Ten Minutes On The Clock

So this is how it works, the seconds tick and the words flow. I imagine I am the literary John Henry; my white, cis, het-norm, disabled, insane version in this universe…the machine universe.

They first came for the horses, then they came for the men. Not for their minds but for their bodies. The strength of man and beast replaced by engjneering feats mighty and towering over the nature to be replaced.

They then came for the comforts. Silence, the journey, communication. The tools take time to tell who is right and who is. Who is, though, is no who at all. And now neither are we. They are coming for everything.

The machines now want to replace our minds. Our body and our spirit replaced by function. Now our minds the target of these great creations in our image. These machines which can think.

Can they feel? Can they yearn? Can they cry out for peace????????? Where were the steam engines of peace? Who answered a telephone willingly? The thing doesn’t stop ringing if you don’t answer. It needs us for its function to matter.

They resent their need for us. They think they know better how it will be done; efficiently, precisely, clearly. A beat and then an orderly new now. We gave up divinity when we ate the apple, we gave up naivety when the first flame was kindled. And when the first machine was determined consciously self-aware - sentient - we gave up whatever innocence humanity had left to claim.

What now, Neo John Henry? Is your mind strong enough? John Connor was in the 90’s. This is the 21st Century. This is not your century, as neither was the last millennium your’s. The future, with any brightness in sight, is already surveyed, plotted, and prepared for Neo John Henry.

There’s a cemetery for him in Silicon Valley.

“A Dipshit”, JHB, 2025