From Ape to Algorithm: What We Still Need to Learn About Ourselves

This topic somehow emerged from a completely different conversation, and it piqued my interest because it’s a fascinating way to look at things.

If we claim that humans are different from all other animals, it’s because we’ve developed consciousness. And to get there, I guess you first need a subconscious.
I see consciousness as a kind of team leader. Before it exists, I imagine an organism acts purely on intuition. The questioning part, the "reasoning," isn't there yet.
There's just this subconscious and a few instincts. And to me, instincts are just some hardwired shit. Integrated circuits, basically.

Language, I think, is also a pretty crucial component for that "consciousness" to emerge. I believe there was a tragic opportunity to see how someone would turn out without learning to speak, thanks to a child who lived her entire life confined by her parents.
Because of that, she never learned to speak, and if I recall correctly, she never fully mastered it.

It’s all starting to make a lot of fucking sense now. My brain is already rushing ahead, and my writing is struggling to keep up.
The phrase "the human condition" comes to mind, though I only know the title exists; what it actually means, I have no idea. I’ll have to look into that.
But what I’m getting at is this: I think we’ve unknowingly inflated our subconscious "ego," so to speak.
We're constantly reminded of how unbelievably awesome we are, the best animal, the pinnacle, correct? And while we consciously distinguish between us and animals I’m not so sure our subconscious does the same.

Until now, I thought my life was a partial lie. Now, I think we’re all living a lie a very big, very wrong one, and possibly one with very real consequences.

I grew up with the assumption that we’re the shit. YES, HUMANS! All the other animals? Yeah, they're just that: animals.
Walking on all fours, getting their hands dirty all the time, and they don’t even have a sink to wash them.
Such a disgrace.
Look at me! We developed speech because
WE'RE AWESOME!
And YOU SUCK!

How stupid is that, right? Why didn't they develop consciousness?
Come on, it's not that hard!
But I think apes, and for that matter, all great apes, are in fact conscious.
It's just that their ability to speak hasn't evolved yet.

coming back to this a day later.

and i think most animals have a subconsciousness, right? which, of course, brought up the question of how you’d even test for that.
i remember some documentary-type thing where they trained apes to play a memory game. they were shown something, numbers i think (maybe colored), each with a position. after a few seconds, it all disappeared, and they had to tap the spots in the right order. iirc, they had these insane, superhuman results. like it was pure intuition.

and that’s the point i’m trying to make. their subconsciousness learned to solve it, so they don't have to 'think' about it.
but if a human learned that, we’d always use our consciousness for it, for whatever reason. it's almost like it's running on a deeper level of our operating system.
stuff can run way faster in that 'subconsciousness' layer because it’s basically coded in machine language.

so consciousness is just the os on top. it knows how to 'run' its programs. it has its own programming language that’s either better or worse depending on the person, and that’s what limits them, makes them slower.
some of the code is highly experimental, though, and the os isn't really sure if it's doing anything at all, or if just gets triggered by other things happening outside its reach.

thinking about it, chess is a pretty good example to highlight that. standard (15m) vs. bullet (1m). if you spent time 'thinking' about every move in bullet, you'd just lose on time. some of that has to be direct machine output, kinda 😆.
it's a funny and interesting way to picture it.
(and i finally have a goosebumps-causing idea for my novel)

that escalated quickly, oops. but it was insightful.

and this whole idea that language is such a huge factor, that it gives us the impression we’re something special, some destined life form… it’s just bullshit.
we were just lucky our particular brand of "homo" won the war back then.
that's it.

I’m pretty sure most other hominids would have developed speech at some point. the reason we’re the only ones? we simply killed the others. and why aren't any other species developing speech now? because… i mean, just look around.
we dominate the shit out of this planet. they’re lucky to still be around and not be tasty enough for us to farm them.

So, I think they would have the ability to evolve, but the need isn't there yet.
For the things that are important to them, signaling basic emotions is enough.
They don’t have to tell each other about their love lives or how the kids are doing.
For one, they all live together, so that would be old news.
But within their framework, it’s not really advantageous to tell your bros, "There’s a cheetah."
It’s enough to signal, "Shit’s coming that is stronger than us, so we run."
(Although, some species do have different sounds for different types of predators, as it’s somewhat important whether you’re being attacked by air or by ground units.)

This kind of humbled me a little. I think as long as we don’t destroy the entire planet when we destroy ourselves, some other species will eventually step into our footsteps, so to speak.

But we should still keep trying. We're barely scraping the outer shell of understanding anything. We know a few of the "rules" of life, and if I were to create a blueprint for it, one of my rules would be to cap the collective satisfaction rating to that of the lowest individual.
Meaning, on a scale of 0 to 1, everyone's satisfaction is equalized. To become more "satisfied," they’d have to lift everyone up.

---

I probably come off as a total capitalism-hater, but don’t get me wrong. The idea behind it is somewhat reasonable, at least one theoretical outcome is.
That assumes that, at some point, technological advancements in products level out, and the things that become important are support, user experience, stuff where getting better requires more than just raw purchasing power.

And why don’t we see this theoretical outcome more often in real life? Because long before that happens, it’s far more likely that one company simply eats the other, whether it's a mutual agreement or not.

But the whole idea lacks some critical points. As humans, I think our top priority should be ensuring everyone has as optimal a playing field as possible. Everyone’s basic needs should be met and paid attention to.
Capitalism doesn't care about that. The only money companies seem to waste like water is on advertising, and I really don’t get it.
They're greedy as shit with everything else. They wouldn’t even hire people with disabilities if they didn’t have to pay a fine for not doing so, when they do get a bonus for it, it becomes profitable and so they do it.

But for ads? It gets ridiculous. For Instagram posts, they pay six-figure sums, and not just for the crème de la crème. Those prices can reach levels beyond human imagination. Cristiano Ronaldo: $750k. Selena Gomez: $2.5 million.
So, six figures is basically the norm if you’re already a big name.
But even if you "only" earn $10k, that’s enough for any reasonable person. I don’t understand how the free market is at play here.
Back in the day, there was a limited number of celebrities.
Nowadays, you have celebrities for every niche genre, and yet I feel like the prices are still rising. How is that possible?
Shouldn't that lower the average?

Second day realization: The diversity gives those niche genres also a ‘platform’ but creates at the same time more ‘value’ in those A-List mofos. Since they are known by a far broader mass.

That is so much wasted money, it’s crazy. But thinking about it, it becomes clear: products whose only value is based on brand recognition and the "lifestyle" they’re trying to sell naturally pay premium prices, because the product itself isn’t carrying the success.
Apple products, for instance, sell just by showing the products.
What we’re uncovering here is that the whole lifestyle, fashion, and all that crap is its own self-contained bubble.
Companies hire "faces" for their products, those "faces" buy "lifestyle" products, and to get an edge, they pay a premium for a "better," more expensive product.
And since customers pay these prices, shit gets more expensive.
To the "faces," it’s a business expense, and in buying it, the company has more money to spend on ads, so they can hire "higher-valued" faces.
Second day insert: and social media is fueling this whole fiasco, by creating the illusion in your neighbor Sandy that you probably get more ‘following’ by owning this specific X by brand X. wait wait wait, wasn’t there this ‘study’ or just a questionnaire that said, only i dunno 50% of Humans, do not have an inner dialogue? (maybe they are like apes. oh, no. that explains so much. can we get one of them to play that ape memory game ?)
So they don’t even think about whether or not they should buy X by brand X.
I’m sick to my stomach now.
I think we’re behind on some aspects of our civilization. We’ve had such rapid developments in such a short time.

So many tangents, my god. One such development is the military drone. Before, it didn't exist in this form; I mean, it did, but it still had people operating it. Just imagine Pearl Harbor with kamikaze drones instead of Japanese soldiers.
They wouldn’t even need to drug the drone with meth to get it to comply.
Before drones, there were only a few airspace violations, usually close to the border. All of a sudden, drones start appearing deep behind enemy lines although sometimes they’re just "weather balloons."
The only risk is losing the tech if it gets seized instead of destroyed.
If they still used pilots, that would yield valuable information, but I wouldn't want to know how they’d get that information out of him.

I think there’s one family that might get a glimpse of what that "information gathering" could entail. A family that moved to Russia to "get away" from "woke America."
Father, mother, and two daughters.
The father, a male, moves to Russia while Russia is at war.
And they were genuinely surprised when the husband was drafted shortly after they moved. The cope this woman has already developed is insane.
Since he did some "tech stuff" in the US Army, she hopes he’ll get a more tech-related job. Yeah, sure, Russia is going to hire him as a journalist or some shit.
Since they care so much about what’s actually going on.

This whole stupid war topic keeps coming up, but it’s as present as it can be. Take Russia vs. Ukraine. Putin is out of his mind and thinks for whatever reason he can get Ukraine back.
He might be insane, but I can kind of get behind the logic, in a twisted way.
But I still struggle to wrap my head around the Gaza situation; it’s just too stupid.
If it were just some lunatic thinking he owned another country, okay, there's a reason, however nonsensical. But here, most of the hate seems to stem from the fact that this hate has been there forever.

And why can't Iran just have their nuke?
What's the worst-case scenario? It gets shot down and irradiates an area where people are living. There’s no chance it would reach any other country in the first place.
So can't we just let them have it, set a fixed number, and call it a day?
If they ever used it, they wouldn’t survive.
And the USA would be in a decent position: just wait until they use it, and then you have every right in the world to fuck them over.

Basically, the Middle East is somewhat pissed at the West.
Understandable. But it is what it is, and by attacking them, Iran and others are only causing more harm to their own citizens.
But why? Why can’t we live in peace?
What is there to gain? For any country, really.
Yes, maybe they get justice, but only in their eyes, and not for long.
second day brain-ejaculation.
i know this sounds crazy, but listen. we pay a fuckton of money for the military, right? and for what? we're not using it, we're just… having it.
and it does nothing. yeah, sure, it 'protects' us. but does it, really?
nah. if some other country decided, 'fuck Germany,' they would fuck Germany. so for one, it's useless, and just a big waste.

now the crazy part. uhm. not really, the first part was already crazy. this is more of a 'human first' approach, i guess.
what if, instead of wasting these huge amounts on the military, we'd spend it on the countries we're supposedly scared of getting attacked by?
not the ones that would attack us anyway, but the ones that just feel treated unfairly. that money would suddenly be doing actual stuff. it would decrease their reasons for attacking us in the first place.
big brain moment. 🧠

it would be like how (west) Germany is still paying a solidarity tax to the east. maybe countries should do something like that too.
i mean, maybe their leadership is just as crazy as the us gov. although i can understand their hate for us. what our ancestors have done for centuries was totally fucked up,
it just wasn't right. but how does attacking the ‘west’ do something in the grand scheme?

i mean, wasting money on military does nothing, while helping people could actually have a positive outcome.
if you want war, go play chess or something. we'll just tell everyone the leader-board shows how cool each country is. done.
or maybe we just give them a military simulator.
we should have enough data by now for them to simulate their brilliant ideas, just so they can see they're all useless.
or they get a game, whatever. and it's exclusive to any leadership that's interested.

we could call it W.A.R. or something.
think of it like a real-life game of risk, but based on actual data and shit. highly animated, of course,and streamed.
maybe not on twitch, but streamed somewhere, because seeing that could be fucking interesting.

the in-game damage gets calculated and has to be paid for real to the other country.
and the 'big players' (haha) can't just abuse their power.
the main rule would be to be as defensive as possible. only take out the 'bad' guys.
and if these 'big players' are mostly positive, they get a discount on their 'earth-solidarity tax' or whatever we call it.
actually, now that i think about it, it sounds like a funny black mirror episode.

Look, we all know the USA, and by extension its president, is just a big ol’ baby, doing whatever it wants and crying when it doesn't get its way immediately.
And we all kind of obey until we don't.
It's not a reason to go to war. And this is why we are doomed.
There is war, after war, and before war.
There is no time to care for the climate.
"Ahh, just one more year, it’ll be alright. I swear we’ll fulfill our goals next year."
We are like a drug addict in full-on denial.

Seriously though, does the USA sometimes feel the need to prove its strength?
Or can't they justify such big spending on training and repairing machines that just stand around without a task?

To get back to one of the earlier goals, getting rid of capitalism, we have to change the course that is ruining the whole damn thing.
How could no one see that coming when the outlines became clear?
But how, and with what, do we replace it? I think that’s the goal for another text.

Or maybe we've done our job. Maybe our purpose was just to warn future civilizations not to let someone orange become their leader.
Who knows?
Or we're just the civilization meant to warn about capitalism, or at least to allow some adaptations to it, since capitalism can't be the be-all and end-all.
One possible scenario comes from Joseph Schumpeter, who says it will transform into a sort of socialism, as opposed to Karl Marx's theory that a violent revolution or economic failures will cause the end of capitalism.

Second day end word: uhh, i actually just had an interesting thought on how we could tackle the bigger picture.
but i'll have to make that it's own post, this one's already getting pretty bloated with all the second-day rambling.