https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ this assumes low dimensionality of the world > I accuse Hurlock of being stuck behind the veil. When the veil is lifted, Gnon-aka-the-GotCHa-aka-the-Gods-of-Earth turn out to be Moloch-aka-the-Outer-Gods. Submitting to them doesn’t make you “free”, there’s no spontaneous order, any gifts they have given you are an unlikely and contingent output of a blind idiot process whose next iteration will just as happily destroy you. > [...] > So let me confess guilt to one of Hurlock’s accusations: I am a transhumanist and I really do want to rule the universe. > Not personally – I mean, I wouldn’t object if someone personally offered me the job, but I don’t expect anyone will. I would like humans, or something that respects humans, or at least gets along with humans – to have the job. > But the current rulers of the universe – call them what you want, Moloch, Gnon, whatever – want us dead, and with us everything we value. Art, science, love, philosophy, consciousness itself, the entire bundle. And since I’m not down with that plan, I think defeating them and taking their place is a pretty high priority. [...] > So be it with Gnon. Our job is to placate him insofar as is necessary to avoid starvation and invasion. And that only for a short time, until we come into our full power. ### comment 1 Steve Johnson says: [July 31, 2014 at 3:45 am](https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/#comment-128218)  > In this case Moloch’s laughter sounds like AIDS, MRSA and drug resistant gonorrhea. You just wanted to be tolerant and nice? Too bad. Guess Elua loses another round. Maybe those ancient taboos had a damned good reason for sticking around. You really can’t escape Gnon. ### thread 2 [Ragged Jack Scarlet](http://raggedjackscarlet.tumblr.com/) says: [July 30, 2014 at 7:36 am](https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/#comment-127657)  > [...] I’ve often heart Christian intellectuals say things like “God isn’t some stern old codger up in the sky, God is the ontological basis of reality.” It seemed…. plausible enough, in its own strange way. But before hearing your ideas on Moloch I never considered the possibility of “yes but what if the ontological basis of reality is a total jerk?” And also, hearing your description of that moment when you saw Moloch… made me immediately think of this [scene from Metropolis.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZpaWOLjWx0) > I had read Land’s description of the “four horsemen of Gnon” before, and being the hopeless Romanticist that I am I immediately set to thinking of gods that could rival the four horsemen of Gnon– aspects of reality that are for the most part “on humanity’s side”. I could only come up with two: > Prometheus — Intelligibility Not the fact that the universe follows laws, but the fact that those laws can be deciphered, and expressed in formulas and algorithms and trends. The fact that the universe is not a black box or total chaos, but something that can be comprehended by the human mind. >Imhotep — Artifice The fact that things can be built. The fact that in small areas, entropy can temporarily be overcome. The fact that matter can be acted upon in ways that add order. > I’m fairly certain someone could find a way to reframe Prometheus and Imhotep as aspects of Gnon though….. response was [Erik](http://www.moreright.net/) says: [July 30, 2014 at 8:48 am](https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/#comment-127682)  > I have a suggestion for a third. Tyr – Oathkeeping The Norse god of law who gives an arm to bind the Fenris Wolf. The fact that people can make personal sacrifices where the benefits mostly accrue to other people. The fact that people express gratitude for this and track reputation. The power of making and keeping promises, encouraging people to do so, punishing traitors and in extreme cases even punishing traitors _who defect to your side_. > (If you want to argue that the “reputation economy” is valuable enough that Tyr “isn’t sacrificing” when he gives up his arm, then you can substitute this with “the power of the reputation economy to create decentralized coordination” or something similar. Binding the Fenris Wolf is still a big win!) [nydwracu](http://nydwracu.wordpress.com/) says: [July 30, 2014 at 10:22 am](https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/#comment-127708)  > Tyr, the binder of contracts; Enki, the creator of customs; Forseti, the coordinator… Andy says: [July 30, 2014 at 11:17 am](https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/#comment-127738)  > Enki, creator of customs, could well end up as a neutral trickster, the kind who gets Tyr to enforce harmful contracts because “that’s always the way it’s always been.” Enki who tricked Tyr into banning women from driving. Enki who tricked Tyr into enforcing foot-binding or genital mutilation or stoning gay people to death because “that’s what’s in the rules.” [nydwracu](http://nydwracu.wordpress.com/) says: [July 30, 2014 at 5:29 pm](https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/#comment-127986)  > There’s tricksters and then there’s tricksters who are so much smarter than you that you can’t ever tell whether they’re tricking you or not. ### comment 3 [Mai La Dreapta](http://mailadreapta.wordpress.com/) says: [July 31, 2014 at 3:00 pm](https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/#comment-128477)  > What I do after a long and _excellent_ post like this is mull over it for a little while. Of course the result of this is that I am coming in after over 500 other comments, so nobody will read this. Nonetheless: what you really need to wonder is whether God is Moloch or Elua. Because if God is Moloch, you’re _screwed_. Your FAI project will fail. Your resources will run out. Your children will disavow your. Your values will perish. There is no way out. How about some mystical theology? > Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. So the Lord said, “I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.” But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. When your memetics get sufficiently perverse, God is not above a hard reset and starting over from better stock. > And they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.” > > But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. And the Lord said, “Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them. Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.” So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they ceased building the city. You cannot beat God with your technology. There is always a way to undermine you, and God will find it. Both of the above are compatible with both Moloch and Elua. The point is that whatever Gnon wants, Gnon gets, without exception. You may persist for a little while in defiance of his purposes, but judgement always comes. And this is why I cannot endorse the transhumanist project: because it is _doomed to fail_. God is Gnon is God, and there is no way out, no way to get above him, no way to tear him down from heaven. You just had better hope that Gnon is Elua and not Moloch. > Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out. > The Spirit and the Bride say “Come.” ### comment 4 [Mai La Dreapta](http://mailadreapta.wordpress.com/) says: [July 31, 2014 at 10:44 pm](https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/#comment-128643)  > You have the fundamentalist’s twin diseases of literality and moral condemnation. I was sorely tempted to just quote [this](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+13%3A10-13&version=NKJV), but I have relented and will speak plainly. I offered the stories of the Great Flood and the Tower of Babel as parables of the fact that God/Gnon/Moloch is _really, really_ hard to beat, as you are quite literally playing by his rules, in his court, and under his supervision. Your memes get too out of whack and WHAM your entire civilization gets destroyed. It _probably_ won’t literally be because the waters of the firmament pour down and cover the entire face of the earth, but it’s entirely possible that your destruction will be just as sudden and just as astounding as if they had. The Tower of Babel suggests the same thing about technological projects. > Can you fight this? Yes. Can you get incrementally higher, bigger, better? Yes. Can you build a tower to heaven, bind Moloch in a tomb beneath the earth, and lift Elua to godhood? Um. There are a bunch of reasons why I think you cannot. (With regards to the transhumanist FAI project in particular, I do not think that intelligence can be increased indefinitely, and I’m quite sure that there are no sources of free infinite energy, and pretty much all descriptions of the post-singularity FAI that I have read covertly assume infinite intelligence and infinite energy, which makes them all fantasy.)