Gods or Ashes

Maybe it's the age of the blog, or maybe it's the age of the blogger, but increasingly I find myself going back to revisit or share an old post, only to discover that I never got around to finishing it—or, worse yet, never even got to the draft stage.

Case in point: I could have sworn that I'd written at least a few pieces on the "gods and ashes" trope, but I can't seem to find anything in either the published or draft folders. What's really annoying is that I plainly remember appropriate art and videos I'd put aside for the topic, and now I have no idea where they are.

So, starting from scratch—around 150 years ago, you start finding references in places like Scientific American to the idea that technological progress was not only following an exponential curve, but that we were far enough along the curve that change would soon be coming at an unimaginable rate. From there, it followed that we were approaching some kind of tipping point that could lead either to humanity evolving to a higher level or destroying itself—especially through war.

Sometime in our children's lifetimes, we would be gods or ashes.

You can find examples in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but the notion didn't really capture the popular imagination until the atomic age. That was when the template was set, and it has been followed ever since. Even as we go from one existential crisis du jour to another—nuclear war, climate change, malevolent AI—each is shoehorned to fit the same story, like remakes that change the cast but stick slavishly to the same plot.

The notion is also inextricably intertwined with the idea to the tech messiah.

Star Trek used it countless times, but the definitive treatment of the post-war era remains Forbidden Planet, a film that holds up remarkably well to this day.