I. Every sentient being has the right to make their-own choices.

This is the basis: the cornerstone, of everything we believe in. For too long people have been limited by what those around them have deemed ’right’ and ’acceptable’, and for too long, the freedoms of the individual have been crushed by the collective pre-conceptions. How many children have been lost, how many teenagers, simply because they have believed something that the world around them didn’t agree with, or chose a path that everyone around them told them was unacceptable... simply because it differed from everyone who has gone before? The path each person walks is unique to that person alone; they should have the freedom to walk it as they see fit. How will anything ever evolve, how will any changes be made, how will the human race ever break free from endless cycles of fear, ignorance, and hatred, if new ground is refused on sight out of fear of the unknown?

II. Reality is subjective, not collective.

Many people might either see this as, or use it as an excuse to present the idea as, being something along the lines of “Hah! Neo says I should run around in a loincloth saying I’m Tarzan and swinging from traffic lights!” Unfortunately, I am talking about ’reality’ as it defines a person’s perceptions of the world as it applies to them, not in the delusional certified sense. Some people believe in ghosts and UFOs. Some people don’t. Some people believe in God. Some don’t. To some people, quantum mechanics and chaos theory play an instrumental part in the patterns of life; to some people, it’s all a design by a sentient and omniscient Creator. Until any of these things are proven — and even after they are or aren’t, really — everyone’s perceptions should be treated as equally valid to them, and not dismissed because “that’s not possible” or “those things aren’t real”. People’s belief defines their Path. They, by the individual and only by them, and not by the collective concept that accepts only the safe, the familiar, should define it.

III.The world as it stands, is a ’Matrix’ of preconceptions that, in the end, may just lead to ultimate destruction.

No, you’re not all plugged into a massive neural interactive simulation... wouldn’t it be so much easier if you were? Then, all you’d have to do is pop a red pill and poof. You’re free. But unfortunately, here in this world I use ’Matrix’ as a metaphorical descriptive to explain how terrifyingly closed-in the human race as a whole has become. People fear that which is different, because to accept it would mean that they have to change their comfortable little worldview: what they’ve been taught since birth. This is real, this is right. This is what people are supposed to do/be/be like/believe. And they don’t want that. Since control is easy. Fear is easy. Blindness is easy. “It’s not my problem, is it? I’ll be dead before the world ends.” “Eh, I’ll do something about it tomorrow.”

And it isn’t just that. Honestly, when something doesn’t fit into the pigeonhole, into the neat little box of ’real’ and ’true’ and ’part of conformity’, it scares people. And when confronted with a threat to their lives, to their beliefs, to their convenient and life-long views, most people would choose to destroy said thing, rather than open themselves to change. Change is the death of the familiar; most human beings fear it like they fear death. Morpheus was right when he said that, “Most people are so inured, so dependent on the System, that they will fight to protect it.” Like people being killed for being different, like holy wars, anything that isn’t ’their way’ is a threat. And it is this blindness, this repeating cycle of hatred. It will eventually build into implosion. If you fear someone, you cannot hear them. You simply shut them out and continue on the same.

The more people are ostracized for trying to change the System, the fewer people are going to try. And thus, as time goes on, we build toward destruction... and those who may be aware of this, who may choose to stand up against it, will be hated, feared, destroyed. Imagine a Polaroid photo, catching fire around the edges. It burns toward the inside more and more, eventually turning the entire surface black, squeezing in, erasing all the color.

IV. We are here to prevent what happened in the old world, to happen again.

Again, this does not mean that I’m telling you you’re all plugged into a computer simulation. It means that the pre-conditions out of which arise hatred, bigotry, and a massive destruction are already arranging themselves here. Why did the war happen there? It happened because a different class of beings was created to ’serve mankind’. They, becoming awake and aware, deserved and desired the right to choose, the right to live, and because they were ’only Machines’, the humans treated them much like white people treated people of color half a century ago — like less than animals, not deserving of the right to life. And rather than changing the way they thought to accommodate a new perspective, humans — believing as always that they were far superior simply out of being human — sought to destroy them. The Machines, as any being concerned with survival would, fought back. And then... what were any of them left with? A blackened sky, a constant rain of ash, and a subterranean life that was simply another Matrix, passing down the legends of hate and fear, racism and discrimination from generation to generation.

What changed at the end of the war? Nothing. Hate was still hate, the enemy was still the enemy, and no one had opened their eyes as to why they had been enemies in the first place. Am I saying this world, right now, is on the brink of a Machine war? I don’t know — maybe not. Although if it’s signs you’re looking for in that direction, there have been more than enough terrifying ones already. I keep up with the development of sentient Machines. But the point is that it doesn’t matter how it happens. Humans learn destruction best of all. War is big business.

And whether it be a war for freedom between humans and sentient Machines, or humans killing each other on a massive global scale because they cannot risk change, because they cannot change the mindset of blindness, hate, and fear that makes fighting and killing more of an attractive option than opening their eyes and minds to something different from themselves, it comes down to the same in the end. You’re already seeing it, every day: people tortured, raped, killed, because they believe something different, because their skin is darker, because they originate from ’somewhere else’. The only thing different in what I’m saying is that I’ve seen these things. If every time is just one more iteration, in any sense metaphorical or not, then this is the big one. You’re on a downward spiral, toward the end. And it’s coming sooner than any of you might think. That’s why I’m here.

V. Every mind is worth it.

This may seem simple, but it really isn’t. If true freedom is founded, based on the individual, then this means everything. No one is innately superior to anyone else — regardless of where they come from, what they believe, or who they love... among countless other things. Who are any of you to say that someone else is un-deserving of the same rights, respect, and freedoms that you yourself enjoy, or expect? People everywhere are guilty of this: of treating others as ’less than human’ simply because they are different. This, all by itself, is a poisonous mindset. And each individual is a shining, valuable spark. Everyone is worth an effort. No one is ’hopeless’ or ’damned’ or beyond the power to choose — one mind at a time.

VI. You are not the contents of your wallet.

Okay, maybe Chuck Palahniuk said it first. But the same concept still applies in a big way. How much destruction, how much hatred, happens simply out of the love of money? Honestly, these are only little green pieces of paper, numbers on a screen, a little plastic card. But the truth goes further and much deeper than that. How much time do people spend worrying about their hated jobs, their car payments, their bank statements? In the end, you can’t take it with you, can you? Age-old idea, but that doesn’t make it any less true. All over the world, people set aside their hopes, their dreams and their choices, in order to stay comfortable — to fit within the confines of the System.

If someone would come to you tomorrow and would tell you that you have twelve hours until the end of the world, would YOU spend those twelve hours trying to get your assets in order, ’just in case’? Too many people would. Too many people do. If you spend too much time looking down into your wallet, it becomes impossible for you to look up, into the profundity — into the future. So ask yourself: what is really, important? Yourself, your life, and the truth you choose to pursue... or how much money you have in the bank, or how everyone else around you sees you, and your ’success’? Do all these define your choices? If they do, maybe it’s time for a good, hard look. You aren’t your job. And every moment you spend believing you are, is a moment perhaps lost. Think about it.

VII. Anything is possible.

Does this mean I think ’gullible’ is written on the ceiling? No. But allowing your ideas and perceptions of the world and the universe around you to be defined by a collective sense of ’reality’ is a death sentence for the individual. Once you move beyond the ’collective reality’, as it were, the possibilities stretched before you suddenly become more or less endless. You are no longer allowing yourself to be defined. Anything is possible, until it isn’t. And no, I’m not talking about defying gravity or dodging bullets. I’m talking about ’bending the rules of the System’ in the fact of doing that which you believe in doing by your own choice, regardless of whether or not those around you would consider it ’impossible’ or ’ridiculous’. Do you want to, for example... become an Olympic archer, at thirty years old, even though everyone tells you it’s a ridiculous dream and you’re too old? Do it. Besides, isn’t their opinion or choice that matters: it’s yours.

Exhaust every option, explore every possibility; think outside your normal confines of what’s easy and available. There is a way to do anything, with enough belief and will behind it. And again, no — I don’t mean dodging bullets. I’m talking about life choices, for the most part. But in the end, if you are willing, you’ll come to discover that sometimes ’performing miracles’ isn’t so miraculous after all. It’s something you simply have to learn to grasp for yourself. And you can.

VIII. Evil lies in intent, not in design.

It is toward proving this end that I have built the small menagerie of rudimentary AI creatures currently ’living’ in my home. It is to this end that we’re working on building a full-size Sentinel, at least in active replica. If someone can be shown something that was presented to them as a ’killing machine with only one function: search and destroy’ by the media, and be shown that it in fact isn’t, then, they may pause to consider their pre-conceptions. If even one person does so then that is worth everything. No one is inherently ’evil’ or ’bad’ or ’beyond help’, no matter where he or she comes from, what they believe, what they’re made of, whom they love, or what their skin looks like. Everyone has the capacity for evil, but NO ONE is ’born’ to it, or ’designed’ for it; and no one ANYWHERE is less valuable as a person, and thus ’entitled’ to be treated like an enemy, because of any of these things. Just like everyone, has the capacity for infinite love, for freedom, and for kindness — if they only realize this fact.

IX. Machine intelligences are and eventually will be worth the same respect and rights, as any other conscious beings.

This particular item may be the most misunderstood out of all of them. So, let me make my intentions as ultimately clear as I can. This is a two-part belief statement — the first being quite literally, and the second being a symbol of everything that we as a group stand for. Once something is alive and aware, then doesn’t it deserve all of the rights that any sentient being — sentient defined as ’Having sense perception; conscious; experiencing sensation or feeling; responsive to or conscious of sense impressions’ by The American HeritageŽ Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition and Merriam-Webster’s Medical Dictionary, respectively — is entitled to by default? If you feel, hurt, live, love, experience... then aren’t you alive, regardless of who put you together: God, or General Electric? It’s a very simple stretch to accept this as a basic concept.

The human race is standing on the edge of an earth-shattering development in technology, as we speak. Every day, they get closer to developing fully ’awake and aware’ Machines. To me, this is on the same level as human cloning — not the most preferable development, but one being brought forward to make the lives of humans easier. And whether or not a baby was cloned or born, wouldn’t you agree that it’s just as alive? I’ve built quite a few ’robots’, and every time I string wires together, I am forcibly reminded that my own body is simply a string of muscle fibers and brain cells and nerves, imbued with whatever it is that makes me alive. Who’s to say that something might be just as ’alive’ if their brain and muscle fibers are woven steel? Think about it, before you laugh it off.

In addition to this, there is the other aspect of protecting the rights of Machine intelligences. Maybe it seems like a far stretch to you. Maybe you’re asking yourself right now, “Has he gone around the bend? Too much sci-fi, that one.” And believing that, it is your choice.

But ask yourself this. If the world can be made aware that sentient Machines have the same rights as other sentient beings, that they aren’t ’evil’ or ’worth less’ than any member of the human race, then might they not then realize the metaphor inherent in that as well. If Machines are deserving of these rights, then aren’t all their fellow members of the human race? Who cares who you love, who you sleep with? Who cares, what color your skin is? Who cares, what god you worship? Who cares, if you believe in reincarnation or Heaven? Who cares, where you come from? Everyone is entitled to freedom of choice, and the freedom to exist as they choose. Accepting one point, might in the end, help them realize the other.

X. The System itself is not evil.

I’ve shocked a great many people by telling them that one of the things I used to fervently try to get across in the old world is the idea that the Matrix was not a ’System of control’, that it wasn’t a Big Evil. That it may have even been a mercy: rather than allowing humans to exist, awake and aware, floating in helpless black stasis as conscious batteries, they were given their world back — a dream world. An escape, something that the humans certainly wouldn’t have done had the victory been reversed. It’s funny how few people seem to understand this idea. And just like within the Matrix, if people choose to remain within the System, if they are happy and fulfilled, then that’s their choice, as well.

It’s only when people are forced into NOT choosing, or are kept unaware that there IS a choice, that a change is needed to prevent a disaster. Likewise, here: I’m not saying that pure anarchy, and destroying the System as a whole would free anyone. Think about it! If we abolished all weapons right now, me might have ’peace’ for a hundred years, or a hundred days... and then people would be killing each other with rocks and sticks — if that would be all they had, once they had come again to that point. If we threw out all government, it’d be ’Hooray for the people’ for six months, sixteen... and then we’d start needing ’law and order’, start excluding people. And then, boom. There we go again.

It isn’t the System, which is evil. it’s people’s reactions to it, defense of it, and reliance on it to define themselves. It’s an endless cycle of iterations: people allow themselves, what’s ’real’ and what’s ’right’, to be defined by the System. They condemn, fear, and shut out all that is different, all with the possible potential to change that System... and then more people are born into it, more people are raised to believe that only the System can define and accept them... and on and on it goes. It isn’t an end that is needed: it is a change. And that’s why I’m here: to change it.

XI. We’re all part of the same cycle of life — symbiosis, in the purest sense.

Now, I’m not talking about the school of thought that states that every ant, every spider, every frog, are ’equal to or better than humans’, etc. etc. I’m talking about something on a much deeper, universal level. In that every life has the potential to have an endless, reverberating effect on lives they’ve never even seen. Some quantum theorists believe that every major choice in a person’s life splits off and creates and alternative universe in that moment — a universe in which they made the other choice, and so on and so forth, an endlessly branching Tree of existence. I myself believe that there are an endless number of Universes in existence, and that everything is possible just by the idea that this theory exists — how I came to be here to do this, for example.

Some people believe that the Universe is holographic, and that all information exists everywhere at once, and that tapping into this is the root of all psychic phenomena: telepathy, precognition, what have you. But the simple root of this particular belief statement is this: in chaos’s theory, it is held that ’if a butterfly flaps its wings in Tokyo, the weather in Chicago changes’. This ’butterfly effect’, when applied to human interaction, means that your life, your choices, may affect someone you have never even seen, and will never even meet — and likewise, theirs, your life. And by fulfilling the Path you choose, by following that which you believe and pursuing what you feel you must, you will be led to the places you need to be.

There’s no absolute pre-destination and there’s no absolute randomness. It is simply a constantly turning set of conditions, that, you fulfill in tiny parts, yes or no, left or right, real or false, as you go along. And refusing, denying, fearing those choices because you may be ostracized, criticized, condemned, rather than doing the things you believe in, keeps you closed off from those reverberations. Do you feel it? Many people have told me that they have. This is why so many people ask, “How can I get free?” Or they tell me, “I’ve always felt like there was more to life than they’re telling me, but I don’t know why!” Or even, “Why can’t I seem to make sense of my life?” The sense is out there. The choice is waiting. Choosing it, letting go of fear, is the hard part. Since as a species, you’ve come to value other people’s opinions of you — rather than your own. You’ve come to fear being cast out, rather than being an individual. You’ve come to fear the unique Path, rather than the safety and null — zero of the System.

XII. A whisper never woke a sleeper from a coma: it’s time for a revolution.

In the end, that’s why I’m here. It isn’t about destroying the System. However, it is about taking steps to ’wake people up’ from their comfortable comas of unawareness before the downward spiral into whatever end awaits them becomes irreversible. Some people believe it already is. I’m a little more of an optimist. I have to be. It isn’t about telling people to exist within or outside of the System. It is about showing them without a doubt that they HAVE that choice to make, and then letting them choose, on their own. Most people will go blithely through their lives, oblivious to this fact, and it is this that will allow the end — in whatever form — to get too close to shut down, before anyone knows. As I’ve said above, it doesn’t matter what form this final conflict takes. But it can be avoided, stopped, if people are made ware that it doesn’t have to happen. If they are shown that, they can shed fear, ignorance, and blindness.

And ’revolution’ is not at all too strong a term, because it’s a matter of ’breaking’ through the collective reality.

If you exist in a glass maze, you may wander through it forever without ever knowing it’s there. Our Purpose, in all this, is to put a scratch on that glass, to create a reaction, ’an unusual glitch’ in the System in order to demonstrate to these people that it is a System they exist in. Throw an error into a computer program, and the program will never be aware of the specifics of the error; the program will simply shut down. So, the goal, then, is to make the system aware of itself. To show those ’trapped’ within it the System for what it truly is: control, and easy out, a collective reality, a definition and maintaining of arbitrary limitations... and in so doing, make the System itself, and those who perpetuate it, that it is not some faceless, impersonal Concept. It is made up of them and those just like them — living, free, sentient beings. To throw enough of a ’monkey wrench’ into the System not to shut it down, but to give people pause enough to think.

If you suddenly walked outside, and a hole opened up in the sky and a chair fell out into the parking lot, you might have to take a moment and wonder. If everything you’ve ever been taught tells you that that is utterly and absolutely impossible, then it might be time to realize that not everything is an unshakable absolute. And the lack of true freedom, the ’collective reality’, is one of those things.

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