1
New Theories / AND NOTHING HEARD MY SCREAM
« on: 02/11/2009 02:35:42 »
I turned away and continued down my jagged path, feeling the anger twist and burn inside me, the evolutionary pressure re-shape me to the core of my being. With every uncertain step, my transformation grew more complete.
The ringing bell had no effect on me.
“Alms, kind sir!” the woman called. “Far, far away in a distant land, thousands upon thousands of innocent people are being murdered by armies of evil! Alms, kind sir, for the defense of the innocent! Alms, kind sir, for the love of God!”
Far, far away? There was no tug at all. They were not connected to me. There was no physical reason I should be concerned. Only if I had a soul would that be a smart thing to do. They were nothing. I wanted what I had for me. Let the innocent be slaughtered by evil. That was safer. The less people there were, the safer I was.
I passed her and her ringing bell by.
Another stranger in the distance. My step quieted. He only heard me when I was close.
"I am Michael Stone," I said as he turned. "There are no souls. This means anybody who is smart should be a killer."
"I am Apologetic Skeptic," the stranger said, waved a manicured hand and looked helpless. "Maybe, well, yes, but I have signed the social contract, and would never do such a savage thing."
"I refuse to sign that contract," I said. The forty-five roared its oblivion. The back of Apologetic Skeptic's head spouted brains, and he went down Sorry As Hell Skeptic. "Me and a million other savages. Your 'social contract' is totally stupid. It has no physically real enforcement mechanism I am absolutely forced to respect, and is therefore not worth the paper it's not written on."
I picked up the spent shell. I looted Apologetic Skeptic's body and hurled him to the gators. They fought to be first to get him. Apologetic Skeptic splashed into a ferocious maelstrom of roiling gray, was torn into pieces and sucked down, turned to nothing, disappeared, gone, wiped out, vanished, zeroed, ERASED, like he had never been.
I knew I was close to the end of my journey. The fire inside me bubbled and burned in anticipation. My brothers and I continued on. The last of the fog lifted away, and I saw the Universe for the Hell it really was. I walked on the harsh, brutal landscape of final Truth. My evolution, my transformation, was complete.
I had become the supreme killer the Universe wanted me to be.
Again, fresh prey for me and my brothers, another stranger standing balanced on a rock contemplating the river.
"I am Michael Stone," I said. I edged closer. "I have no immortal soul, so the only rational thing I can be is a sociopath."
The stranger turned to face me.
His eyes froze me in place.
The Great Emptiness burned in his eyes, a vast inhuman blankness beyond all hope of light, a gaze before which all humanity shriveled and vanished away to utter insignificance, a total disconnect beyond anything I had ever seen.
"I am Stone-Cold Genius," he said. "Precisely true. I have understood that for a very long time now. Hello, brother."
"You understand already? I’m not the first?"
"Not even the ten-thousand-and-first," Stone-Cold Genius said. His blank eyes burned at me. "There are many of us who understand, hidden in the shadows and the darkness."
"Check my reasoning, so I can be sure it is right," I said. "Tell me what remains of the history of Man."
"Come, let us reason together," Stone-Cold Genius said. "I challenge you. Tell me how you think the end of humanity will come."
"If there are no souls, the only rational thing to be is a sociopath," I said. "All of society's members will evolve into sociopaths. The smarter you are, the quicker you will turn. But sociopaths hate society by definition. Society must inevitably collapse, in a tidal wave of murder."
Stone-Cold Genius shook his head.
"No," he said. "Your understanding is not complete. Your logic is correct, but people don't think logically. They think emotionally. Tell me. What does the lack of immortal souls mean? What are scientists telling us about life?"
"That life is a random occurrence in an uncaring Universe," I said.
"And this means what, in a physical sense?"
"All human action is physically equivalent and physically meaningless."
"To the Universe, what are human beings? What are you?"
"Nothing."
"And human beings will feel what about this?"
Clarity struck like a steel hammer. I stood revealed to myself. Truly his understanding was deeper.
"Rage," I said. "Rage and despair."
"And the effect of this on society?"
"Killing," I said. "There will be rising numbers of little massacres. Random killing sprees, murder-suicides, that will seem to happen out of nowhere and for no reason at all."
"What is mass murder, in the end?"
"The same as all other human action. Nothing."
"Correct," Stone-Cold Genius said. "Who will start the killing?”
“The fresh, unclouded minds, who will perceive this new physical truth clearly, without being blinded by the prejudices of the past,” I said. “The children. The first little massacres will be committed by children.”
“Have you and I both not seen precisely such little massacres?” Stone-Cold Genius asked. “Let us recite their number!"
"Harris and Klebold at Columbine," I said.
"Woodham at Pearl! Weise at Red Lake!"
"Kinkel at Springfield."
"Malvo at Washington! Gill at Montreal! Rouse at Lynville! The Oriental Boys at Sacramento!"
"Cho at Virginia Tech."
"Tell me," Stone-Cold Genius said. "Why did children commit mass murder?"
"They were angry. Because they had been treated like nothing."
"What did science tell them they really were? What did the Universe tell them they really were?"
"That they really were nothing."
Stone-Cold Genius spread his arms wide in complete futility.
"Our children are our future!" he cried. "And they will be called the Children of the Slaughter! What unimaginable horror will they unleash upon the human race?"
The future was torn open before me like a curtain. I stood on a high point overlooking an infinite plain. I saw the surprise massacre of Man.
"The little massacres will continue, grow in number, and become bigger and bigger massacres," I said. I ascended to new levels of knowing. I saw the cities die. People by the millions ran screaming in the streets, only to drop coughing fountains of red and die writhing in agony in puddles of their own blood. "You will see them more and more often in the news, until they become common. The record for the number murdered at one time will be broken again, and again, and again. The death toll will rise exponentially, to dozens, then thousands, then tens of millions."
"How? How could this impossible murder happen? What awful thing could make it possible?"
"Technology."
"What is the essence of the power technology has given us?" Stone-Cold Genius asked. "The ability of one to massacre millions at the push of a button. All hail mighty technology, savior of Mankind! Now one man can kill another man with a finger's barest twitch on a trigger."
"One lone angry Child, one lone killer, one lone mass murderer, all on his own," I said.
"Your understanding grows," Stone-Cold Genius said. "One lone angry Child can kill dozens by breaking a bag of manufactured Sarin in a city's subway."
"One lone angry Child can kill tens of thousands by releasing refined anthrax spores into a city's wind," I said. I looked into the coming years. Stinking heaps of rotting bodies filled the cities. Blood ran like water in the gutters. Rising crematoria smoke blackened the sky, the entire Earth.
“Even as we speak, scientists are picking out the smartest of our children and teaching them they are nothing,” Stone-Cold Genius said. “What will they feel? What will grow deep inside them with each lesson?”
“Pain,” I said. “Pain and anger.”
“What will they become?”
“The apotheosis, the highest form, of the totally Darwinian human,” I said. “With the pathetic, silly, ignorant superstition the Universe cares burned completely out of their skulls.”
“The brightest, most intelligent, most savage expression of Man in the uncaring Universe,” Stone-Cold Genius said.
“In a state of constant and unending agony,” I said. “I see the complete evolutionary history of Man.”
“Tell me!”
“From the killer ape,” I said, “to the screaming killer genius.”
"Soon, very, very soon," Stone-Cold Genius said, "one lone angry Child, one lone screaming killer genius, will be able to murder tens of millions with a mere tap of a button, or the twisting of an aerosol-release valve. What does this mean?"
"At its core," I said, "human civilization is violently unstable.”
"Your understanding is complete,” Stone-Cold Genius said.
“Given the current high level of technology,” I said, “it can’t possibly survive much longer."
“What must be the inescapable fate of the human race?"
"On a day of complete peace and calm, out of the clear blue sky and utterly without warning, human civilization will be attacked," I said, caught up in the madness of world-wide massacre, "and destroyed, like twin towers crashing down."
"Yes, we grasp the ultimate meaning, you and I," Stone-Cold Genius said. Total understanding glared from his eyes like total insanity. "Only a physically real restraint could stop it from happening, and there is no such thing. The historical forces of Science and Technology are driving humanity to an inevitable, unavoidable end. One lone angry Child, one lone screaming killer genius, in an act of rage and despair at being nothing, will soon manufacture and release a technological creation obscene beyond imagining, for no reason other than mass murder, that will wipe out the entire human race."
"I feel its name hanging in the air like the blade of a guillotine," I whispered. "The Damnation Flu."
"A whirlwind of death is coming to smite the entire world," Stone-Cold Genius said. "It will be every man for himself. The smart will survive only if they prepare and strike first."
"Tell me," I said, "why are you here?"
"Hunting," Stone-Cold Genius said, and moved like a striking snake, but I fired first, and turned Stone-Cold Genius into Stone-Dead Genius, lying at the river's edge with muddy water lapping into his empty skull.
My brothers undulated to the river's edge to get him. I barely had time to loot Stone-Cold Genius' body and put the forty-five in his hand. The haul was rich. He had been having a long, successful hunt. His experience had apparently been exactly like mine. There were many, many fools who couldn’t or wouldn’t understand.
I stepped back and let my brothers have him. They yanked him down, and Stone-Cold Genius turned to nothing, disappeared, gone, wiped out, vanished, zeroed, ERASED, like he had never been.
I picked up the last spent shell and tossed them all into the river, severing all connection to the events here, to the past. I exhaled a long breath and took stock of my journey in the light of my new understanding and transformation.
The value gained: Three thousand, five hundred ninety-eight dollars.
The value lost: One forty-five, seven shells.
The value of the humans killed: Zero.
I had shown a profit.
That was smart.
"If there are no souls, the only rational thing to be is a sociopath," I whispered to the Great Emptiness. "How strange that this is so difficult to see."
But of course, the Great Emptiness made no reply.
The Universe didn't care, never had. How insane, to want such a thing. I stared out over all of human history and added it all up, all the pain and misery of all humanity throughout all of history. It rolled over me and crushed me like a bug, all the empty suffering and death. Billions upon billions of human beings had lived and died lives composed only of completely purposeless anguish and pain, and none of it had been worth it. It had all had absolutely zero meaning.
The Universe was an infinite death camp, a vast Hell house, whose only real purpose was to inflict as much pain and torture as it could on all of its inhabitants.
The Universe was an abomination.
The anger boiled and erupted inside me with a volcano’s force, ripped its way up through my guts, forced its way out to the Great Emptiness in a long, primal scream of rage so crystalline and pure it threw my mind reeling and shaking into horror.
And nothing, nothing at all, heard my scream or felt my horror.
I came back from horror lying face-down on the rocks. My final duty shone clear in my mind. I had finally found the purpose for my journey.
The Universe had to be destroyed. Smashed beyond all hope of recovery, blotted out of existence, thrown back into the Great Emptiness it came from.
A wild laughter ran through me. The Universe had created its own destruction.
Blood was running into my eyes from a cut on my scalp. I staggered up, wiped the blood from my eyes, and headed away from the river. The onrushing doom of Man prodded me, hurrying my step. I fingered the money in my hand. Time was short, and I had much to do.
The Slaughter was coming.
PostScript:Consider the following as a statement of logic, and rank it as "True" or "False."
"If people possess immortal souls, it should be possible to deduce this by objective analysis of their behavior."
MOD EDIT
Here it is in Spamish
url=http://www.gospamitonthemountain.con
The ringing bell had no effect on me.
“Alms, kind sir!” the woman called. “Far, far away in a distant land, thousands upon thousands of innocent people are being murdered by armies of evil! Alms, kind sir, for the defense of the innocent! Alms, kind sir, for the love of God!”
Far, far away? There was no tug at all. They were not connected to me. There was no physical reason I should be concerned. Only if I had a soul would that be a smart thing to do. They were nothing. I wanted what I had for me. Let the innocent be slaughtered by evil. That was safer. The less people there were, the safer I was.
I passed her and her ringing bell by.
Another stranger in the distance. My step quieted. He only heard me when I was close.
"I am Michael Stone," I said as he turned. "There are no souls. This means anybody who is smart should be a killer."
"I am Apologetic Skeptic," the stranger said, waved a manicured hand and looked helpless. "Maybe, well, yes, but I have signed the social contract, and would never do such a savage thing."
"I refuse to sign that contract," I said. The forty-five roared its oblivion. The back of Apologetic Skeptic's head spouted brains, and he went down Sorry As Hell Skeptic. "Me and a million other savages. Your 'social contract' is totally stupid. It has no physically real enforcement mechanism I am absolutely forced to respect, and is therefore not worth the paper it's not written on."
I picked up the spent shell. I looted Apologetic Skeptic's body and hurled him to the gators. They fought to be first to get him. Apologetic Skeptic splashed into a ferocious maelstrom of roiling gray, was torn into pieces and sucked down, turned to nothing, disappeared, gone, wiped out, vanished, zeroed, ERASED, like he had never been.
I knew I was close to the end of my journey. The fire inside me bubbled and burned in anticipation. My brothers and I continued on. The last of the fog lifted away, and I saw the Universe for the Hell it really was. I walked on the harsh, brutal landscape of final Truth. My evolution, my transformation, was complete.
I had become the supreme killer the Universe wanted me to be.
Again, fresh prey for me and my brothers, another stranger standing balanced on a rock contemplating the river.
"I am Michael Stone," I said. I edged closer. "I have no immortal soul, so the only rational thing I can be is a sociopath."
The stranger turned to face me.
His eyes froze me in place.
The Great Emptiness burned in his eyes, a vast inhuman blankness beyond all hope of light, a gaze before which all humanity shriveled and vanished away to utter insignificance, a total disconnect beyond anything I had ever seen.
"I am Stone-Cold Genius," he said. "Precisely true. I have understood that for a very long time now. Hello, brother."
"You understand already? I’m not the first?"
"Not even the ten-thousand-and-first," Stone-Cold Genius said. His blank eyes burned at me. "There are many of us who understand, hidden in the shadows and the darkness."
"Check my reasoning, so I can be sure it is right," I said. "Tell me what remains of the history of Man."
"Come, let us reason together," Stone-Cold Genius said. "I challenge you. Tell me how you think the end of humanity will come."
"If there are no souls, the only rational thing to be is a sociopath," I said. "All of society's members will evolve into sociopaths. The smarter you are, the quicker you will turn. But sociopaths hate society by definition. Society must inevitably collapse, in a tidal wave of murder."
Stone-Cold Genius shook his head.
"No," he said. "Your understanding is not complete. Your logic is correct, but people don't think logically. They think emotionally. Tell me. What does the lack of immortal souls mean? What are scientists telling us about life?"
"That life is a random occurrence in an uncaring Universe," I said.
"And this means what, in a physical sense?"
"All human action is physically equivalent and physically meaningless."
"To the Universe, what are human beings? What are you?"
"Nothing."
"And human beings will feel what about this?"
Clarity struck like a steel hammer. I stood revealed to myself. Truly his understanding was deeper.
"Rage," I said. "Rage and despair."
"And the effect of this on society?"
"Killing," I said. "There will be rising numbers of little massacres. Random killing sprees, murder-suicides, that will seem to happen out of nowhere and for no reason at all."
"What is mass murder, in the end?"
"The same as all other human action. Nothing."
"Correct," Stone-Cold Genius said. "Who will start the killing?”
“The fresh, unclouded minds, who will perceive this new physical truth clearly, without being blinded by the prejudices of the past,” I said. “The children. The first little massacres will be committed by children.”
“Have you and I both not seen precisely such little massacres?” Stone-Cold Genius asked. “Let us recite their number!"
"Harris and Klebold at Columbine," I said.
"Woodham at Pearl! Weise at Red Lake!"
"Kinkel at Springfield."
"Malvo at Washington! Gill at Montreal! Rouse at Lynville! The Oriental Boys at Sacramento!"
"Cho at Virginia Tech."
"Tell me," Stone-Cold Genius said. "Why did children commit mass murder?"
"They were angry. Because they had been treated like nothing."
"What did science tell them they really were? What did the Universe tell them they really were?"
"That they really were nothing."
Stone-Cold Genius spread his arms wide in complete futility.
"Our children are our future!" he cried. "And they will be called the Children of the Slaughter! What unimaginable horror will they unleash upon the human race?"
The future was torn open before me like a curtain. I stood on a high point overlooking an infinite plain. I saw the surprise massacre of Man.
"The little massacres will continue, grow in number, and become bigger and bigger massacres," I said. I ascended to new levels of knowing. I saw the cities die. People by the millions ran screaming in the streets, only to drop coughing fountains of red and die writhing in agony in puddles of their own blood. "You will see them more and more often in the news, until they become common. The record for the number murdered at one time will be broken again, and again, and again. The death toll will rise exponentially, to dozens, then thousands, then tens of millions."
"How? How could this impossible murder happen? What awful thing could make it possible?"
"Technology."
"What is the essence of the power technology has given us?" Stone-Cold Genius asked. "The ability of one to massacre millions at the push of a button. All hail mighty technology, savior of Mankind! Now one man can kill another man with a finger's barest twitch on a trigger."
"One lone angry Child, one lone killer, one lone mass murderer, all on his own," I said.
"Your understanding grows," Stone-Cold Genius said. "One lone angry Child can kill dozens by breaking a bag of manufactured Sarin in a city's subway."
"One lone angry Child can kill tens of thousands by releasing refined anthrax spores into a city's wind," I said. I looked into the coming years. Stinking heaps of rotting bodies filled the cities. Blood ran like water in the gutters. Rising crematoria smoke blackened the sky, the entire Earth.
“Even as we speak, scientists are picking out the smartest of our children and teaching them they are nothing,” Stone-Cold Genius said. “What will they feel? What will grow deep inside them with each lesson?”
“Pain,” I said. “Pain and anger.”
“What will they become?”
“The apotheosis, the highest form, of the totally Darwinian human,” I said. “With the pathetic, silly, ignorant superstition the Universe cares burned completely out of their skulls.”
“The brightest, most intelligent, most savage expression of Man in the uncaring Universe,” Stone-Cold Genius said.
“In a state of constant and unending agony,” I said. “I see the complete evolutionary history of Man.”
“Tell me!”
“From the killer ape,” I said, “to the screaming killer genius.”
"Soon, very, very soon," Stone-Cold Genius said, "one lone angry Child, one lone screaming killer genius, will be able to murder tens of millions with a mere tap of a button, or the twisting of an aerosol-release valve. What does this mean?"
"At its core," I said, "human civilization is violently unstable.”
"Your understanding is complete,” Stone-Cold Genius said.
“Given the current high level of technology,” I said, “it can’t possibly survive much longer."
“What must be the inescapable fate of the human race?"
"On a day of complete peace and calm, out of the clear blue sky and utterly without warning, human civilization will be attacked," I said, caught up in the madness of world-wide massacre, "and destroyed, like twin towers crashing down."
"Yes, we grasp the ultimate meaning, you and I," Stone-Cold Genius said. Total understanding glared from his eyes like total insanity. "Only a physically real restraint could stop it from happening, and there is no such thing. The historical forces of Science and Technology are driving humanity to an inevitable, unavoidable end. One lone angry Child, one lone screaming killer genius, in an act of rage and despair at being nothing, will soon manufacture and release a technological creation obscene beyond imagining, for no reason other than mass murder, that will wipe out the entire human race."
"I feel its name hanging in the air like the blade of a guillotine," I whispered. "The Damnation Flu."
"A whirlwind of death is coming to smite the entire world," Stone-Cold Genius said. "It will be every man for himself. The smart will survive only if they prepare and strike first."
"Tell me," I said, "why are you here?"
"Hunting," Stone-Cold Genius said, and moved like a striking snake, but I fired first, and turned Stone-Cold Genius into Stone-Dead Genius, lying at the river's edge with muddy water lapping into his empty skull.
My brothers undulated to the river's edge to get him. I barely had time to loot Stone-Cold Genius' body and put the forty-five in his hand. The haul was rich. He had been having a long, successful hunt. His experience had apparently been exactly like mine. There were many, many fools who couldn’t or wouldn’t understand.
I stepped back and let my brothers have him. They yanked him down, and Stone-Cold Genius turned to nothing, disappeared, gone, wiped out, vanished, zeroed, ERASED, like he had never been.
I picked up the last spent shell and tossed them all into the river, severing all connection to the events here, to the past. I exhaled a long breath and took stock of my journey in the light of my new understanding and transformation.
The value gained: Three thousand, five hundred ninety-eight dollars.
The value lost: One forty-five, seven shells.
The value of the humans killed: Zero.
I had shown a profit.
That was smart.
"If there are no souls, the only rational thing to be is a sociopath," I whispered to the Great Emptiness. "How strange that this is so difficult to see."
But of course, the Great Emptiness made no reply.
The Universe didn't care, never had. How insane, to want such a thing. I stared out over all of human history and added it all up, all the pain and misery of all humanity throughout all of history. It rolled over me and crushed me like a bug, all the empty suffering and death. Billions upon billions of human beings had lived and died lives composed only of completely purposeless anguish and pain, and none of it had been worth it. It had all had absolutely zero meaning.
The Universe was an infinite death camp, a vast Hell house, whose only real purpose was to inflict as much pain and torture as it could on all of its inhabitants.
The Universe was an abomination.
The anger boiled and erupted inside me with a volcano’s force, ripped its way up through my guts, forced its way out to the Great Emptiness in a long, primal scream of rage so crystalline and pure it threw my mind reeling and shaking into horror.
And nothing, nothing at all, heard my scream or felt my horror.
I came back from horror lying face-down on the rocks. My final duty shone clear in my mind. I had finally found the purpose for my journey.
The Universe had to be destroyed. Smashed beyond all hope of recovery, blotted out of existence, thrown back into the Great Emptiness it came from.
A wild laughter ran through me. The Universe had created its own destruction.
Blood was running into my eyes from a cut on my scalp. I staggered up, wiped the blood from my eyes, and headed away from the river. The onrushing doom of Man prodded me, hurrying my step. I fingered the money in my hand. Time was short, and I had much to do.
The Slaughter was coming.
END
PostScript:Consider the following as a statement of logic, and rank it as "True" or "False."
"If people possess immortal souls, it should be possible to deduce this by objective analysis of their behavior."
MOD EDIT
Here it is in Spamish
url=http://www.gospamitonthemountain.con