Author: Olga Orlova
The theme of this year’s Faith and Word festival is “The Church in a Changing World: Challenges and Lessons from Digitalization”. What did more than 400 delegates from dioceses from all over Russia and from abroad, who gathered together, talk about?
New quasi-religion
At the panel discussion “Immortality: Cell and Number” that opened the festival, Igor Ashmanov, President of Kribrum companies, member of the Presidential Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights, noted that, on the one hand, alarmist sentiments regarding the same artificial intelligence now in many respects are injected. Even the recent past has debunked more than one such sensation (like blockchain or cryptocurrency). But, on the other hand, he warned that some of the adherents of digitalization are elevating digitalization itself to the status of a new quasi-religion:
“They are trying to impose a“ god of technology ”who supposedly will give everything that Christianity has promised, only not in the next century, but here and now. This is another claim to build a “heaven on earth”, which, as always, will turn out to be hell. “
Moreover, everything promises from happiness, health and abundance, despite the fact that it will not be necessary to work (since robots will do everything) to immortality due to biotechnology and the generation of a digital copy of consciousness. Such experiments, even blasphemous, are already being carried out: the same sensational case of the sale in Japan of a day of communication with a deceased daughter, or rather with her digital clone.
Death is incorruptible. Like the High Judge
Archpriest Alexander Abramov, secretary of the Synodal Commission on Bioethics, called all this “an aggressive attack of totalitarian transhumanism on ordinary patriarchal human society”:
“Syndrome of God” is the fear of any mention of the Creator, as an alleged withdrawal into an unscientific discourse
“Transhumanists are simply self-deluded, believing that everything in the world can be solved with the help of technology. Their “syndrome of God” is known – the fear of anyone even just mentioning the Creator, as a supposed withdrawal into an unscientific discourse ”.
Transhumanism dates back to the late 1950s, and their utopias, Fr. Alexander assured, in solidarity with the previous speaker, are not justified. Just as all the participants in the discussion agreed that all these searches for immortality are in fact nothing more than the expectation of avoiding the Court – to come up with a way to be forever stuck in a pre-trial detention center and be glad that you will not go to court.
The very category of sin is also, of course, rejected by atheists. During the discussion, it was noted that the WHO even included aging in the list of diseases (despite the fact that sodomy and schizophrenia were excluded from it). But, as a professional biologist, candidate of biological sciences and a member of the Synodal Commission on Bioethics, priest Vladimir Dukhovich, argued in his report, technologies, no matter how much oligarchic capital is invested in their development, cannot heal aging, nor can they bribe death:
“The duration of human life is set by God Himself, and sickness and death, as we know from Scripture, are the consequences of the Fall,” he recalled.
The higher the level of technology development,
the more rigidly the social world is hierarchically organized
The apology of impunity, which is behind all these efforts to achieve non-aging of the flesh and prolongation of life to satisfy passions, turns, according to father Alexander Abramov, into what is described by the theory “High tech. Low life ”- the higher the level of technology development, the more rigidly the social world is hierarchically organized.
When technology is at the forefront, there is someone behind it. Because technology has no interest of its own, and all the proclamations that it will greatly facilitate life turn into an ever-increasing segregation of the planet’s population. The majority is thus deprived of freedom of choice (if robots are already writing a “digital biography” for schoolchildren [1]), opportunities for repentance (the effect of the same social ratings introduced in China is already known to drag on to the social bottom), the joys of direct personal communication – which of us haven’t experienced it yourself?
Neurophysiologists have proven how gadgets are stupid: certain parts of the brain simply do not have time to get into work and stop acting when a person is constantly hanging on the network. And this makes the masses more and more manageable.
Humanity in a digitized society shrinks like pebbled skin. Now, for example, it has become impossible to either find or order a normal human translation. The quality of translation dropped sharply as soon as translators appeared in the same search engines Google and Yandex. Even the most expensive translation bureaus now first let the machine translate the text, and then simply finalize the result. But artificial intelligence only imitates individual cognitive abilities of a person, and all these absurdities of machine considerations already cover our life like a mudflow.
And what will happen if personal communication between teachers and students is also minimized and eliminated during the digitalization of education? ..
Trust in the omnipotence of the Internet
Many already do not even know the history of their country: why study it, if at any moment you can look at Wikipedia?
If machine translation is already a priority, then new generations of those who do not bother too much about learning languages are also growing. So, many already do not know the history of their country: why study it, if at any moment you can look at Wikipedia? We will not dwell now on the quality of knowledge that this resource condenses, but the very principle of such reliance on the omnipotence of the Internet has already been commented on this year at the Army-2021 military forum: such a generation can be instantly left “headless” by just pulling the switch. An elementary power outage is enough. There is a well-known joke:
– I know everything, – said the Internet.
– I can do everything, – the household appliances assented.
“Ha ha ha,” echoed the electricity.
But here another turn of the topic is also possible. America, as discussed at the festival as part of the panel discussion “Censorship in the Media and the Sovereign Internet,” we can shut down the network in just a couple of days. Not to mention blocking an unwanted channel (as happened with the YouTube version of the Tsargrad TV channel) or an account, just say that you are against the same same-sex marriages. The virtual space of our country is largely controlled today from across the ocean.
Every second teenager in Russia exposed to destructive effects on social media
From there, from the West, all sorts of groups of death, shock content, sexual perversion, and school shooting (shootings in schools) are purposefully conducted [2]. Almost every second teenager in Russia, 45% of the total number of minors, is actively destructive in social networks [3]. And this is real suicide, bullying (including cyberbullying), drug distribution, propaganda of debauchery, and so on. Plus gambling and internet addiction, which, as experts say, are even stronger than sexual desire [4].
There is nothing better than the Internet, a scout embedded in our apartments, offices, hospitals, classrooms, offices
It is on the Internet that all kinds of sects, including pseudo-Orthodox sects, are spreading especially smartly, acting on behalf of the Church when replacing Orthodox doctrine with symbiosis under the external church attributes of occult ideas, Islamic practices, and so on. “Their superstitions are reborn into fancies,” commented Roman Silantyev, head of the Human Rights Center of the ARNS, Deputy Chairman of the Expert Council for State Religious Expertise under the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation. Within the framework of the event, examples of the activities of the defrocked Vladimir Golovin, sects from Chikhachev, etc. were examined. revelations, many of them do not stop their activities.
It is clear that in this situation of external vulnerability, for the time being, it is unprofitable to turn off the Internet for us. In addition, there is no better intelligence agent than the Internet, embedded in our apartments, offices, hospitals, classrooms, offices.
War of values
In the US cyber strategy adopted in November 2019, Russia is declared America’s # 1 enemy [5]. Just like just three weeks ago, at a meeting between the current and former presidents of America Joe Biden and Donald Trump, it was openly declared: “Our Anglo-Saxon values will defeat the values of Russia and China.” “This is a declaration of a war of values on us,” commented Alexander Shchipkov, First Deputy Chairman of the Synodal Department for Church Relations with Society and the Media, Deputy Head of the ARNS, at the Church, Propaganda and National Security of Russia meeting. But at the same time he remarked: “America was chasing two birds with one stone. In their view, our and Chinese values are “red” values, and this is a false message. “
It is known that before the next discussion in the Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights (HRC) under the President of the Russian Federation, a survey was initiated and conducted by VTsIOM: how do Russians feel about the introduction of social ratings? Most Russians have a negative attitude. The results of the study were sent to the members of the HRC, but the evening before the event there was a call from VTsIOM: these data cannot be published. “It means that one of the digitalizers caught on and took the trouble,” summed up Igor Ashmanov, who told the story.
Two months ago, in August, they handed over the “Digital Code of Human Rights” prepared on behalf of the President of the Russian Federation:
“Digitalization should not outpace the introduction of laws in this area, if so, it should be stopped. Otherwise, it is fraught with an increase in the vulnerability of both an individual, including children, and society as a whole from this onslaught of digital depersonalization, criminality, corruption, “the developer of the Code is sure.
“Grand Inquisitor” in action
Social ratings already introduced in China are one of the technologies of “digital totalitarianism”
Social ratings, already implemented in China, are one of the technologies of “digital totalitarianism”. But in our country today there are forces promoting such. These are the very same adherents of the modern “reincarnation” of communism with its messages of building a “paradise on earth” with strict control and lack of freedom. “Grand Inquisitor” in action.
Threats cannot be underestimated. As well as to step on the same rake, invented again in the West. The Internet was invented in America in such a way that it reflects the American view of the world, and the Americans, through the same gadgets, have already been able to impose an algorithmic way of thinking on the whole world. You will see how your teenage children quickly manipulate the smartphone screen with their thumb, this is the algorithmic thinking that has already been assigned to them. Who knows how many musicians, artists, poets, saints we will be missing because of this?
Notes:
[1] Kravtsov told what the “digital biography” of schoolchildren will be // https://rg.ru/2021/01/10/sergej-kravcov-rasskazal-kakoj-budet-cifrovaia-biografiia-shkolnikov.html
[2] Destructive trends in social media and ways to identify them // https://web.archive.org/web/20220126000539/https://docs.edu.gov.ru/document/e9ea7480e392434f996870e8cdf1115b/download/559/
[3] The OP announced the impact of destructive content on users of social networks // https://ria.ru/20201119/sotsseti-1585316528.html
[4] Nicholas (Hadzhinikolau), Metropolitan of Mesogeia and Laureotic. Attraction to the Internet and devices is stronger than sexual attraction // https://pravoslavie.ru/114967.html
[5] Smirnov Anatoly. Latest US Cyber Strategies – Preamble to War? // International processes, Volume 16, No 4 (55). P. 181–192 //
Source: pravoslavie.ru
