Hardly anyone expects such a turn among the broad masses of the population of planet Earth. But in fact, when it happens, there will be nothing to be surprised. For a long time one could have guessed that one day in our world, where almost everything has already been calculated and translated into monetary equivalent, including feelings, the moment will come when the dead are monetized. And such a moment is really on its way. Although, it must be admitted, it has actually already come, just not yet at such a high-tech level.
But Marx warned
Incidentally, Marxists rarely read the works of Marx himself. Usually they read the abstracts of his so-called followers. Epigones. And the followers often did not read the originals either, being content with the retellings of the first Marxists. And those, in turn, did not read everything or understood everything. As a result, we imagine Marx as a fighter against the alienation of the worker from the means of production, or, at best, as a fighter against the exploitation of man by man. But the whole pathos of Marx's works was not in the banal "they are stealing your money." Marx spoke of alienation in much the same way as Buddha spoke of suffering - a total phenomenon that reshapes our lives a little more than completely. Rather, Marx spoke about the alienation of man from himself, from his creativity, from his very life,because already in his time almost everything was reduced to commodity relations. And the man himself with his life has become a commodity. And this applied not only to hired workers, but also, in fact, the exploiters. And to the fullest. True, Marx did not foresee that death would become a commodity in the most banal sense of the word.
Technology has no moral
So, about the main thing. While it goes on the Internet as a kind of black humor. But the real humor is that few people perceive this peculiar "joke" as a joke. Many believe. And this is an indicator. After all, this means that the population is, in principle, ready for the new role of their dead. And most importantly, people not only long ago resigned themselves to the fact that technology has no morality, people generally agree that they should not have morality. The main thing is convenience, new opportunities (even if only imaginary), at best - aesthetics. Although with this, at present, there are big problems.
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Imagine
So, actually, the "joke" itself. Imagine a corporation preparing to literally overturn the funeral market. That is, to get into this market with two feet and start marking time there with the help of your high-tech product. Namely, with the help of an interactive burial urn. That is, the ashes of our relatives who have gone to another world do not disappear in vain in a dark uncomfortable coffin, but are cremated, then compressed and … becomes the body (preferably beautiful and stylish, pleasing to the eye) of a certain device. In the device itself, an advanced communicator would be hidden with a connection to the global network and access to a certain cloud service, where the virtual identity of the deceased was transferred. An account, so to speak. Then everything is predictable: the "personality of the deceased" is recreated on the basis of his lifetime activity in the same social networks, for example. Algorithms of standard reactions are prescribed, all this is colored with "zests", and it is quite possible to "communicate" with him. This is where the richest opportunities for commerce open up. Devices can be simple or complex, with additional features for more cash-rich customers. They can be linked into a kind of neural network. Living people can have access to it for a fee. In short, there is no limit to fantasy and its realization for an enterprising person. And does anyone really think that businessmen will be stopped by moral principles?there is no limit to fantasy and its realization for an enterprising person. And does anyone really think that businessmen will be stopped by moral principles?there is no limit to fantasy and its realization for an enterprising person. And does anyone really think that businessmen will be stopped by moral principles?
Shovel level
We simply forget that death has long been monetized. But this is monetization at the steam engine level, sorry. No, not even at shovel level. How much do we give to the funeral homes? How much do we pay for the very opportunity to bury where we want, or to bury in a human way? How much do we "bring" somewhere if we cannot handle the funeral in a different way? This is all very serious business. It has many floors. And on each floor they share their cake. And mind you, nobody thinks about morality, right?
But in Japan …
But our peculiar modern "cult of ancestors", on which cunning businessmen can have their little gesheft, is still a mere trifle. We do not have such a multistage, for many generations, pantheon of especially revered relatives. Whether it is, say, in Japan. It is clear that it all began there from ancient times. Moreover, neither Buddhism nor the essentially secular Western civilization, which, in general, are openly opposed to the cult of ancestor veneration, having come to Japan, could oppose nothing to tradition. So now in the homes of many Japanese there is a separate corner for the altar of the Buddha, a separate place for worshiping ancestors, for example. There are many subtleties and conventions associated with this. They explain such adherence to the ancient tradition among the Japanese by the fact that, on the one hand, they are terribly afraid of all kinds of spirits,on the other hand, they sincerely revere their elder relatives. Therefore, they try to both appease the departed and show their reverence. Fear and love go hand in hand. And now everything is monetized there - from all sorts of special attributes to the necessary, befitting of any particular occasion, prayers.
Virtual immortality
But let's return all the same to the "joke" about technological "urns", in which the ashes are the corpus, and the digitized person is the content. In fact, it is a long cherished dream. And attempts to create such "digitalized immortality" are constantly being made. Moreover, we are even talking about the creation of a real "virtual personality". There is a concept that speaks of the desirability of technologies that allow preserving and digitizing a person's personality based on information about his life. But so far this is impossible, since such information will certainly suffer from fragmentation. After all, information from social networks is not enough to create a real copy of a person. Moreover, in social networks, and in everything that, presumably, gets to others, people tend to lie. Often, even unconsciously, just out of a desire to be, say, better than in real life. And this will certainly be reflected in the process of creating a “copy of the personality”. It will be “another person”. If it is a person at all. And then a lot of questions arise. Because many experts rightly point out that, even with complete information about the personality, we are unlikely to be able to repeat it on an artificial medium, since a specific human personality is tightly linked with the body and the very process of this specific biological life. And this is impossible to reproduce. In general, the question is very much discussed.because a specific human personality is tightly linked to the body and the very process of this specific biological life. And this is impossible to reproduce. In general, the question is very much discussed.because a specific human personality is tightly linked to the body and the very process of this specific biological life. And this is impossible to reproduce. In general, the question is very much discussed.
Scary, already horror
But back to the beginning. With all that, with all that the issue of copying a personality in its natural form remains very debated and open, the possibility of earning money on creating a miserable simulacrum of the consciousness of dead relatives seems quite real. And not in such a distant future. Why? Firstly, because businessmen will never refuse to make money on the grief of a person who has lost his loved one and who wants to at least listen to his voice. And if this voice answers questions on time and in the right place, creating the illusion of presence, then those who have money will agree to pay for this. And more. Secondly, it is our banal fear of death. For the most part, we are people who have long been irreligious, even if we regularly visit the church to ask for something or "what does not work out." We have long forgotten how to “communicate with death”. We don't know what she is. We try to think about her as little as possible. As a Buddhist monk who visited America once said, he was struck by the desire of the local residents to make death as invisible as possible, to throw this part of life (and death is precisely a part of life) from their consciousness.
Even the funeral, as this monk put it, is often held there, although magnificently or ceremonially, but at the same time it is still as imperceptible as possible in relation to death itself. It wasn't like that before. Before, a person prepared for death as for an exam. The main exam in his life. And now…
Smartphone coffin
Now, some try not to think about it at all, while others think about how to get the most benefit from the grief of their neighbor. In general, do not be surprised when smartphones with coffin-shaped compressed ashes appear on sale.
So what? The very shape (so far, however, not from the dust) designers use with might and main - even in toys and key chains.
Mark Raven