"As we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of the opportunity provided to serve self-interest when Al Gore created the internet; and we should also thank Mark Zuckerburg and Jack Dorsey for creating Facebook and Twitter out of the kindness of their big hearts and not the thinness of their small wallets."
-Ben Franklin, Autobiography (1742)

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Jefferson: Judgement Day

According to the most recent Terminator timeline, Skynet was installed two days ago and today, April 21, 2011 is the moment in history when humanity falls to the machines. The buzz is all over the interwebs, though so far so good at the Lost and Founders office. Still, there's still a lot of day left and if there's one danger any upstanding American citizen should be prepared to face at any time it is robot attacks.

While coming up with our escape-from-technological-ruination plan this morning, we ironically stumbled across a very cryptic letter written by Thomas Jefferson in 1811 that we felt worth noting in this potentially darkest hour of mankind. In the letter, Jefferson clearly alludes to the possibility of an impending attack by what seems to be a race of violent machines. There is obviously some warranted debate here as to how a founding father could know about robots in 1811, given that the first android was not created until sometime in the late 1890's. Still, the uncanny prophetic nature of Mr. Jefferson is one we've grown quite familiar with, and it would not be surprising to confirm that he simply suspected a future robot attack to be inevitable.*

Take these words as you will - an unheeded warning, or a foretelling of things still to come. Just please take this seriously, and stay safe out there today.

"An association of men whose bones and skin are as iron as their will has never yet existed, though that is not to say that it will not come to pass in our day. From the greatest confederacy of nations down to a town meeting or a vestry, there is but one danger for which we as a People are not yet prepared - violence against man, by men who are both man and monster. Steel your heart my friend, for you may be sure that theirs will be.
Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, February, 1811



*Editors note: this particular excerpt is a little vague - its also admittedly possible that Jefferson was talking about vampires or some golem-esque beast for which we simply do not have a name.

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1 comment:

  1. UnknownApril 23, 2011 at 7:12 PM

    If anyone had their shit together enough to recognize the threat of robotic terminators back in 1811 it was most certainly old T.J.

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