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Domination [1]

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Date: 2025-07-16  

One of the basic problems that humanity faces is a tendency of some people to believe that some humans will soon have absolute control of Earth (and Mars) via human technology and AI. This apparently would allow world civilization to be dominated by tech bros through their computer systems, supposedly benevolently for the benefit of all. In their view we may even be able to control our ultimate enemy, death itself! Although for what purpose, other than self-aggrandizement for super wealthy people, I don’t understand.

Much of this idea of human supremacy came from Genesis originally, despite the technical association.

“And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.” Genesis 1:28 King James Version

But of course, the Devil is in the interpretation and the part about replenishing the earth is often ignored. After all, God will certainly invent a new Heaven and a new Earth if we screw everything up.

And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. Revelation 21:1 King James Version

That is the fundamentalist interpretation, but it is no greater a threat than that posed by the tech bros. or any other Dominionist ideology. Why do I say both are threats? Because both do not take any responsibility for the climate mess in which we now find ourselves, or for the pollution of the planet’s waters by plastic trash and chemical waste we dump into the environment, and the air by smoke and gases, like the Carbon Dioxide that is causing global climate change. We apparently want to place our faith in a religious idea or a technical one that borders on a faith. I find both ideas to be equally delusional. Of course, I always could be wrong, but I don’t think so.

In Soil: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden, Camille Dungy describes “The Great Chain of Being”, a common illusion that illustrates our tendency toward arrogance. In this concept, God is at the top, along with his son Jesus, followed by the angels, then man, birds, mammals etc, ending in the plant kingdom at the bottom. But, as Dungy says, she realized when she was breastfeeding her baby that she was a mammal- a beast, as are we all. It seems that we decided very soon that we were created as the rulers of the planet and our self ascribed superiority gave us dominion. All of this made us superior to every beast as we were something grander than that- created in God’s image to do as we will with lower beings while we, having sinned against God in Eden, would,, at least those that accepted Jesus as their savior, be eventually rewarded by eternal life and a new heaven and a new earth, apparently without oceans! “John” doesn’t seem to mention large lakes either as gone or present.

Our superiority complex has given us impetus to develop technology that is impressive and we are all partakers in that technology. I’m writing this on a computer and using the Internet in the process, something that few people would have thought possible in the seventies of the last century. Indeed it would have been thought a miracle, or magic, or insane science fiction! But here we are, including threats posed by dementedly programed AI and the tons of waste that is caused by that technology. We may be facing the reason we haven’t been contacted by advanced civilizations; they may self-destruct like a rotting fish after reaching a maximum level of development, drowned in their own waste. We jumped up savannah apes and any other technologically advanced species in the universe may simply be too blind to reality to stop this.

To be honest, this superiority is a concept developed to a very large degree by white males and also expresses itself in misogyny and racism. if you are superior to the natural world, why not consider yourself superior to other non-white humans and females? Why should you not be the chosen rulers of the world? Self aggrandizing crap in my opinion.

What to do? I’m not hopeful that we will avoid tech Nazidom, with a side of religiosity, leading to self-extinction or regression of our species, but you won’t succeed unless you try. Well, for starters elect better leaders! Even Biden was not moving fast enough to avoid major climate change, but to be fair much of the public would not have cooperated and I’m sure Biden knew that. Our current leadership is facilitating a religio-Nazi dictatorship that doesn’t give a damn about the future as long as they can live high off the middle class and the poor for the present, and until our voting public wakes up to that danger, we are essentially doomed.

Lichens, Barfoot Park, Chiricahua Mountains, Arizona. These are survival specialists.

I cannot see how we can survive unless we are able to also purge the exaggerated self-interest of the super wealthy, apparently based on the idea of domination. Nobody really needs billions of dollars and if we had a more secure ethical system that would be obvious. No, it's not Communistic to suggest that wealth should be more equally distributed. Societies that have ground their citizens into the earth didn’t end well (See: late 18th Century France and early 20th Century Russia). I don’t mind people gaining from their innovation, but the current state of things is ridiculous and will lead to ruin. A thriving middle class is essential to a democratic republic.

You also don’t need to be what MAGA people would call a fuzzy thinking tree-hugging wacko to realize that our very existence depends on the natural world. E. O. Wilson’s idea of a fifty-fifty split between human run societies and the natural world makes sense (see: eowilsonfoundation.org/...). But I wish I felt optimistic in that regard. We may be too selfish as a group to ever leave half of the planet undisturbed. They’ll always be somebody, or some corporation, who would throw a monkey wrench into any truce we might develop with the natural world, even though we are part of it. We are too damned in love with domination, whether we base it on religious ideas or technology. In essence we are failing in our role as stewards of the earth and that failure will cost us a lot. There will eventually be a time when we have to pay the piper and that day is coming fast!

At the end of the musical composition and film Terra Nostra presented at the Graphite Arts Center in Edmonds, Washington, on the 11th of July, a seedling is shown growing. I believe that this is realistic because life has survived many challenges and likely will survive us. But the question of whether we will survive, or if we will survive only as remnants in some future dystopia, is up to us as a whole. So far things don’t look good for our dominionist-minded life form!

Photos by me.

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