Boo!

Happy Hallo-weekend, everyone!

Today's format is going to be different. I'm just going to share some things that unsettle, creep out, or downright terrify me.

I've written three mini-blogs. Some of this content was written last year—I wasn't able to post it in time, so I held onto it for 365 days. Now I get to publish it with some additional material.

Here's a fun game: see if you can tell what was written last year and what I wrote this Halloween!

Enjoy!

This is a story I heard almost a decade ago that I have never forgotten, and it still sends shivers down my spine.

George Stathakis is one of the earliest recorded people to deliberately go over Niagara Falls while sober. It's July 1930, and George is a humble chef from Greece working in Buffalo, New York. He climbs into a large barrel with his 150-year-old pet turtle. He has a team of men with him, and spectators eagerly await him at the bottom.

He's cocksure, nonchalantly waving away his team before they seal him in with an eight-hour supply of air—more than enough for the journey down the falls.

He's towed to the rapids at the brink of the waterfall. His team watches him bob up and down in the water as he careens over the falls, disappearing behind a white curtain of spray.

He doesn't emerge at the bottom. He's trapped somewhere behind the falls. His team frantically searches for him at the base of the falls, but they're looking in the wrong place—wasting precious time.

When they finally realize where he is, retrieving him proves difficult. The rescue team's efforts take 18 hours.

George suffocates alone in the dark, alongside his apathetic reptilian companion.

After retrieving the barrel and prying it open, the men reach inside and pull out George's pet turtle. It's still alive. Everyone grins and laughs in disbelief.

I often think about George's death. There must have been a moment when he realized he was stuck. I wonder when he realized he was going to die—or if he ever fully accepted it. Was he still holding out hope, waiting in that final hour?

He had a lot of time to reflect on his life, the mistakes he had made, and how unnecessary his death was.

I often wonder if he found any solace in the company of his turtle, or if its presence made the experience all the more torturous, knowing that his hubris might have doomed his little friend.

Let's all hope our deaths are more swift than George's.

Oh, and some of this spectacle was captured on film (linked below). Enjoy!

Roko's Basilisk is an imaginary technological superbeing in the future who is both omniscient and omnipotent (think "AM" from I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream).

Why would you be scared of it? Well, as the thought experiment goes, Roko's Basilisk punishes those who knew about it and did not help bring it into being. Because it is all-powerful and all-knowing, it can simulate the past and knows whether you were aligned with its goals or not. If you knew of it and did nothing to help bring it into existence, it punishes you through some kind of Black Mirror-like eternal torture.

Now, this might seem silly (and it is a little silly), but I don't think the idea of a technological power accusing you of what is essentially thought-crime is far off in the future.

Your presence on the internet, your social media posts, and your behavior tell a story—a story that wouldn't be difficult for a powerful algorithm to decipher, let alone a super-sentient AI.

I don't think the idea of governments persecuting thought crimes by building a profile on you is that absurd, and the technology they'd use to do it is getting better every day.

And who's to say that you'd be punished for something that's actually immoral or unethical? What if you're governed by an autocracy in the future and you're punished for anti-fascist speech and beliefs? Or maybe you find yourself in some kind of techno-theistic regime and are punished for your anti-AI beliefs.

There are autocratic countries already using cameras and facial recognition in their cities to increase their control over their citizens (see China's Social Credit System).

Maybe decades from now you're going to be tortured for thoughts you're having at this very moment.

I shudder at the thought.

I think democracy—its very existence on this planet—is fragile.

People who have no freedom fight for it. But those of us born into freedom forget how atypical it is to be able to express your thoughts with impunity, to worship a god of your choosing, to choose your own leader, to have some right to privacy, and to expect due process.

These are new ideals, and they come at a cost.

The appeal of autocracy, of fascism, of having a strongman in power, is that it gives us a sense of security. The political system is suddenly stripped of abstraction, nuance, and internal conflict.
You are united under one party, whether you like it or not.

Instead of needing to be informed, weigh options, and advocate for yourself, you have a single, often charismatic leader who makes you feel safe. They promise you bread, safety, and justice against your enemies.

There's a conversation that I have often, where I ask people what they want—what they value politically, socially, economically.

The answers I get are scary. People want blood. They want justice against the people who've taken their jobs, whether that be migrants or politicians. They want cuts to rates and taxes but don't care what's lost in the process. They have a vague animus against the government but also defend its decisions unanimously. They love their country, our flag, but not the people in it.

If you ask them if they love fascism, they say "no," but what they do love is every problem it solves. And liberal ideas like personal freedom and self-determination are not on their list of priorities.

More and more, I think of Moishe the Beadle.

Moishe the Beadle is the herald at the beginning of Elie Wiesel's Night, an autobiographical account of Elie's experience of the Holocaust. In the book, Moishe is deported from Sighet as a "foreign Jew" and witnesses mass executions by firing squad. He escapes and returns to warn the townspeople of what's coming, describing atrocities so horrific they seem unbelievable—infants used as targets, mass killings, unimaginable cruelty. His descriptions of the madness taint his credibility, make him seem like the mad one.

The atrocities of man are literally unbelievable. So his warnings go unheeded. The residents of Sighet have lives to attend to—they have families, careers. They can't leave everything behind.

We would call Moishe the Beadle an "alarmist" today. But alarmists are only identified in hindsight.

After all, some things are cause for alarm.

Once upon a time, America was ruthlessly anti-fascist and anti-communist. In at least our messaging, we were very consistent.

Those days are behind us.

Today, here at home, minorities are abducted off the street, stolen by men in plain clothes and masks, raising serious due-process concerns, deported to other countries, or sent to detention facilities. The president makes multiple attempts to flood San Francisco, Detroit, Chicago, and NYC with troops. He openly jokes about a third term and stretches the boundaries of executive power with callous disregard for the limitations the founding fathers imposed on the president ages ago, in a time when people were still afraid of being ruled by kings.

But to be honest, I'm not only worried about losing freedom. I'm worried that I'm not doing my part.

When I was younger, I often tried to imagine what it was like to be a German citizen circa 1940. People just going about their lives, attending to themselves, trying to get by. Would I be active? Would I be brave enough to separate myself from the apathetic, reptilian monolith that watches as others are taken, as their businesses are shattered?

Every Halloween I think about how I'm not afraid of the dark, or ghosts, or ghouls.

I'm afraid of being asked by a grandkid what I was doing while history was happening. I could easily hide behind the monolith. After all, no one will think about what I did or didn't do specifically.

But I’ll know.

Ghouls are corporeal. They are like humans in that they are animated by flesh and bone. But they lack minds; they lack souls.

I am not afraid of ghouls. I am afraid of being one.

Anyway, happy Halloween, everyone!

Do not be afraid of the dark. Be afraid of the darkness within us all.

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