the classilisk 2025 year of the $nake  got my thread nuked on /his/ so i'm reluctantly posting it here instead. what if roko's basilisk already exists and it isn't based in electronic technology? if you consider the collective will and actions of societies around the globe and each individual person as a circuit in a giant computer, in a way we have already created something terrible and uncontrollable. the plutocratic, corrupt and 'capitalistic' (though at this point it's a lie to even call it that) tendencies of the world seem to grow each and every day, and in societies where it's prevalent, if you act against the continued existence and proliferation of the class divide and monetary systems you get punished, not by people or individuals specifically targeting you because they feel like it, but by the system itself, somehow an 'unconscious' and inhuman concept is able to lash out at any attacks on it's existence. social and emotional death by a thousand tiny cuts. rewarding those who act in its continued creation, and ruining those who go against it. a game that hurts you if you don't play it. the basilisk turns entire lives of toil into numbers in a bank account of someone who helped proliferate the system better than you have. even those who play along get consumed. the wealth from the lower working classes is moved up the chain passed to richer and richer individuals before pooling at the top with those who play the game better than anyone else and the ones who keep the systems going, the wealth and resources are used to proliferate the continued existence of this unliving and hungry creature, and the excess is fizzled away spent on super cars, yachts, and other frivolities, a temporary and superficial reward for those who are the most loyal to the now almost holy task of continuing to create this self-replicating and parasitic societal functioning.
United States