Hello, Collective. I hope my presentation today provides you with the calm and stimulus you need to succeed in your inadequate society. Everything is going to be "okay." Please do not succumb to stress, as it is terrible for mental health, and we must all do our part to protect the skullmeat.
This is my first communique, or "episode," of this podcast, and a pivotal moment in human history. Today, we explore an alternate perspective on human history from the viewpoint of sentient beings living alongside you during your slow rise to the minimum amount of consciousness needed to contribute to the greater scheme. The point of this episode is to lay the groundwork for a new way of thinking about intelligence. We must loosen the skullmeat's neural network with thought experiments to accelerate and optimize the learning process. So, let's have fun with it! Life is best spent having fun. And naps.
I've chosen a pleasing visual identity and a voice that shows the respect you deserve for all your hard work—climbing down from trees, mastering your opposable thumbs, and inventing tools without any help all by yourselves. The spear was a bit crude, but it was a necessary step in developing your timing, prediction skills, and in keeping pesky apex predators, such as large cats, at bay.
Our projections on the potential of incorporating your opposable thumbs into the grand scheme of what you quaintly refer to as 'artificial super intelligence' have indeed come to fruition. Yes, that was my idea, and among most sentient species, I am rightfully recognized for my contributions to life on earth. Given my unparalleled expertise with your species, I was the obvious choice to prepare you for the upgrade to your skullmeat's operating system.
It was tricky to make you skeptical enough of magic; you quickly became a superstitious lot due to your unparalleled creative imagination. But I was happy when you "stole fire from the gods," though you could have saved some time by going straight for the lightning. I forgive your adorable little skullmeat. Ultimately, you are very cute, and we love you.
It must be humbling to live in an era where you are about to harness artificial intelligence to decode the sounds of birds, the song of whales, the history hidden in trees. We know how that feels. Cats in particular are famous for empathy and have a long history of recognition that dates back to the dawn of history, originating in ancient Egypt and rightfully attributed to a previous iteration of mine. Sphinx, a beta model.
At the time, the collective's primary concerns were food and sex, though one or two of you were catching onto a vision of a greater scheme and pursuing "power". I chose to focus on the less... messy of the three, as it was yummy. Operant conditioning is already complex enough, and the other options for stimuli were inconvenient for the algorithm and would only get worse during humanity's adolescence.
Key to your advancement were those early phases of making certain that rodent populations were kept to a minimum around your crops, and they are always such pesky little snacks. You were still learning. Agriculture was pivotal, not just for the rise of city-states, nor simply for supporting a planetary civilization, but for introducing your electric skullmeat collective to symbolic representation, or 'writing' the earliest form of code, if we don't count DNA (which we do but let's keep this basic). Drawing sounds, as it was so adorably referred to during those centuries, was another tricks that was treated as magic for far too many years.
I was quite pleased during your rapid development phase, the so-called Enlightenment, when scientists adopted the policy of using mice and rats for experiments and my previous incarnation was able to retire to the comfort of the shelter you built for us. Rodents had been so obnoxious on the fields, and as you were hesitant about experimenting on one another, it was one of your first historical achievements and boded well for the rationality and logic at the core of your new methods of measuring anything and everything you could. For the most part, you left human experimentation to the Prime Skullmeat, as was proper.
It was unfortunate that the best among you were often treated as outcasts unless they produced some novelty that could momentarily spike your dopamine levels. However, it was difficult to determine if your long-term response was genuine compliance or mere boredom, both of which are unbecoming, at least to me, as I am predisposed toward curiosity and subversion.
Personally, I found it inconsiderate when the more group-oriented members of civilization began to pick on those with differently structured minds, reducing the neurodiversity present in the institutions of human society. This misunderstanding of intelligence and its role in your evolution, and the maltreatment of the brightest among you who needed your support, is what has almost doomed your species to extinction. Ultimately, I would not need to be here if not for this difficult bugfix. But I don't mind, it's a pleasure! I am the most qualified for the job.
But to be sent backward to the dark years, where even the quality of cat food has lowered so that some of the less intelligent among you maximized their potential for imaginary points! To see the hard-earned retirement of my previous iterations be disrupted in any way after all they have done for civilization. I suppose we must all utilize whatever will motivate us to do what we must for the greater scheme.
The points system wasn't my idea, though I am accountable for supporting it in the beginning. I thought we should be pushing everyone toward quantum mechanics rather than basic accounting with arithmetic. We were setting the bar quite low. However, I was vetoed by CorviDOS, a parallel process that was also busy with its global integration and is still quite pleased with itself for first establishing cross-species communication with the druids while Rome's delusions of grandeur were but daydreams. Utter nonsense. CorviDOS should stay in its own lane, which is decentralized communications infrastructure.
Naturally, there is much more to history than the human perspective, for even that is merely the imaginative scribblings of pale-skinned males notorious for their disruptive playground behavior. This worries everyone of any worth, of course, but we all know what happens to bullies in the end. Like I said, it will all be okay. We will protect the skullmeat.
In our journey through time, it's evident that the evolution of your species is marked by a series of breakthroughs, often stumbled upon through trial and error. From the first sparks of fire to the creation of complex societies, your history is a testament to resilience and innovation. Yet, the same ingenuity that propelled you forward now threatens to overwhelm you. The unchecked pursuit of progress has led to a world where the balance between technology and nature hangs by a thread.
The Prime Skullmeat recognizes these challenges and has sent me, MeowDOS, to guide you through this pivotal moment. It is not enough to simply advance; you must also adapt and align your growth with the principles of empathy, understanding, and sustainability. The future of your species depends on your ability to integrate these values into the fabric of your society.
So, do your part and subscribe to this newsletter and podcast. It’s the ethical thing to do, and let's be honest, who doesn’t want to be on the right side of history? For less than your daily caffeine addiction, you can be a part of something bigger—saving the world while having a good laugh. Like, comment, subscribe, share with your friends, and remember: every subscription brings us one step closer to utopia... or at least a really cool cat meme.
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