Text written as an accompanying text to the french documentary ALERTE À BABYLONE directed by Jean Druon. It was released in 2005 and features 16 testimonies on the ultimate and irreversible horror of our world enslaved by the relentless expansion of technology. (Excerpt to be viewed below)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AE6h1XbDa1c
Highschooler, student : don’t take your exams
A warning to highschool students
Don't wait until you're under hire to refuse to be employed in your own confinement!
We, the generation before you, would like to warn you of something that took us a long time to
realize: almost nothing that really matters - BECAUSE IT DETERMINES WHAT HAPPENS TO
OUR LIVES - is decided by humans, let alone put to their vote. What used to be called a “citizen”
(an individual who takes part in the orientations of the City) has ceased to exist.
The use of land to build a living space and grow whatever we want is more problematic every day;
water, seeds and energy are captured by a handful of multinational institutions and then distributed
to those who can afford them; living mechanisms become the property of industrialists who alter
them to turn them into standard, marketable products. The human body and mind are increasingly
shaped and controlled by mechanical devices.
Just like your parents, you will be offered the chance to prosper by degrading what is still alive, and
by pushing even further the division of labor which, at the same time as eliminating the meaning of
what we produce, moves individual life further away from any possibility of autonomy.
The social order will first offer you a working position in its organization. You are at school to
prepare yourself for this role and to accept its demands. It's difficult to say exactly what this will
entail, as it will primarily involve operating certain techniques and tools currently under
development. Techniques and tools that nobody really knows about, nor really wanted, but whose
purpose is to increase the control of ruling social institutions over the world and its resources. Very
few activities will escape this fate, and certainly not those that nourish us (food, education,
information) or are supposed to contribute to our well-being (health, the pursuit of knowledge).
YOU WILL BE EXPECTED TO COOPERATE SUBMISSIVELY WITH WHAT IS
HAPPENING. All your intelligence and knowledge of modern techniques will help to further
rationalize the social organization of the catastrophe. The brightest and most zealous will take their
place among those who are called “leaders” because they are responsible for ratifying, in the
positions they hold in the high administration of the system, the decisions demanded by the order in
place.
You know it already, we've told you enough, IN MODERN SOCIETY A JOB IS THE MOST
PRECIOUS THING BECAUSE ON THE ONE HAND THERE WON'T BE ONE FOR
EVERYONE, BUT ABOVE ALL, IN EXCHANGE FOR YOUR SHARE OF THE DISASTER
YOU'LL BE EMPLOYED TO PRODUCE, YOU'LL HAVE ACCESS TO THE ULTIMATE
PRIVILEGE OFFERED TO HUMANS: A CREDIT LINE TO CONSUME WITHOUT
RESTRICTION ALL THAT REMAINS TO BE CONSUMED. To achieve this, you'll have to
increase the control you exert over all living things, leading to the eradication of living diversity and its replacement by an artificial, automatic and standardized life.
Mainstream science has the merit of informing us of the disaster it is causing: biosphere specialists
tell us that, at the current rate of biodiversity degradation, by mid-century, the ongoing pursuit of
industrial activities will have caused the disappearance of half of all living species.
Despite efforts made by humans to criticize the techno-merchandization of the world, nothing so far
has slowed down this process. If the evidence of our world's insanity in no way weakens its march,
it's because humans have been convinced that they cannot be the actors of their own future. WE
LIVE IN A WORLD WHERE DISSATISFACTION IS ALMOST UNANIMOUS, BUT WHERE
VERY FEW THINK TO QUESTION THEIR PARTICIPATION IN THE LOGIC OF THE
SOCIAL SYSTEM.
The means of escaping social control are running out as surveillance devices multiply to protect the
world's privatization. Borders allow only the servants of the system to pass through, access to
strategic networks is constantly monitored, human and animal livestock are compelled to be
registered as a condition of existence, and biocontrol will soon be taking care of us from birth to
death.
It is becoming increasingly uncertain whether we will be able to resist this confinement; once
you've signed your letter of commitment to modern society, you will have less free time to think
and act. We'd like to suggest that you use your free time first to feel and think for yourself, to
research and debate, and to determine in advance what kind of existence you think is worth living.
And then to prepare yourself for the efforts needed to make it happen. There's no need to wait for
your voter's registration card to say NO TO THE PREVISIBLE MISERY OF LIVES TO COME.
If historical experience can still exist, it must first reveal the extent to which a new generation can
mobilize beyond all separations, reconcile the different forms of intelligence that have arisen here
and there, and free the living from its present imprisonment.
