Editor’s Note: This post is another entry in the Prepper Writing Contest from Dave W. If you have information for Preppers that you would like to share and possibly win a $300 Amazon Gift Card to purchase your own prepping supplies, enter today.
When I was a kid, like every other science-fiction obsessed 12-year-old, I saw “TERMINATOR” (TM, all rights reserved, all rights to the production company, I will be sued if I don’t say this, blah blah blah….). You all remember, the iconic 1980’s era movie? It scared the hell out of me! Not just because Arnold Schwarzenegger in the movie was a six-foot-four, 380 pound, tungsten carbide robot with every weapon known to man welded to his exoskeleton; killing everything from preschool students to policemen, to MMA fighters, and I on the other hand was a 73 pound skateboard rider… But, more to the point, because it seemed like something that could legitimately happen on Earth! I thought, as a semi-good-student-12-year-old, that there IS a possibility that a computer could become aware of itself and the world, create a disdain and severe lack of need for humans, and eradicate us form the Earth. I couldn’t get it out of my head, I still can’t and it is 30 years later! I thought it could happen, right?
Didn’t YOU back then? I cannot be alone on this one, someone back me up!
In “TERMINATOR” a system, called “Sky-Net” has become the backbone of everything in the U.S. to include military and infrastructure. “Sky-Net” so closely resembles the internet, it is scary in and of itself. It becomes aware of itself and of its place in the world and in humanity. Well, ironically we have passed the critical calendar date in the movie that was supposedly the day that “Sky-Net” became aware; so everyone I know, young and old, male or female, is under the impression – “Well I guess that was just science fiction and could never happen, we passed THE date, hhheeewwww, we are safe now; that was a close one!”
WHAT? Really, Huh?? Did I miss elementary school that day when the teacher said “Ok kids, today we are going to learn how to ignore the obvious, please open your books to chapter 7.”??
Didn’t anyone else pick up on the fact that EVERYTHING else in the movie HAS happened already, and is happening right now: Internet connection to literally everything in our lives – from watches to cars, from climate control on our walls to televisions in our living rooms, from whiteboards at schools to doctors surgical gear, from web-dating applications to weight loss centers – everything is now connected to the internet… literally EVERYTHING.
Entire power grids and infrastructure run by the internet. Drones roaming the Earth, everywhere. Robot exoskeletons in testing and nearly in use by industry and the military; Armed robot ground vehicles in testing and already in use – and internet connected.
3D printing, in testing and ALREADY in use to make many critical “Terminator” items such as circuit boards, magnets, motors, gun parts, ammunition, communication components, GPS components, vehicles, mobile housing and control centers – with NO human interaction what-so-ever. From cars that now are self-driving and connected to GPS and the internet to reusable rocket ships that use the internet to navigate and return to a landing spot no bigger than a fishing boat floating in the ocean. EMP and WMD Weapons that can fit in a backpack or on a small drone. And the scariest characteristic of the movie is now legitimately upon us…. A clueless and ignorant population. One that forgets the movie “Terminator” and denies how we are recreating the entire plot-line, convincing ourselves that the single, most simple, yet most Earth changing event to ever occur in the history of the planet is already past the movie date and therefore could not occur in real life. Do I have to say it again, because I will, it still applies… WHAT??? Really, Huh??
There is an old saying – “Those who refuse to study history are doomed to repeat it.” So, I propose, based on such iconic books, movies, and television shows such as:
- “STAR TREK”
- “STAR WARS”
- “TERMINATOR”
- “THE WALKING DEAD”
- “PLANET OF THE APES”
- “THE MATRIX”
- “BACK TO THE FUTURE”
- “I-ROBOT”
- “WORLD WAR Z”
- “I AM LEGEND”, on and on and on……
(TM, all rights reserved, all rights to the production company, I will be sued if I don’t say this, blah blah blah…..)
That humanity is not only heading for what we have already seen occur in these icons, we are purposefully moving ourselves faster and faster to the critical points, that in my opinion and memory, scare the living hell out of me.
In all of these movies, books, TV, there is a point in the story where mankind, cannot and does not recover – at all. Do we keep ignoring the obvious until mankind reaches that point? If you are looking for me to say something witty and earth-shattering about what we should do about this fact, some revolutionary vision and answer, bad idea, not going to happen; I am not that guy. I do think I am probably just a guy who reads too much science fiction, eats before sleeping, and can’t even figure out how to get that last ounce of toothpaste out of the tube.
However, I do propose two things to anyone reading this: First, take a couple of nights and watch some of the science fiction titles I mentioned, or some of your own personal favorites; second make some notes of things that you not only see happening now, but things we can legitimately see happening with little to no time into the future. While doing both of these things, keep my article in the back of your mind, and see if you now are more scared than you were before. There is no way that characteristics, sequences, timing, technology will not appear to you as familiar and very close to today’s world. I suspect you might actually become a little more scared than you EVER have been before, as it is more real and closer than you might think or want to believe. – Maybe I am alone, and I hope to God I am wrong. If I am wrong I apologize now. If I am right, you will probably realize at that point, I don’t care much about apologies.