In our high tech region we are front runners when it comes to digitalization. It is in fact a whole new form of religion: honoring the god Digitalis. Digitalis is extremely demanding and asks for large sacrifices. The number of followers worldwide is larger than any other religion. Where another, reasonably well-known God, saw that all was good, Digitalis is never satisfied. But who or what is this god? In the US people introduce themselves with their pronouns: she/her or he/him or them/they. But Digitalis is, I think, an IT – which also stands for Information Technology, that cannot be a coincidence. We have created IT ourselves and need to keep feeding it, no matter how black and white Digitalis is with only binary zeros and ones. And coding has become the new monks’ task.
Also, in this religion high priests hold the power. They have temples built that makes the Vatican with all its golden splendor look like a midget. Meanwhile Digitalism has gone from a monotheistic to a polytheistic religion; where various disciples go to battle to bring their own gods Microsoft or Apple more followers. There is not one holy scripture, like the Koran or the Bible. And the Dharma, the natural order of things, is completely lost. Digitalism brings total disruption in our communities and is a concrete block on our chain. Only few people truly understand the impact of Digitalism; while it has literally reached every household since COVID. Unfortunately, we now also know that warfare has seen totally different dimensions through Digitalism. We can only hope that Karma will do her/his/their work.
Don’t get me wrong: I am most certainly not against technology. How could I be, I’ve been working in the tech sector my entire life. I see many advantages for safety, ease of use and entertainment. But humans are (sooo) much more than Artificial Intelligence can ever be. A person can marvel, be in awe, give trust and fight with passion. Have human personal interaction with each other. In my work I am often called the ‘human factor preacher’. It is the only true faith I have, the power of humans. Fortunately, there is also good news. No matter how well we can copy functionalities into digital twins, what we do not understand, we cannot reproduce. And if we don’t understand how our sub conscience works, we cannot replace human intuition. So honoring Hu-/Wo-/Manity will always be necessary – no ‘deep fake’ or ‘meta-verse’ but a poem, a deep human nano-verse. And this gospel we will keep spreading from ESTI, because the human factor is all-defining in innovative collaborations.
