Welcome to The Continental. We Do Hope You Enjoy Your Stay.

I’m not going to call it the best part of the John Wick movies, because that’s a matter of taste. But the genius part of the John Wick movies – the most compelling part of the John Wick movies – is the world-building of a vast subculture of paid assassins and the infrastructure of Continental hotels that support them. If you’re not familiar with the John Wick universe, every major city in the world has a Continental hotel, an ultra-luxe sanctuary for assassins only, where no ‘business’ (i.e. killing) may take place. It’s a deep and engaging world-building concept, where every possible hotel service is reimagined as an assassin service, from a ‘sommelier’ who helps you select weapons rather than wine, to a ‘concierge’ who is as comfortable wielding a bazooka as making a dinner reservation.

When you watch the John Wick movies, you believe that there are literally thousands of paid killers in every city, all part of a coherent and stylish world-within-the-world that makes sense in its own terms. You suspend disbelief for the 2-hour duration of the movie and allow yourself – not to move of your volition – but to be moved through this plot-driven story arc.

Deep and engaging world-building is the essence of every commercially successful entertainment ‘property’ or ‘franchise’, from movies to games to television to books. Each of these entertainment concepts – these entertainment ideas – creates a world that a) makes sense in its own terms and b) is charismatic enough that we willingly suppress our critical thinking in order to be moved through an externally written script. And by ‘willingly suppress’ I don’t mean that we begrudgingly surrender our autonomy of mind. I mean that we seek out opportunities to surrender our autonomy of mind. We pay good money to surrender our autonomy of mind. We desire to surrender our autonomy of mind.

Why?

Because we find meaning – by which I mean a satisfaction of mind stemming from an alignment of the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves – through the coherence of a well-constructed external world and the story arc of a well-written external script.

That satisfaction of mind may be short-lived and an entertaining diversion, as in imagining yourself as a wizard in the constructed world of Harry Potter or as an assassin in the constructed world of John Wick, or it may be years-long and a core part of your identity, as in becoming a successful trader in the constructed world of derivative markets or a respected professor in the constructed world of collegiate education or an antisocial nihilist in the constructed world of gaming and 4chan memes.

Yes, the meaning found in blackpilled online chats and extreme antisocial behavior can be just as impactful and coherent and ‘sticky’ for some as the meaning found by others in prayer and community service. Satisfaction of mind comes in many shapes and forms, and the externally constructed worlds and scripts that might be utterly destabilizing and foreign to your sense of self may be exactly what gives your neighbor or your child a sense of being that’s ‘true’ to their internal dialogs. It’s one of the hardest lessons in life, that people we love or care about or work with or share something important with – like humanity or like citizenship – can find meaning and immerse themselves in a constructed world that we find hateful or destructive.

For example …

For years now, many Americans have found a satisfaction of mind in the coherent, i.e. making sense in its own terms, constructed world presented by mainstream media and mainstream academic institutions, where most Republicans and evangelical Christians are frankly just not smart enough to see the rank, self-evident social injustice of their political positions and/or are racist, sexist deplorables themselves.

Today, many Americans find a satisfaction of mind in the determined social media campaign to identify and root out the leftist celebrators of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, part of a coherent, i.e. making sense in its own terms, constructed world presented by the White House and its political apparatchiks, where the Democratic party and its major donors are not just wrong on policy but are an evil, murder-encouraging cabal.

But, Ben, it’s true!

That’s the response I will get from readers on both of the paragraphs above, followed by examples of world-building coherence that support the core scripts, either Democrats-are-evil-murder-encouragers or Republicans-are-dumbass-fascist-enablers.

I’m not going to argue with you. When you find meaning in a constructed world you stop being an observer of that world and in your mind you become a resident of that constructed world. Now if that constructed world is declared by its distributor to be ‘not real’ (Harry Potter, John Wick) then most of us (but not all of us!) are able to separate our mental residence in that constructed world as ‘daydreaming’ and a temporary visit to a fictional world. But if that constructed world is declared by its distributors to BE the ‘real world’, then your mental residence in that constructed world will be as real to you as sitting in a chair and reading these words. Realer even. Arguing with a reader who believes and finds meaning in the coherent world-building of Democrats-are-evil-murder-encouragers or Republicans-are-dumbass-fascist-enablers is exactly like being inside a John Wick movie and arguing with Charon the concierge (of course his name is Charon) that his world of paid assassins isn’t real. It’s not an argument that is possible to ‘win’, and you’ll only end up annoying Charon. Which you really don’t want to do!

No, I have little ability and even less desire to ‘debate’ any truth statements regarding any of these coherent, constructed, meaning-providing worlds, in no small part because I, too, am a human being who finds satisfaction of mind through his acceptance and belief in externally constructed worlds and scripts. Not these Democrat-focused or Republican-focused worlds + scripts … honestly I believe that ALL humans have an exquisite capacity to be dumbass fascist-enablers and that ALL institutions of sufficient scale trend inexorably to become evil murder-encouragers … but you don’t have to dig too far to find the constructed worlds and their respective scripts that give my life meaning and which I consider to be as real and true as the chair I’m sitting in right now. Realer even.

It’s not wrong or dumb to find patterns of meaning in the external world and make them part of our internal self. That’s what the human animal is neurologically evolved to DO. That’s what being human IS. But that also means that none of us humans can be a ‘neutral’ observer in the sense of being ‘outside’ this system of constructed worlds. Every human being who has found meaning in their life has been welcomed to multiple Continental hotels by multiple Charons across multiple constructed worlds, to which we have said why thank you very much, Charon! and to which we have suspended our disbelief.

Importantly, though, me saying that I am not going to argue truth statements from within a coherent constructed world is NOT me saying that I think these two beliefs – Democrats-are-evil-murder-encouragers and Republicans-are-dumbass-fascist-enablers – are fine and dandy. I am NOT a moral relativist where all beliefs are equally valid. I think that LOTS of beliefs, including these two, are wrong-headed, totally infused with ulterior motives by their distributors, and will damage you badly over time. No, it’s me saying that I’m never going to talk you out of your belief in a wrong-headed constructed world from within that constructed world, because all of these constructed worlds, even the wrong-headed ones, make sense in their own terms.

The only person who can talk you out of your belief in a wrong-headed constructed world is you.

And how can that happen? It’s never easy. But I think our best chance at reevaluating our own beliefs and the ways in which we find meaning in these constructed worlds is by focusing our attention on the system of constructed worlds and their associated scripts, especially the distribution mechanisms and emergent properties of that system. A system-focused perspective requires critical distance. It requires stepping back for a broader view. My hope is that by stepping back from any individual social franchise of meaning, we can all (me included!) climb out of whatever specific narrative water we are swimming in and have an actual conversation about where we humans are positioned right now in this system of constructed worlds and scripts. And how we change it.

Because make no mistake, I believe that we are absolutely, 100% enslaved by our modern system of world-building and embedded script injection.

What is that system? Well, here are the players:

Hollywood is my shorthand for the distributors of entertainment ‘franchises’ (i.e. constructed worlds) and the scripts of social mores, ethics, culture and celebrity that these franchises inject into our brains. Anything associated with the word ‘content’ is part of this shorthand, so ‘news’ and ‘media’ and ‘social media’ are all part of what I mean by Hollywood.

Wall Street is my shorthand for the distributors of economic franchises and the associated scripts of time, value, property and exchange injected by these constructed worlds. Anything associated with the words ‘money’ or ‘wealth’ is part of this shorthand. More than any other shorthand entity on this list, Wall Street and the scripts of money embed themselves in the other distribution networks.

Washington is my shorthand for the distributors of political franchises and their associated scripts of power, social order, rights and legitimacy, at all levels of organization and exercise (not just the US federal government). Anything associated with the words ‘law’ or ‘government’ is part of this Washington semantic entity.

Harvard is my shorthand for the distributors of educational franchises and their associated scripts of caste, class, status and prestige, which in turn drive our primary social scripts of occupation, mobility, friendship and mating. Many of these scripts were originally part of the constructed worlds of the Church, but academia has far surpassed its ancestor entity in its world-building power.

For all four of the semantic entities on this list, obviously I’m using a single placename to represent an extremely wide range and diversity of real-world institutions and practices, but I trust you to get it. And also obviously, these four semantic entities are not the only distributors of constructed worlds and embedded scripts. The Church is still a world-builder and story-teller of importance, as is the Military, as are the Outcasts and the Gang.

But I think that Hollywood, Harvard, Wall Street and Washington dominate the projected ideas of modernity, and together they form a global distribution system of world-building and script injection that declares an enslaving reality into being.

And how does the system function to accomplish THAT?

Same as it ever did.

Plato, “The Allegory of the Cave” (The Republic, Book VII) c. 380 BC

Socrates: And now, let me show in a figure how far our nature is enlightened or unenlightened: --Behold! human beings living in a underground cave, which has a mouth open towards the light and reaching all along the cave; here they have been from their childhood, and have their legs and necks chained so that they cannot move, and can only see before them, being prevented by the chains from turning round their heads. Above and behind them a fire is blazing at a distance, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised way; and you will see, if you look, a low wall built along the way, like the screen which marionette players have in front of them, over which they show the puppets.

Glaucon: I see.

Socrates: And do you see, men passing along the wall carrying all sorts of vessels, and statues and figures of animals made of wood and stone and various materials, which appear over the wall? Some of them are talking, others silent.

Glaucon: You have shown me a strange image, and they are strange prisoners.

Socrates: Like ourselves. And they see only their own shadows, or the shadows of one another, which the fire throws on the opposite wall of the cave?

Glaucon: True. How could they see anything but the shadows if they were never allowed to move their heads?

Socrates: And of the objects which are being carried in like manner they would only see the shadows

Glaucon: Yes.

Socrates: And if they were able to converse with one another, would they not suppose that they were naming what was actually before them?

Glaucon: Very true.

Socrates: And suppose further that the prison had an echo which came from the other side, would they not be sure to fancy when one of the passers-by spoke that the voice which they heard came from the passing shadow?

Glaucon: No question.

Socrates: To them, the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images.

Plato wrote this 2,500 years ago. Two thousand five hundred years ago!!

LOL.

You think there is anything new under the sun? You think we are any smarter or any different than the residents of Plato’s cave, watching a movie of projected images on the wall and believing with all our might that this constructed world IS the ‘real world’? Please. The only difference between Plato’s system of idea projection and mental imprisonment and our system of idea projection and mental imprisonment is a) our technology and b) the sheer scale of global resources devoted to idea projection and mental imprisonment!

Okay, Ben, that’s the fifth time you’ve mentioned enslavement or imprisonment. And I get that Plato said the same thing. But let’s stick with that cave prison for a bit. Who are the guys throwing the shadows up on the wall to keep us docile? Who are the puppeteers?

I think most readers of Plato’s allegory make the very literal interpretation that the puppeteers are actual people, that they are the leaders of the corporations and governments and institutions who are trying to mesmerize and put one over on the public. I think this is a mistake. I mean, yes, there are actual human beings who construct these worlds-within-the-world and there are actual human beings who write the script for the story arc embedded in these constructed worlds and there are actual human beings who market and distribute these ‘franchises’ for Hollywood, Harvard, Wall Street and Washington. But I promise you that every leader of every institution, from the President of the United States down to the president of your local community college, is as much in thrall to and mesmerized by the movies playing in their head as everyone else. No one is immune to or outside of this system. Or as John Maynard Keynes put it, “Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back.”

Plato doesn’t over-analyze his own allegory, but a close reading suggests that Plato saw the puppeteers as our own senses. Not only do we see and hear and experience the world in a highly limited way, but we don’t even see and hear and experience things directly. Even our limited perception of what a bird actually is has to be projected to us as part of a story or narrative in order for us to ‘see’ it.

But this interpretation of the puppeteers is unsatisfying, too, even if it’s closer to Plato’s views on the primacy of the ‘ideal’. Whether the puppeteer is another human or our own senses, who or what is providing the statues and figurines that the puppeteer lifts into the firelight? How do those statues and figurines come to be? What is possessing our senses (or our leaders) and causing them to present these statues and figurines rather than some other statues and figurines?

I’d like to suggest (and I think Plato would approve) that it is the ideas themselves that are providing the statues and figurines, that it is the ideas themselves that are causing the puppeteers, whether they are our leaders or our own senses, to behave in a manner that constructs worlds and scripts to support and propagate the ideas.

I’d like to suggest that the ideas themselves have a goal-achieving impulse, which is where things get … interesting.

One way to think about this goal-achieving impulse is that there is an emergent property to this system. In exactly the same way that Adam Smith described the behavioral impulse towards efficient price-setting within a capitalist system as an ‘invisible hand’ that acts as if it has a goal-achieving impulse, you can think of this behavioral impulse towards world-building and script-writing within a semantic system as an ‘invisible muse’ that acts as if it has a goal-achieving impulse.

Another way to think of this goal-achieving impulse is to consider ideas themselves to be living organisms. And not even a borderline notion of ‘life’ in the way that a virus is borderline alive, but more in the way that a parasitic organism like a cordyceps fungus or a toxoplasma alveolate is alive  … not only requiring a host organism to reproduce and spread but actively puppeteering the host organism to engage in behavior that aids its life cycle and propagation. Maybe not a hardcore parasitic relationship where the host gets nothing but death and pain out of the deal. Maybe it’s more of a symbiotic relationship. But it IS a relationship, and it’s necessary to ask what both parties give and get in the relationship.

I know this second approach is a mental stretch. But I’d also ask you to consider that it wasn’t that long ago when no one even knew that microscopic organisms even existed. Germ theory wasn't a thing 200 years ago. We had no words for a ‘virus', and everyone in the world would have looked at you funny if you had said that these infinitesimally small packages of nucleic acid were real and alive. But today we all believe in germ theory. Today we all believe that microorganisms are real and alive, albeit in a truly alien way and within a truly alien world that no human has ever directly felt, heard, smelled, tasted or seen. I'm asking you to give the same consideration to semantic organisms.

[For more on this, see the Narrative and Metaverse series]

Ultimately, though, whether you use an ‘invisible muse’ emergent property on human behavior in the aggregate or you use a parasitic/symbiotic influence on human behavior on an individual level, I think you get to the same place. It’s pretty clear that the ideas themselves – particularly ideas of meaning that create a satisfaction of mind and a coherent sense of self – physically change our individual neurochemistry. I’m asking what the ideas themselves get out of this, and I think the answer is that they are the beneficiary of a powerful and ubiquitous human behavioral incentive to support and propagate the ideas themselves. We humans receive the mental satisfaction of ‘meaning’ in our brief meat-lives, and in exchange we devote a significant portion of our lives to the defense and further spread of these ideas. From a systemic perspective, I think the ideas have the better end of the deal!

There’s a scene in The Matrix where Cypher is negotiating the betrayal of his crew. He’s plugged into the matrix so that he can experience a delicious steak dinner. It’s not real. It’s purely a mental construct and Cypher knows it’s purely a mental construct. And that’s okay! As Cypher says, he’s fine with being a battery for the machine overlords so long as he remembers nothing about the true exchange relationship between humanity and the thinking machines. Ignorance is bliss, indeed.

Yeah …

It seems to me in an increasingly obvious way that our global allocation of resources is incredibly skewed towards the idea-propagating, thinking machines. I mean, when more than half of all American economic growth this year comes from investing in the thinking machines, I think you have to ask yourself what the difference would be if an actual AGI machine overlord were calling all the shots!

It seems to me in an increasingly obvious way that the world-building and script injection efforts of Hollywood, Harvard, Wall Street and Washington are not only accelerating enormously across every semantic dimension, but are also accelerating into specific constructed worlds and scripts – like Democrats-are-evil-murder-encouragers and Republicans-are-dumbass-fascist-enablers – whose sole purpose is to stoke division between humans and prevent humans from cooperating to achieve pro-growth policies, and as a result actually undermine the institutions of Hollywood, Harvard, Wall Street and Washington.

It seems to me in an increasingly obvious way that our children and our young adults are being welcomed more and more by virtual concierges into blackpilled constructed worlds that do NOT originate from Hollywood, Harvard, Wall Street and Washington, where our children and our young adults find meaning and a satisfaction of mind in scripts of nihilism, gambling and despair. It seems beyond obvious to me that young humans are dating less, mating less, and having fewer babies as a direct result of their immersion in these profoundly anti-growth virtual worlds.

It seems to me in an increasingly obvious way that ALL of this is purposeful, not in an AGI overlord sort of way, but in an emergent property / parasitic organism goal-achieving sort of way.

It seems to me in an increasingly obvious way that we ARE batteries for the thinking machines and LLMs that are native to the semantic dimension, as we enthusiastically divert not only our natural resources but more importantly our human resources of time and attention and effort away from human propagation and growth and towards idea propagation and growth.

It seems to me in an increasingly obvious way that the ideas themselves have ‘broken containment’ from the institutional walls of Hollywood, Harvard, Wall Street and Washington, such that the world-building and script-writing impulse that supports idea propagation is not only endemic among humans and no longer controllable by human-oriented institutions, but can also be effectively mimicked and distributed by the thinking machines at scale.  

What was responsible for breaking containment and releasing the ideas themselves into the world? Social media. As Rusty Guinn shows, the advent of social media technology is as profoundly impactful on the human brain and human society as the advent of language itself. Put this together with the advent of thinking machines that are native-born to the semantic dimension of ideas and …

Welcome to The Continental. We do hope you enjoy your stay.

The Singularity isn’t some future event. The Singularity already happened.

You know, over the past 13 years of writing Epsilon Theory, I’ve come back again and again to this quote by Joseph Conrad, author of Heart of Darkness and Lord Jim:

The question is not how to get cured, but how to live.

I would love to tell you that I see a path back to the before-times, but that would be a lie. Sure, I can imagine our own Butlerian jihad, to take a page from Dune, where we seek to eradicate the thinking machines and outlaw social media platforms and stuff the ideas themselves back into the institutional bottles of human control, but c’mon, man. That’s nothing but a daydream and constructed world of its own. There is no path of return for human society. There is no ‘cure’ for an endemic disease.

But there is a way to live.

We live as humans with an autonomy of mind.

We step back in order to see the semantic system as puppeteer. And from that vantage point of critical distance, we reapply our disbelief to ALL constructed worlds of declared reality, no matter how appealing to our internal dialogs, no matter how much satisfaction of mind is promised to us.

We celebrate the primacy of lived experience with our family, friends and neighbors. Not just the lived experience of joy and celebration, but the lived experience of pain and loss, too. We share it all and we check in with each other more than we scroll.

We stop arguing truth statements from within any constructed world, no matter how wrong-headed we think it is. We especially stop arguing truth statements with the people we care about the most. Instead, we encourage them to see the system for what it is, and we trust them to reclaim their autonomy of mind on their own, because that’s the only way it can happen.

Our autonomy of mind is our birthright. It is not ladled out to us from some central pot, and it cannot be taken away from us. But we can give it away, sometimes in pieces and sometimes all at once, and that’s what the semantic system encourages us to do.

We see you, system!

And today we begin to reclaim our minds.