Dune People or Matrix People

“Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind.” - Orange Catholic Bible

A friend who has “shamanoid” proclivities¹—a term used in wisdom circles to describe modern personalities who walk the fine line between mystic and madman²—shared with me a vision he had years ago.

He said that in the future, AI-controlled virtual reality becomes so widely available that it would be hard not to use it. If you choose to opt out and not “plug in,” you'll be left behind, eventually unable to participate in society. A segment of the population does decide to forgo plugging in: a group he calls “the breakaways.” Their choice isn’t a rejection of technology, but a calling to live in harmony with it.

You could argue that sci-fi authors are also visionaries, with their work serving as warnings for possible worlds. Two popular sci-fi worlds relate to the choice of the breakaways: Dune and The Matrix.

Frank Herbert’s Dune takes place in the distant future on the desert planet Arrakis, also known as Dune. It is set in a post-computing world, and, thanks to a historical event called the Butlerian Jihad, advanced computers and AI were forbidden under the commandment: “Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind.”

With the ban on AI (punishable by death), society doubled down on human potential, giving rise to superhuman orders such as the Mentats, who possess super-logical cognitive abilities, and the Bene Gesserit, who wield extraordinary psychological capacities often perceived as psychic powers.

In contrast, The Matrix, which is believed to take place around the year 2199, depicts a world where humans are plugged into a simulation. After losing a war against sentient machines, humans are turned into an energy source, essentially living batteries, and are kept in a passive state, mentally immersed in the illusion of living in 1999, the supposed peak of human civilization.

In Dune lore, the people rejected AI after winning the war against the machines and their technocratic rulers. In The Matrix lore, humanity lost and was plugged into a docile state, with individuals being freed by the Resistance, a group that managed to survive outside the Matrix in the last human city, Zion.

Dune people or Matrix people. The former reject AI and become superhuman. The latter fail to do so and become enslaved by it. Two timelines for humanity. If my shamanoid friend’s vision is accurate, the breakaways are oriented toward the first timeline and forgo the second.

I sense you have already made a choice, psychologically and spiritually, and you are either living up to that choice or failing to when your consciousness is at stake. And your consciousness is always at stake. It’s one of those “if you don’t use it, you lose it” kind of things. And many are losing it today, opting for the endless click, click, click of spectacle stupification.

I could be mistaken, but going full Luddite does not feel like the right move just yet. If you're going down that path now, good luck to you. Get started on that parallel society, and then poach the Matrix people when there’s an existential opening.

Beyond the hyper-niche Luddites, AI is inescapable. As they say, software has eaten the world, and AI has now eaten software. Those who do not use it will be left behind. Most will be using it. But a tipping point is coming for those who say no to the technological creep. I already sense who they will be, but I do not know what will make it happen. Maybe compulsory virtual reality, or implanting chips into our bodies, or perhaps the great sexbot enslavement.

Enough people will have had enough, creating a movement. I don’t know if this will mean a full-scale rejection of AI, like the Butlerian Jihad, or some kind of wise steering of it away from vice-driven enslavement and toward virtue cultivation.

In any case, for those who are not called to become Matrix people but who presently and consciously choose to use AI, I’ll exercise my inner shamanoid, poetically attune to my timeline of choice, and make some recommendations:

1. Use it to augment your capacities in ways that do not create undue, inescapable dependencies. Free yourself from relying on it for the things that make you human.

2. Do good with it, but avoid any utopian zeal that tells you you’re saving the world with it. That’s your ego talking.

3. Go slow, hastily, and please, please, please stay conscious.

In spiritual warfare, the territory desired is our consciousness. Bad entities capture it through fear and temptations. Good ones liberate it through love and wisdom. I think the best starting point is your relationship with “The Pull,” the unconscious pulling sensation that sucks people into their screens.

Antoine Geiger, SUR-FAKE

Matrix people will not be resisting at all. In fact, they enable it.

Dune people, or whatever other breakaways there may be, will overcome the Pull. By doing so, they will be able to stay conscious and make effective choices, guiding those they love toward timelines more suitable for the human soul.

Hello, my breakaways. Guess what?!

Collective Journaling is back!

If you recall, it ended last summer after a solid three-year run.

But now it’s back—for at least two weeks—from April 13th to 25th, 8 AM to 9:30 AM Eastern.

It is being made available to participants of the Internet Real Life (IRL) course, but I’m extending the invite to all the less foolish ones. Even if you’re not part of the IRL experience, consider attending if you’d like to establish a journaling or writing practice. It’s a simple yet beautiful modality where we write together in silence about what matters most. Come and go as you please. Optional shares at the end. It all happens over Zoom.

RSVP below the paywall.