Happy New Year! “Posts from Underground” are back from holiday. This year we aim to finalise the project so the world could see a print edition of this translation-chronoaberration.
After finalising Part I with a few more chapters, the translation committee will take a posting break to translate the whole Part II before serialising it, too.
Meanwhile, please enjoy! And consider subscribing to support nova·nevédoma and this project. Paid subscribers can download a digital version of Vanya Bagaev’s1 “Deleted Scenes from the Bestselling Utopian Novel” at no extra cost, and receive advanced reader copy of our upcoming book “Tulubaikaporia” when it’s ready (very thooooooon, as well as more info).
Previous posts from Underground (with some occasional commentary): Pt. I Ch. I / Pt. I Ch. II / Pt. I Ch. III / Pt. I Ch. IV-V / Pt. I Ch. VI-VII /…
VIII
— Lmao! But ackchyually, desire doesn’t exist! — you interrupt me, laughing. — Science has already anatomised the shite out of man by now that we know for certain that desire and so-called free will is nothing but...
— Wait wait wait, dear readers, I was literally about to say that myself. I even panicked for a sec, if I’m honest. I was literally about to be like “desire runs on vibes and nobody knows why and thank fuck for that” but then I remembered science exists and... held back. And that’s when you chimed in. Because like, seriously, if they actually do crack the algorithm someday for all our desires and impulses — all the variables they depend on, what exact laws govern them, how they spread, where they’re directed in different scenarios and all that shite, like a proper mathematical formula — then immediately humans will... stop wanting things? Probably. No wait, definitely. What’s even the point of wanting something predetermined? More than that: you’d instantly go from being human to being a bot or whatever; because what is even a human without desires, without will and without wants, if not just lines of code in the matrix? What do you reckon? Let’s run the numbers — could this actually happen or not?
— Hmm... — you deduce, — our desires are mostly wrong because we’re optimising for the wrong metrics. That’s why we sometimes want complete nonsense, because we’re dumb enough to think that nonsense is the fastest way to whatever metric we’ve already decided matters. Well, when all this gets mapped out and modelled (which is totally possible, because it’s pure cope and delusion to assume humans will never crack the rest of biology), then obviously there won’t be any so-called desires anymore. Because if desire ever fully aligns with rationality, then we’ll just be computing, not wanting, specifically because you can’t stay rational and want something that makes no sense and knowingly go against your own interests and actively choose to fuck yourself over... And since all desires and reasoning can actually be calculated, because someday they’ll discover the laws of our so-called free will, then, jokes aside, something like an algorithm could be set up, so that we’ll actually want according to this algorithm. Like if someone someday calculates and proves to me that when I flipped someone off, it was literally deterministic, because I couldn’t NOT flip them off and HAD to use that specific finger, then what agency do I even have left in me, especially if I’m educated with a whole PhD or whatnot? Like, I could literally sim out my entire life 30 years in advance; basically, if this actually gets built, we’ll have nothing left to do; we’ll have to accept it anyway. And honestly we should just keep telling ourselves on loop that biology doesn’t give a fuck about consent — it is what it is, not what we wish it was, and if we’re really out here pushing for the algorithm and the deterministic future, well, and... well even designer babies and shit, then what can you do? Have to accept the designer babies too! Otherwise it’ll be accepted without you…
— Okay, but HERE’s where I have a problem! Dear readers, apologies for getting philosophical; it’s almost thirty years of being extremely online! Let me cook a sec. You see: rationality is great, nobody’s disputing that, but rationality is only rationality and only satisfies the computing part of being human, whilst desire is the manifestation of all life, I mean all human life, both with reason and with all the random impulses. And yeah our lives are often pretty mid when you look at it that way, but it’s still life, not just running optimisation functions. Because I, for example, quite naturally want to live in order to satisfy my entire capacity for living, not just to satisfy only my rational capacity, like maybe a twentieth part of my entire capacity for living. What does rationality know? Rationality only knows what it’s managed to learn so far (and probably will never learn anything else; not exactly comforting, but a truth nuke isn’t supposed to be, is it?), whilst human nature acts as a whole, with everything it has, consciously and unconsciously, and yeah it’s full of shite but at least it’s alive. I’m guessing, dear readers, you’re reading this and cringing; you keep telling me that an enlightened and developed person — basically what of person of the future will be — can’t knowingly choose something suboptimal, that this is literally just basic optimisation. 100% agree, yes it’s basic optimisation. But I’m telling you for the hundredth time, there’s one case, just one, when man can deliberately, consciously want something harmful for himself, stupid, even the stupidest thing, namely: to have the right to want for even the stupidest thing and not be bound by the obligation to want for only the optimal thing. Because this stupidest thing, your own random-arse impulse, might actually, dear readers, be the most optimal thing for our kind out of everything on earth, especially in certain situations. And more specifically, it can be more optimal than every single metric even when it obviously harms us and contradicts all rational conclusions about what’s optimal, because either way it preserves the most important and valuable things we have, that is our personality and our individuality. Some people swear this is literally the most valuable thing humans have; and yeah okay sure, desire can align with rationality if it wants, especially if you don’t abuse it and use it in moderation — this is based and sometimes even lowkey admirable. But desire very often, and honestly most of the time, completely and stubbornly disagrees with rationality and... and... and you know what, this is also based and sometimes extremely admirable actually? Dear readers, let’s assume that humans aren’t dumb. (Like, you really can’t say we’re dumb, at least because if we’re stupid then who exactly is supposed to be smart?) But even if we’re not stupid, we’re still monstrously ungrateful! Phenomenally ungrateful. Honestly I think the best definition of a human being is: a bipedal creature that doesn’t know how to say thank you. But wait there’s more; this isn’t even our main flaw; our greatest flaw is constant degeneracy, constant, from literally the dawn of civilisation to who-needs-Greenland-more type of fateful times. Degeneracy, and therefore irrationality; because it’s been known since forever that being irrational is just downstream of being degenerate. Just try and take a look at human history: what do you even see? Magnificent? Okay fine, yeah, it’s kinda magnificent; just the pyramids alone, for example, are worth something! Historians swear they were built by humans; others are absolutely convinced it must have been aliens. Colourful? Fine, yeah, colourful; just try going down the Wikipedia rabbit hole on ceremonial uniforms and military dress codes across all ages and nations — this alone is insane, you could lose your entire weekend in there; no history nerd can resist. Monotonous? Monotonous as fuck: they fight and fight, fighting now, fought before, will fight after — let’s admit this is honestly getting repetitive. Basically, you can find anything in world history, anything that could come into even the most unhinged imagination. One thing only you cannot say — that it’s rational. You’ll choke on the first syllable. And here’s the thing that keeps happening, over and over: there are always these virtuous and rational people showing up, these wise men and effective altruists, who make it their whole personality to conduct themselves as virtuously and rationally as possible their entire lives, like literally optimising for it, to be a role model for others, specifically to prove that you really can live in this world both virtuously and rationally. And what? It’s well documented that many of these do-gooders, sooner or later, towards the end of their lives, completely torpedoed their own reputation and did something absolutely unhinged, like posted cringe or something. Now I’m asking you: what can you even expect from a human as a being blessed with such weird-arse qualities? Give him everything — wealth, comfort, dopamine on tap, drown him in good vibes so deep that only bubbles break the surface; give him such complete economic security that he’s got literally nothing left to do except sleep, snack, binge content, and make sure the world history keeps ticking along — and even then, a human will still, out of pure degeneracy, out of sheer pettiness, do something fucked up. He’ll risk even the unlimited snacks and infinite catalogue of the best entertainment and deliberately choose the most self-destructive nonsense, the most suboptimal bullshit, solely to inject into all this perfectly optimised rationality his own unhinged chaotic element. He’ll cling to his delulu dreams, his most idiotic impulses, solely to prove to himself (as if this is even necessary) that people are still people, not just bots that biology is playing, and threatening to min-max to the point where soon you won’t even be able to want anything off-script. And that’s not even the worst part: even if you could prove to man scientifically that he’s literally just executing code, even then he won’t accept it — he’ll deliberately do something contrary, purely out of ingratitude, just to prove a point. And if he can’t find a way — he’ll straight up invent chaos and destruction, invent different sufferings just to insist he’s got agency! He’ll hate the world, and since only humans can hate (this is our privilege, mainly distinguishing us from other animals), he’ll probably achieve his goal through sheer tantrum energy alone, that is convince himself he’s actually human and not just lines of code! If you say that all this too can be calculated, both the chaos and darkness and hate, so that the mere possibility of calculating it in advance will stop everything and rationality will win — then man will deliberately go nuts just to lose his rationality and prove his point! I genuinely believe this, I’ll die on this hill, because the entire human project seems to really just be: constantly proving to ourselves we’re not bots! Even through self-harm, we’ll prove it; even by going full caveman, we’ll prove it. And given all this, thank fuck we’re not there yet and desire still runs on vibes and fuck-knows-what...
You’re yelling at me (if you even bother) that nobody’s taking away my free will; that the goal is just to align my will with my rational self-interest, with biology and metrics.
— Bruh, what free will is there when everything’s optimised and algorithmic, when it’s just if/else all the way down? Either if or else whether I will it or not. Call that free will?
No idea who that is.
Downloading for offline reading
beyond ordinary -