there are too many people for the world's resources to cope with (there aren't), but because there are too many people that they personally no longer have a utility for.

As technology rapidly advanced after World War II, the ruling classes needed less and less workers with each successive generation, which is why they brought in the Pill and abortion in the 1960s. Of course, they dressed it up in rhetoric about liberation and choice, but in reality, it was simply self-serving, just as encouraging procreation had been in previous generations.

The ruling classes bring in social mores and conventions regarding procreation that best serve them at the time: when they need a lot of human labour, procreation is encouraged. When they don't, it isn't.

As the 20th century advanced - and technology with it - more and more disincentives to having children were introduced, and the birth rate has consequentially continued to steadily decline, from roughly 5 children per woman in the 1950s, to the current rate of 1.56 (far below replacement level fertility of 2.1, and the same patterns are found in nearly all other European countries).

The ruling classes have directed fertility to decline as technology continues to advance, because these advances mean that, every generation, less and less human workers are needed, until we get to the present day, where we are on the precipice of a huge groundswell of people not being needed at all.

And when you have a huge surplus of such "useless" people, then - in the eyes of the overlords - their even having one child is one too many, which is why stealth sterilisation programmes in the form of vaccinations have been introduced in the 21st century to destroy fertility altogether.

Since 2008, all 12-year-old girls have been offered the sterilant HPV vaccine, estimated to permanently sterilise around 1 in 4 girls, whilst leaving others with extensive fertility problems (more on that in this article).

Subsequently, since 2021, millions have been given the experimental "Covid" injection, known to adversely effect reproductive potential, but whose full ravages on fertility are not yet known - although current data predicts that male sperm count will have reached zero by 2045.

Not coincidentally, 2045 is also earmarked as the year man fully merges with machine, to create a (possibly immortal) AI-enhanced superhuman.

In short: the ruling classes have sterilised us because they don't need us any more (at least, not the organic, original versions) - and it is of note that authorities tackled the huge swathe of suddenly redundant pigeons in exactly the same way - they laced pigeon food with contraceptives to stop the birds from reproducing.

We are now the proverbial pigeons.

However, we have one crucial advantage over pigeons (well, hopefully more than one, but one that is particularly pertinent in this context):

Foresight.

The pigeons had no capacity to intuit or foresee what was going to happen to them. They couldn't possibly have preconceived of a future where they were "useless", and therefore have taken steps to prevent or mitigate it.

We can.

At all costs, we must avoid - and encourage others, especially young people, to avoid - being funnelled into the kind of work that AI is going to wholly take over in the near future. All jobs are far from equal where it comes to AI's capacity to undertake them well - and soon - and below are a list of occupations with the likely percentage AI will have entirely subsumed them within ten years:

There is a 99 percent probability that by 2033, human telemarketers and insurance underwriters will lose their jobs to algorithms;

98 percent probability that the same will happen to sports referees;

Cashiers, 97 percent;

Chefs, 96 percent;

Waiters, 94 percent;

Paralegals, 94 percent;

Bakers, 89 percent;

Bus drivers, 89 percent;

Bartenders, 77 percent;

(Taken from, 'The Future of Employment: How Susceptible Are Jobs to Computerisation?', a 2013 study by Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael A. Osborne.)

Conversely, some jobs are effectively immune to AI takeover - at least for the foreseeable future - and these include:

Skilled tradespeople (such as electricians and plumbers);

Emergency responders (firefighters, paramedics, police)

Healthcare professionals (not just doctors and nurses, but various types of health therapists, very much including including alternative health therapists);

And of course, being self-employed, and providing a product or service that continues to remain in demand.

It also seems very wise these days to have more than one sellable skill to one's bow, rather than relying on a single lifetime occupation, as people have been able to do in the recent past. More and more, we can expect to see people way beyond the traditional "student" age retraining and re-skilling, to give themselves more options and durability in the ever-changing jobs' market.

The bottom line is that we - just like pigeons - can no longer rely on the system we have been 'bred' to exist within as continuing to provide opportunities for work and self-advancement in the way it traditionally has. We can't just pass blithely through the education system trusting there will be a place for us at the end, nor trust that the place we have now is secure. There will be immense upheaval and huge job loss in the next ten to fifteen years.

"Their" solution to this is UBI, drugs, and computer games - a virtual, and literal, prison for this new, useless, "indoor human" underclass.

Fortunately, we are a lot more creative (and a lot less psychopathic!) than them, and possess the skills and the foresight to avert this future for ourselves and for our loved ones. We just need to be imaginative and adaptable and capable of change (as they say, it's not necessarily the strongest who survive a crisis, but those who are the most adaptable to change).

And maybe, just maybe, we might all think about adopting a pet pigeon, too...

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