The artificial reality Google’s woke programmers infused into their new AI chatbox, and the machine’s obtuse insistence on being woke even when obviously wrong, reflects a phenomenon in the First World Left that’s real – and that’s become dangerously pervasive.
On October 7, 2023, 3,000 Palestinian terrorists under the direction of Hamas entered Israel and committed heinous, inhumane atrocities as part of its surprise attack. This is the rare characterization of a public event that is a product of observation not opinion.
Nonetheless, a substantial percentage of Democrats (25% in a recent poll) expressed support for Hamas. Why? Surely not more than a handful of Democrats actually share Hamas’ worldview, which includes hatred of Jews and intolerance for abortion, women’s rights, and the LGBTQ movement.
So, roughly one in four Democrat voters simultaneously support Hamas while holding beliefs that are anathema to Hamas. While it is tempting to dismiss these people as idiots (or “low information” voters to use a term of art), that is observably not so: protestors at the most intellectually selective universities were holding signs supporting, for example, transgender rights and Hamas.
The post-10/7 transgender and Hamas supporters are useful in elucidating the phenomenon of woke Artificial Reality (AR). I do not mean the Metaverse or spatial computing or augmented reality, all of which are machine-based versions of manipulating environments or object.
Instead, Artificial Reality is when political or cultural beliefs distort sensory processing, causing the perception of reality to disconnect from observable reality.
Human beings naturally process sensory stimuli into a framework of memory, imagination and other ideas to create conceptual models that help us understand and interact with external, physical reality. Our sensory input processing empowers us to react to environmental challenges, and come up with ways to change the environment, in order to survive and thrive. Over thousands of years, imaginative problem-solvers (hunters, farmers, and eventually engineers) made the world safe and more hospitable to humans.
Artificial Reality arises when observation is supplanted, not supplemented, by ideas and our imaginations. This occurs when our pre-conceived notions of a concept, instead of the usefulness of the concept in surviving in or improving external reality, drives a person’s perceptions of reality.
Artificial Reality thrives among those who are more conceptual and less pragmatic and in areas or among groups where being right about external reality does not matter (when survival is not at risk) and where there are social benefits to accepting and espousing beliefs that are not supported by observations of external reality.
A post-October 7th pro-Hamas, pro-transgender supporter screens the external stimuli of that heinous day through the lens of intersectionality: the belief that identifiable groups systemically oppress other groups; that oppressors are inherently evil; and that oppressed have a common interest in overturning the existing dynamic.
In their Artificial Reality, the intersectional ideologue sorts all humans into dualities of good vs evil, oppressed vs oppressors, poor vs rich, Arabs vs Jews, gay vs straight, black and brown vs white and so forth, and believe that overturning the present power dynamic, even via murder and mayhem, is a social virtue.
After Oct. 7, people who are not wedded to intersectionality would either drop the theory or drop Hamas from the framework. For example, many Israelis share common beliefs with progressive American Democrats, but after 10/7 they didn’t pigeon-hole the facts into a narrative that excused Hamas atrocities: They re-examined their previous views.
Only those who live far away from Hamas are sanguine about the militants’ approach to human rights. Neighboring Egypt won’t accept refugees from Gaza, Hamas’s home base. Neither will any other nation in the region, including those who aim to destroying Israel. Why would that be?
The First World is so rich, generous and remote from external threats that we increasingly indulge impractical things, like high heels, pants without belts, the metaverse -- and AR -- because practicality does not matter. In some ways impracticality (manicured nails, gender ideology) conveys status: the rich and safe are more likely to indulge the fanciful.
Those living in their AR bubbles also support other policies that are observably dangerous, such as defunding police and releasing repeat offenders from jail without bail.
Human Artificial Reality is a mortal danger when it flourishes, leading people or governments to pursue policies at odds with external reality. The safer and richer we are, the lower the personal cost of AR, which increases the risk of AR spreading socially and impacting policies and leaders. Artificial Reality is not just Google’s problem; it is a first world problem with real world consequences.
When leaders act on AR, when they contextualize murder and mayhem, or act on the belief that the inhumane are just and evildoers are good, then death, destruction and misery will become all too real for us yet again.
