The AI-Fascism-Climate Disaster Pendulum Is Lowering, But We Can Stop It

There are many ways in which the swinging pendulum could lower onto the neck of the human.

The human could come to represent something wholly different than themself in relying on advanced artificial intelligence. More drastically, the human could become subservient to AI at some point in the future. And, in the worst-case scenario, the human could be physically wiped out by AI-launched nuclear weapons. AI is already embedded in command-and-control systems surrounding American nuclear weapons. If given greater allowance in the future, it would be unlikely to have the same reservations about using them that humans do.

Then, there is danger with the human themself, as we see with End of Times-bent leaders, such as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump. They could continue to further escalate wars and international criminal behavior to the point that would push the world into a wider conflict in which nuclear weapons may be used. Even if these destructive weapons were not used in a future global conflict, conventional weapons have the ability to decimate cities as we’ve seen with Dresden, London, and Gaza.

The human underneath the pendulum has agency, although it can be hard to remember this in the face of seemingly overwhelming odds.

Lastly, there is climate change. While unlikely to cause the pendulum to drop on the human’s neck in one fell swoop, continuous massive fires, heat, flooding, and violent storms will cause further mass migration and xenophobic backlash. The countries where climate migrants go to—wealthy Western ones—will have their own weather-related disasters and will be depleted of relief funds. With no relief from “natural” devastation, the human is unlikely to see any use for government and likely to live in increasingly gated communities with tribalistic mindsets.

Already there are 450,000 projected heat-related deaths mostly in the Global South over the next half year from climate change and Super El Niño. This seems to have hardly caused most Westerners to bat an eyelash, as they have already heightened their walls against migration either by letting people drown in the Mediterranean or by voting for someone who promised mass deportations. The fascists we’ve elected or who are growing in power, like AfD in Germany, reflect the current lack of empathy for the Global South other, and we’re only seeing the beginning of human-caused climate change’s wrath.

But the human, beneath the lowering pendulum, is not trapped. There are no ropes around their torso or arms tying them down. The human can get up and develop national legislation and international treaties to stop the pendulum’s movement and, eventually, remove it entirely. The US, on a national level, nearly did this under former President Joe Biden. The Democrats were one vote away from passing Build Back Better, which would have created tens of thousands of green jobs and throttled the fossil fuel industry. Former Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) was the single holdout. Biden needed to arm-twist him to get him onboard, as we know the GOP would’ve done if they were in his shoes. Europe passed the General Data Protection Regulation in 2018 that makes it more difficult for Big Tech to collect individuals’ data without their consent. In 1987, nations came together and adopted the Montreal Protocol to phase out ozone-depleting chemicals. Every country in the world has joined since, and the ozone layer is on track to recover. It is a proven template for future global climate action.

Thus, the pendulum need not fall on the human’s neck. The blind advance of AI to the detriment of workers, the environment, and what it means to be human can be stopped. The fascist wave has crested, but it can fall like in Hungary and potentially in the US after the November elections. The extent of future climate change disasters can be mitigated when the people take the power back.

The human underneath the pendulum has agency, although it can be hard to remember this in the face of seemingly overwhelming odds.

The time to retake control of the human condition is now.