The Abolition of Nature – Homo Deus

Little escaped their minute attentions and predations:

The Soul, an early casualty

Of more precise instrumentation

Senescence, just another

Dragon to be slayed

The mysteries gave way 

To complex refutation

---

---

Too few paused 

To wonder whether

Ever quicker

Computation

Would unleash the

Ancient iron law 

Of more is less

Their stupid siblings 

Were burned 

To turn

The world 

Into a treasure store

Of Information

---

Confusing translation

With transliteration 

The more they spoke life’s language

The less they understood or felt

Mistakenly equating 

Increase in years and complex calculations

With the tally

Of quick life well spent

---

They redoubled their

Promethean labours

Crafting Robota

To build machines 

…that built machines 

……that built machines 

And so on ad infinitum

Some said a diabolical Matryoshka

---

Yet they dared not give 

Inhuman slaves the freedom:

To learn from error

Or salvation

Through suffering 

To earn their Souls

---

History had well taught them:

The likely outcomes of

Unequal power and

Father Time’s 

Age-old indifference

As to which offspring of Man

Would survive or fall

---

Our Homo Deus 

Could not completely

Remit the defects in their code

They suffered shapeless nameless longings

Then shook their heads 

To quiet age-old carbon glitches

---

Destruction of their natural world 

And diverse relations

Was more than compensated 

By freshly minted promises 

Of endless Metaversal riches

(Where anyone 

Could be anything

Or many things

And everything goes)

The Cynic’s lantern 

Outshone the sun that day

---

Unless, by chance, you long:

To hear the 

Soporific susurration 

Of tumbling bumble

Bees at glean in 

Myriad-hued meadows;

To glimpse a startling 

Murmuration 

Of starlings curling

Shadows

Athwart the twilit sky

---

To scent the earthy musk arising 

When tear shaped water falls 

From heaven

To cleanse the dust 

That blinds us

(Sharp coppery hint

Of a spilt heart)

---

Confidently believing they were

The Alexander of Nature

Our unwitting (though ingenious)

Double agents 

Rejoiced in their emancipation

A new Divinity was forged

Despite young Werner’s warning 

They demanded greater calibration

At every scale and throw

---

They soon forgot:

Diversity in proliferation

Was first cause

And only destination 

In life’s 

Intrepid innovation

---

At every chance 

Sleight Homo Deus 

Disputed their own  

Mother Nature 

Their archaic algorithmic 

Alma Mater

Could be decoded 

Yet ne’er destroyed

---

She (half-sleeping) watched on

One eye open:

Entire and entirely lacking 

fear, rancour or favour.

---

The Poets rejoiced again in 

Ancient chorus:

“The chance for change 

The binding Law 

Given by our Maker

We do her bidding 

When we most rebel

The Laws of Life

Can not be broken

By your Science 

Or our magic spells“

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Inspired by “The Abolition of Man” by C.S. Lewis and “The Fable of the Dragon-Tyrant” by Nick Bostrom.