I watched the movie Coherence (2013) tonight with tremendous interest. It relates the tale of four couples who find themselves in a cabin in the woods at the time that a comet passes nearby. The comet disrupts space-time, leading to the creation of multiple versions of each person. The different characters then mix with each other, creating tremendous chaos which only deepens with each moment of choice.
I think that the movie was effective because it was a good representation of the radical fragmentation that is taking place in our own society, and around the world, at the same time.
The results are a confusion about information, truth and falsehood. The results from the reproduction and manipulation of information. But not all of that is done by evil people, the shift is more fundamental.
But the confusion is also spiritual and it is also about identity. As things are reproduced so easily and images and words drop in value to be almost worthless, our own identity as humans is called into question. And that is not all. This confusion of replication is taking place precisely at the same time (by accident, or perhaps not) that technology is allowing us to reproduce ourselves and systems of supercomputers are essentially taking over the world.
Oddly, some still cling to this idea that we are looking at a new cold war, or a new world war, but what if it is a conflict between banks of supercomputers around the world, struggling with each other in obscure ways related to currency, current and identity.
We find ourselves in uncharted territory and if the question is what will happen to us, perhaps the most important question of all is: “what do you mean by ‘us?'”