EXTINCTION
HANDS UP IF YOU’RE FOR VOLUNTARY HUMAN EXTINCTION
The very rotund man from the adjacent fire escape just
walked by fully clothed We generally confront each other
half naked from across a parking lot between our homes He
is found each morning outside on a rickety metal stairway to
nowheresville Whereas I am enshrined in my 4th floor bathroom
also fast tracking to nowhere
As I spend inordinate amounts of time applying one or another
of some 96 shades of MAC lipstick with names like: Pucker Up
Handsome + I Am A Juicy Predator It was Virginia Woolf who
said that most women spend as much time making-up as it would
take to learn Greek Brilliant Virginia who walked into the river Ouse
at 59 with stones in her pockets
And Virginia is one of the authors we will read in: Post-Humanism +
Modern Fiction come Fall at U of T There we will ponder artificial
entities i.e.., A.I. + animals too who have subjectivities interiority +
might have self-determination but for humans The post-humanists
posit a human free future Encouraging us to embrace our coming
demise +not freeze human evolution at the puny human level
The newest it girl of modern fiction Ottessa Moshfegh encourages
writers in an essay entitled How To Shit: to go where you are least
comfortable which she has her latest protagonist do Describing her
alcoholic mother’s body after death by suicide: She’d be a stiff husk
like the sloughed off exoskeleton of a huge insect I took the liberty of
running this through the A.I. App now clonining Grimm’s Fairytales
I conflated Virginia Woolf’s death +the as yet unwritten death of my own
mother And here is what the A.I. App came up with: She is lifted up by 13
angels covered in feathers+honey to Leonard + Lee respectively They
atop white stallions riding like there is no tomorrow toward the Ouse + up
Bathurst St. where the Jewish community has numerous cemeteries
Leonard + Lee see their human wives as more than exoskeletal husks They
pull them close +dance the tarantella neat+perfect The air rank sweet with
their smell It has been reported this week too that A.I. will soon be able to
produce deepfakes bogus videos of faces invasions mass shootings
terrorist attacks to name a few So whether you vote for a human free future
or not A.I. as a form of post-human immortality is upon us already Our dead
the deepfakes of heaven
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We have entered a brave new world where it is going to be difficult to
know how to believe what we see. A.I. knows no borders. It’s impact
will ripple around the globe. (Globe+Mail July 2018)
Summer 2018
JULY 11 1987 5 billionth human born on Earth..
When the UN reported this it sent a shiver down
the spines of scientists + citizens alike A reminder
of the planet’s finite ability to support human life..
songanddancegirl 