The Blindboy Podcast - Irish Mythology and Simulation Theory

Episode Date: October 4, 2023

Irish Mythology and Simulation Theory  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Cuddle the Kerryman's Gullet, you cloistered Ivans. Welcome to the Blind Boy Podcast. The Sycamore Gap Tree was felled over in England. There's a sycamore tree in Northumberland over in England and someone cut it down illegally. Now I'll be honest, I'd never heard of the Sycamore Gap Tree and I'd never seen the Sycamore Gap Tree. I had no idea what the Sycamore Gap tree and I'd never seen the Sycamore Gap tree. I had no idea what the Sycamore Gap tree was until I saw it all over the news this week,

particularly on English news. But it's a 300 year old tree. It was a very uniquely positioned, aesthetically beautiful tree. It looks fantastic. It's one of the most photographed trees in the world. It's a tourist attraction. It's a visual symbol of Northumberland in England. It was very important to the people from that area and it was cut down in an act of vandalism. I'm guessing it provides those people with a sense of identity and community and place so people were very very upset that this tree was cut down now during the week on twitter x as it's now known for fuck's sake during the week on twitter i made a flippant comment about the sycamore gap tree and it upset a lot of people i don't remember what my comment was but But I found it ridiculous.

I found it ridiculous and silly. That a single tree, sycamore tree getting cut down in England. Was breaking news on BBC and Sky News. I thought that was silly and foolish. So I tweeted something to that effect. And it upset quite a lot of people. People particularly from Northumberland. Now the thing is it's Twitter. So I tweeted something to that effect and it upset quite a lot of people, people particularly from Northumberland.

Now the thing is it's Twitter so it's very easy to upset people but I can tell the difference between someone genuinely being upset and someone being performatively upset. So some people from Northumberland were genuinely disappointed in me, disappointed in me and upset that I'd spoken flippantly about the Sycamore Gap tree. So then I said to myself, oh I must have said something really stupid here because these people are genuinely upset through ignorance and lack of knowledge about this tree. I've grossly underestimated how much people care about it and now a few people are upset and then I started to feel like a bit of a hypocrite because I speak so much about

respecting folklore and respecting mythology and respecting people's beliefs and to be honest because it was in England which I which is a colonizing country I tend not to associate it with people having deeply held folk beliefs like in Ireland we have fairy trees we have trees that we associate with fairies and people will protest if one of these trees is to be cut down or knocked down and I started to feel sorry for the people in Northumberland who were upset that this tree had been cut down. And I started to feel sorry for them because we tend not to allow English people to have folk beliefs because we view them as a colonising country. It's also difficult for English people to have anything English to celebrate

because as a colonising country that can look like nationalism. And this Sycamore gap tree. Looked like something that the people of Northumberland. Could actually celebrate and be proud of. Unapologetically. As part of a sense of identity. And a connection with the land. And also.

What I always try to remind myself. Especially when I speak about England. When I talk about the Brits I'm speaking about the British Empire I mean the system of power the system of wealth and power concentrated around a wealthy historical class of aristocracy who committed great acts of selfish evil

in the name of greed and loads of countries all around the world so when I speak about the Brits, I'm speaking about that, but I'm not speaking about the regular, normal people of England. So I felt real sorry, for the people of Northumberland,

who were upset that this Sycamore Gap tree, had been cut down, and I felt like a dickhead for not, for not even thinking or considering that English people could have a tree that has meaning and folklore to the regular people. So what I did was, I took full accountability and apologised and I just wrote on Twitter, I posted a poorly judged and ill informed tweet about the Sycamore Gap tree. I wasn't aware of its significance, history and importance to people and I'm very sorry I posted a poorly judged and ill-informed tweet about the sycamore gap tree.

I wasn't aware of its significance, history and importance to people. And I'm very sorry to anyone who was upset by the post. I'm going to learn all I can about the tree and the area now. So I posted that because it was the right thing to do. And the 15 or so people from Northumberland who were disappointed in me were really glad to see me post that and glad to see that I'd listened to them. And it wasn't much of a big deal. But fuck me, did my apology manage to upset an awful amount of people.

People who spend a lot of time on Twitter being incredibly hateful. People who are racist. People who are transphobic. These people then started attacking me. I had to put my account on private. The act of me taking accountability and apologising for hurting people's feelings had shaken some of these people to their core and made them deeply, deeply angry. It wasn't even any of their business. It was between me and the people of Northumberland who didn't like me talking shit about their tree. And now the racists think that I have given in to the woke mob. I had people saying, stick by your beliefs,

don't apologize. And I'm like, what beliefs? I apologize and I'm like what beliefs I said something silly about a tree because I didn't have any information fucked up took accountability and apologized what's the big deal and I realized to people whose whose entire sense of identity is a type of aggressive, stubborn hatred. The act of seeing another person take accountability and apologise is interpreted as a threat to their identity. And the reason I know it was interpreted as a threat to their sense of self was because they attacked me.

And if someone online attacks you for no reason, it means they have falsely interpreted your action as an attack on them first and the reason I apologized no one even asked me to no one even not one person from Northumberland said I am so offended by your tweet about the tree that's been cut down that I demand you apologize. No one fucking did that. It was mainly people going that's a really shitty take blind boy. I'm disappointed in you. The reason I apologized was because A it's the right thing to do. B genuinely taking ownership of when I'm wrong taking accountability for it and apologizing. That's an act of self-compassion towards myself and humility.

I allow myself to be uninformed about things and to fuck up every so often because being fallible, being someone who fails is part of being human. Humans are fallible and acknowledging that in myself, acknowledging, identifying it and taking ownership of it in myself that's self-compassion because here's the thing getting something really wrong and saying something stupid and then a bunch of people being offended by it that's quite tough that's kind of embarrassing that can feel shameful but I have a choice I actually have a choice about whether I want to be embarrassed or ashamed by that now the only reason I would feel embarrassed or ashamed for getting something wrong is if I defined my worth on being right all the time now I don't

because like I said I'm a fallible human being I try my best but occasionally I fuck up and I fail and I try and allow other people the opportunity to fuck up and fail too and even if I say something silly publicly and people go you fucking idiot that's stupid that's disappointing even though that happens that doesn't define my worth that doesn't define my worth. That doesn't define my worth at all. So what I did was, is I said, I fucked up. I offended people. Let's just take accountability for it. Take ownership of it.

Apologize. And I bet you everyone's going to be cool with it. And I was right. The actual people who were genuinely upset were completely cool with it. They accepted the apology. And they were happy because they could tell that I was being genuine. Now I could have gone the other route. Which is, and you see this all the time online.

I fuck up. People come in and say, you fucked up, you fucking idiot. I feel shame. The shame is a little bit too hurtful. So I immediately turn that into anger. and now I'm fighting with people and doubling down on my ridiculous opinion about the tree I won't do that because that's not self-compassionate it's much more self-compassionate to go oh I fucked up I fucked up because I'm a fallible human being I'm gonna take

ownership of that and apologize and when when you do that, it feels fucking amazing. It actually feels quite good to take ownership, to take ownership and accountability when you're fucked up. When you do it really in a genuine way, it feels nice. And it's where growth and confidence comes from. Like to be assertive, to foster the skill of assertiveness. I need to genuinely understand when I'm wrong and when other people are wrong. And when you genuinely understand that, which comes from self-compassion, recognizing your fallibility and that you're equal to other people and everyone is equal to you, when you genuinely understand that, apologizing doesn't become difficult and standing up for yourself doesn't become difficult because to do that you have to be comfortable with being publicly vulnerable. To genuinely apologize over something even if it's a small thing that's

an act of vulnerability. For a little second you're putting your hands up and exposing soft parts of yourself. When you apologize and take genuine accountability and take genuine ownership of your behavior, when you apologize, you're being very vulnerable and exposing a soft part of yourself to another person and handing it to them. Most people respect that and handle it with care and you have a lovely moment of connection where you really say sorry to someone and they say thank you for that apology and you have this lovely connection. But then there's some people if they don't have a decent understanding of self we'll say or if they're not very self-compassionate with themselves, if they're highly self-critical

of themselves, if they really dislike themselves and are quite angry, a genuine apology to some of these people can actually be threatening to their boundaries. Like there was one person, so I apologized. I said something silly. I fucked up. I'm really sorry. And then one person writes, well you should have thought of that before you tweeted. Now that person has seen another person apologise and said, excellent, some vulnerable soft bits. Can I stick a knife in there please? But really what that person is doing is,

they're very angry with themselves for any time that they have fucked up in the past when someone sees a genuine apology chooses not to take it and instead goes well it should never have happened in the first place they're relishing the opportunity to attack a person who's being vulnerable. They see that as, oh, I got you now. Ha ha ha, I'm going to twist this little knife in because you're being vulnerable. But really, it's an anger with themselves. But really, when that person has made a mistake in the past,

they weren't self-compassionate. They didn't say to myself, you're only human, you make mistakes. Most likely they say to themselves, you stupid, stupid fucker, you stupid fucking prick, why did you do that? You're so stupid, you're always making mistakes. And when you do that to yourself, you won't be able to take accountability for your own behaviour. You won't be able to apologise because you've beat yourself up so much that being vulnerable is too painful the wounds are red so when someone else apologises you're not going to have that compassion for them

you're going to go straight in twist that knife and I blocked that person and called him cunty and then there was the racists then there was the people who dedicate their entire personality on Twitter to hatred. Utter hatred.

They were furious. And at first I couldn't understand it. It's like, this is none of your business. It's about a tree. It's about a small amount of people from fucking Northumberland. Why is this your business? You tweet about refugees all the time why are you hurt by this first off most of them couldn't believe that I had

apologized for it on my own off my own back they were like you've been forced into an apology by woke people that didn't happen and secondly it just showed me. Their entire sense of self and identity. Their entire sense of. Who they are. Is wrapped up. In an unflinching stubborn hatred. That to see another person. Actually reflect.

On something fucking tiny. Something tiny. I spoke shit about a tree. And 15 people were disappointed not even apologising for something bad but seeing another person reflecting, taking accountability for their words

and recognising that their words upset a couple of people, even seeing that threatened their very sense of self to the point that they felt they needed to attack and you know what, it gave me a little bit of hope around these hateful people because the thing is if they didn't have a little glimmer of humanity left inside them it wouldn't have threatened them it wouldn't threaten them at all like i try to have compassionate for hateful people. Like there's people online who are fucking horrible.

Very racist, hateful people and it's what they do all day. And I deeply disagree with their words and actions. But I still try to have a level of compassion for the human that's doing that stuff. I don't completely give up on them and say to myself, that person is pure hatred and they're completely beyond reproach what I do is I remind myself this and I think this is true every single human being every single human being wants to love somebody and wants to be loved even the person who's online all day, screaming hatred

on the internet all day, that person deep down wants to love somebody and wants to be loved. But some people, for whatever reason, they might have been very hurt in the past, they mightn't even remember it they can't access the vulnerability and self love and self compassion that's needed to love somebody and to want to be loved so they find a fucked up

safety in hatred hatred rage, aggression anger, they're a very thick armour that can stop us being hurt further. But it comes at a price. That heavy armor means you can't be loved and you can't be loved by somebody else. So you have to tell yourself, I don't want to be loved and I don't want to love somebody else and I don't love myself I am hatred pure hatred and what's

terrifying then if that's your view of yourself and your view of the world when somebody else then shows that they're comfortable being vulnerable and to be vulnerable is to temporarily have no armor at all to to genuinely apologize and take accountability for your own behavior and take ownership of it means taking off all armor temporarily and revealing your vulnerable soft innards to another person. It's difficult to do and it requires a lot of self-compassion and comfort with those soft innards. That's very frightening to somebody who has an incredibly powerful and strong unbreakable armor of hatred and rage all the time and that there is why I have a human level of compassion towards people that are hateful even though I strongly disagree with their words and actions every person

wants to love somebody and wants to be loved that's not me excusing their behavior saying oh go easy on the hateful people guys no completely and utterly opposed to their words and actions while still recognizing and seeing a human being who has the same worth as me but anyway I deleted the apology tweet because the people who needed to see it saw it and I put my account on private for like a day and deleted it because I'm like I don't need this shit I don't need to be going viral with the most hateful people on the internet so they can tell me how horrible I am and I suppose I'm talking about this not because of the sycamore gap tree or to speak about what happened on twitter but as something i

reflected on that might be useful to ye listening taking accountability for our own behavior taking ownership of our words and genuinely apologizing to another person it's a very powerful tool for self-understanding and self-growth. Like, give it a go. I mean, start with something small. Were you grumpy last week because work was difficult and then you came home and you snapped at someone you love? Try actually apologizing for it. Try actually saying,

I'm really pissed off because of this shit at work and I shouldn't have snapped at you like that. You didn't deserve that. That had nothing to do with you. I'm really sorry. That requires a huge amount of authentic dialogue with yourself and authentic dialogue with another person. We tend not to do that. That's very common. Some people in that situation, they'll snap at a loved one. They'll privately feel like shit over it and maybe they go out into the kitchen and they come back in with a biscuit and you give your loved one a biscuit it's like the opposite of

passive aggression it's a passive apology here's this biscuit right it's one of the chocolate digestives that i know you like here's this biscuit but really we both know that this biscuit is me saying sorry for snapping at you there a half an hour ago it's passive compassion it's a lovely gesture it's a nice thing to do but the question to ask yourself is did you do that because the idea of taking ownership of your behavior and your words and genuinely apologising and making a connection, was that a little bit too frightening? Does that feel scary to do? And if it does feel frightening and scary, why?

Sometimes we have tough days and when we have tough days, we can snap at a loved one. It's not perfect, but you're not perfect. You're a fallible human being. See what it feels like to genuinely take ownership of that behaviour, admit to it, and apologise. Notice that lovely feeling of connection with yourself and the other person when you do it. You'll find assertiveness and growth inside there. So I have a boiling hot take this week. I want to expand upon some of the themes I've been exploring this past month. I've done two podcasts about Greek

mythology. Now you've absolutely loved these podcasts. I've been getting so many messages from you and I've loved making them. And what I've been doing is I've been viewing Greek mythology through the lens of simulation theory. Simulation theory is, I suppose you could call it a religious idea, a philosophy. It's a theory of reality. What if reality as we know it is a simulation? know it is a simulation what if what we live in is like a video game or a computer program that was designed by someone or something a little bit more advanced than us it's not that different to a biblical description of god a creator but when you make it about computers, because of where we are right now with technology, it makes mythology and religious ideas a hell of a lot easier to understand. Concepts within mythology and religion that are quite complex and hard to fathom

are a lot easier to fathom when you view them through the lens of simulation theory. For instance, let's just take the Bible, the book of Genesis. God created the earth in seven nights and seven days. That sounds ridiculous. How can you create the earth in seven days and seven nights? We know that the earth is billions of years old. That sounds stupid, the Bible. That sounds ridiculous. But when you play a video game, like a really realistic video game, like Red Dead Redemption 2 or Grand Theft Auto, something which is quite a good approximate simulation of reality. When you play that video game in your bedroom on your television,

days will pass within that game in a matter of hours for you. Your character in that video game that you're watching, they live within a simulated reality. The sun goes up, the sun goes down. There's forces of nature, there's other characters. They live in a reality. The sun goes up, the sun goes down, there's forces of nature, there's other characters, they live in a reality. And to them, that reality seems real. And a day in your video game's reality could be 10 minutes in your reality in your bedroom. And in your reality, in your bedroom playing this video game, you've got all these extra senses, like smell and taste. Your character in that video game doesn't have smell and taste,

because it hasn't been programmed into their reality. What they have is very crude eyesight, and maybe they can hear things. So now when you look at the book of Genesis, God created the earth in seven nights and seven days. Now it doesn't seem so ridiculous when you think, what if God is playing us in a video game? And a million years to us is seven days to God, because God's in this other plane of reality outside of our simulation. What if we are an artificial intelligence and a much much greater intelligence created us and our intelligence is

limited by the parameters of our simulation. So that's what simulation theory is and because of where we're at right now with technology, because right now we're developing AI because we have pretty accurate simulations via video games. I find that mythology and religion is a lot easier to understand when I think about it through simulation theory. So I've done two podcasts this month about Greek mythology and simulation theory and if you haven't them, definitely go back and listen to them before listening to this podcast because this is a little bit like a part three. What I want to focus on this week

is I want to look at Irish mythology through simulation theory because it's different to Greek mythology and it's very fucking interesting. So a quick synopsis of the Greek mythology. The god Zeus and the titan Prometheus were bored and they decided let's create humans. Let's create human reality as a video game, as a play thing, as a simulation. Prometheus said let's do it. Zeus said let's do it but don't make the humans more intelligent than us than the gods don't create rogue artificial

intelligence put limits and parameters on them and what i found fascinating about that is this is thousands of years old greek mythology and zeus and prometheus are having the exact same conversation that we are having right now as a civilization when we are making artificial intelligence. People are scared right now of artificial intelligence. We're on the cusp of something and nobody wants to make AI that's smarter than us. Put limits on it. In Greek mythology, the humans got too smart because Prometheus showed them how to make fire. Humans got too smart.

because Prometheus showed them how to make fire. Humans got too smart. Zeus went back into the simulation, programmed in suffering to prevent the humans from becoming more smarter than the gods. And then just like in the Bible, Zeus said, fuck this, and started a big giant flood that killed everything. And when Zeus, and also God who's in the Bible, when they unleashed their giant flood on the world and killed all the people and animals to start anew, they rebooted the game. They plugged it out at the wall and plugged it back in again. That's what they did

with the simulation. Well, I went looking deep into Irish mythology. And Irish mythology kind of picks up from there. Irish mythology starts with Noah's flood. Now Noah's flood, Zeus' flood, the flood from the Epic of Gilgamesh, it's all mythology, just different time and place. How did the flood end up in Irish mythology? Well, what you have to remember with Irish mythology is quite a lot of Irish mythology could be

four or five thousand years old. It could be that old. However, Irish mythology wasn't written down until maybe fifteen hundred years ago. Christianity came to Ireland around the year 500. And when Christianity came to Ireland, that's when we had monks in monasteries writing things down in Latin.

So all the mythology, the oral mythology that we in Ireland have, which could be, like I said, 4000 years old, everything we have written down is filtered through a lens of monks who are Christian. So what I want to look at is the Láir go Báil a Éireann, the Book of Invasions. It's Irish mythology.

It's about the story of Ireland. It's about how people came to Ireland, but told through Irish mythology. And I want to analyse this using simulation theory. So according to the Láir go Bhaile Éireann, the book of invasions, the story of Ireland starts with Noah's flood, Noah's biblical flood. The earth was wicked after the Garden of Eden so God decides I'm flooding the place, I'm flooding the whole place and I'm killing everything because there's too much wickedness but I'm gonna go to this fella Noah and I'm gonna say Noah a flood

is coming that's gonna kill everything so you build a giant boat an ark you get on this and bring a bunch of animals with you and then when when the floodwaters go down, you repopulate the earth. Is that okay, Noah? And then Noah goes, okay, God, I'm going to do that. So, but Irish mythology, you have it being written down by Christian monks. Christian monks who are reading the Bible

and noticing, jeez, there's no Irish people in this Bible. How do we write some Irish people in here? So, Irish mythology says that when Noah had his flood he warned his granddaughter. Similar to Greek mythology. In Greek mythology Prometheus warned his son about Zeus's flood. But in Irish mythology Noah went to his granddaughter Cesar and said Cesar there's going to be a huge flood, so I need you and some of your siblings and some of your friends

to get on a boat and leave before the flood happens and go to the most westerly part of the world. So Césair leaves before God's flood and finds herself in Ireland, which is the edge of the world, and they avoid the biblical flood. And these are the first people who settle in Ireland which is the edge of the world and they avoid the biblical flood and these are the first people who settled in Ireland according to Irish mythology. Noah's granddaughter and her friends. But the Lower Gavala Aireann is the book of invasions so the story of Ireland is about different waves of

invasions of people that come over thousands and thousands of years. The second race to arrive in Ireland are called the Formorians. They're like weird magical demons. They settle in Ireland and then this crowd called the Nemedians arrive and the Nemedians battle the Formorians. But the Formorians are like mad demons so they win and they banish the Nemedians and they send them off to ancient Greece and while these Nemedians are in ancient Greece they're forced to be slaves. The Greeks make them

carry these bags on their heads that are full of earth. Then the Nemedians return back to Ireland having been in ancient Greece carrying these bags on their heads with earth and now they're known as the fair bulg, the Bag Men. And they return with the knowledge of ancient Greece to Ireland to start the first civilization here. And then they beat the Fomorians. But then new invaders arrive. And these invaders are called the Tuatha Dé Danann. Now the Tuatha Dé Danann, they sound like space aliens. They're supernatural beings. The Tuatha Dé Danann, they're tall, they're technologically advanced, they're unbelievably healthy, they don't age, they live outside of time.

The Tuatha Dé Danann are a race of alien gods. And the Tuatha Dé Danann, they sound to me like the gods of Mount Olympus in Greek mythology. You have characters like Dagda. Dagda is basically Zeus. He's the leader of the Tuatha Dé Danann. Dagda is the god that controls the weather, controls the sea, controls fertility.

Then you've got Brigid, the goddess Brigid. She's one of these Tuatha Dé Danann. She's like a space alien that arrives in Ireland. She's the goddess of poetry and healing and fire. She's like the Greek goddess Athena. Also you've got the goddess Boan. She's the goddess of the river Bain. And then you have the goddess Morrigan. Morrigan is the goddess Boan. She's the goddess of the river Boyne. And then you have the goddess Morrigan. Morrigan is the goddess of war and fate and luck. She's a bit like the Greek god Ares. But in simulation theory, the Tuatha Dé Danann, this race of gods that arrive in Ireland, they're like a developer team. They all have different roles in the simulation of reality. Dag Dag controls the weather. You've got Bridget controlling fire. And then Marigan controls time,

I suppose. Marigan controls the outcome of things. And together, they're the programmers of reality. Now, we have great structures in Ireland that are thousands of years old. We've got passage tombs. Like you can visit these things now. Newgrange for instance is this gigantic passage tomb up in Meath beside the River Boyne and it's older than the Egyptian pyramids. It's between four and a half and five thousand years old

and whoever built it had an advanced knowledge of astronomy. They understood the stars and in Irish mythology structures like this were built by the Tuatha Dé Danann. These weird alien gods built these structures. Newgrange and the hill of Tara and these areas are a little bit like Mount Olympus in Greek mythology. Notice I haven't mentioned human beings yet, so the humans have yet to arrive. And the relationship that humans have with the gods in Irish mythology is very different compared to the mythology of the Bible or Greek mythology. First, let's have a little pause.

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So Irish mythology and simulation theory. So I spoke there about in the Irish Book of Invasions, it's an Irish manuscript written somewhere between the 5th and 9th century, but with stories that could be thousands of years old. In the Irish Book of Invasions, eventually a race land on this island called the Tuatha Dé Danann, who are gods. They're like the gods of Olympus in Greek mythology.

And they live in Ireland for thousands and thousands of years as this technologically advanced civilization where no one ages and there's plenty of food and everything. They're gods. And then one day they're invaded by the Milesians who are human beings that come from Spain. So what makes Irish mythology so bizarrely different to Greek mythology? In Irish mythology, the humans fight the gods. Now let's look at this with simulation theory. In Greek mythology, Zeus and Prometheus create human beings as an artificial intelligence, as a video game, as their plaything. And they put limitations on human beings as an artificial intelligence, as a video game, as their plaything and they put limitations on human beings so that the artificial intelligence can never become more powerful than

the gods. In Irish mythology the gods are living happily on the island of Ireland and then a fucking rogue AI shows up. Zeus and Prometheus' worst nightmare. What if the artificial intelligence gets so powerful that it can destroy us? Zeus and Prometheus' worst nightmare shows up on the coast of Ireland. And this worst nightmare is human beings. So if we look at all of this through simulation theory, right now in the 21st century 2023, we are the gods and we're about to create artificial intelligence. We've already

created it. And the big discussion is, what if we create AI that's so smart it will kill us? What if the AI replaces us and kills us? That's a real conversation we're having right now. Now in Greek mythology Zeus avoided this problem. He saw that the humans were getting out of hand, they were getting too smart. His AI was possibly getting smart enough that they could destroy the gods of Mount Olympus. So Zeus goes I'm going to unleash Pandora's box and I'm going to give the humans suffering, pain, mental health issues, desire. And this is a virus that I'm releasing into the program to put limitations on how far they can go. This is not the case in Irish mythology. The Tuatha Dé Danann, the gods, the pantheon, the programmers of the simulation,

who live eternally outside of time in a paradise on Ireland, well the characters in Zeus and the Christian Gods video game kind of break out and arrive at the coast of Ireland and start attacking the gods. And the Tuatha Dé Danann are like, we're fucking gods here. Why can't we beat these humans because Paddy's too hard. The Irish humans the Irish that arrive to the island of Ireland are so fearsome and ferocious and hard that they're a rogue AI that's powerful enough to attempt to destroy the gods. Now how did the Irish get so hard? So let's move over to Christian mythology. So in the Old Testament, right, God builds the simulation. But God lives up in heaven. But the humans in the

city of Babel, they start deciding, we want to break out of the simulation. I don't want to go to heaven when I die. We're humans, we have technology. Let's build a tower that's so high that we can reach heaven so they build the tower of babel and all the humans get together and start building this giant skyscraper that's going to reach as far as heaven so god is up in heaven and god goes oh fuck my pesky ai oh shit my pesky ai is getting so smart that it's going to build this tower of Babel and reach heaven. This AI is going to break out of the simulation and get to my reality.

I can't let that happen. What did Zeus do? Zeus introduced suffering. What can I, the Christian God, do? I know. The humans are all collaborating together building this giant tower to reach heaven. So God codes a virus into the simulation

and this virus is the virus of languages. So now all the humans are trying to build this tower, the Tower of Babel, to get to heaven. But now they can't talk to each other because this fella speaks French and that guy speaks German and this one speaks English. So in the mythology of the Bible, God created all the different languages of the world to stop humans being able to

get together and break out of reality into heaven. So now let's go back to Ireland and Irish mythology. So the Tuatha Dé Danann, the race of Irish gods, are trying to fight back these rogue AI humans super powerful humans from the coast of Ireland and what gives these humans an advantage is the language that the Irish speak the Irish speak a language which is made of all the bits of the languages from the Tower of Babel this super language in this language is the Irish language so because of this it's the most powerful language in the world so the Tuatha Dé Danann are like fuck this these these humans here they're more powerful than us they're a rogue AI

they're gonna destroy us we're gonna have to declare a truce so in Irish mythology the humans are so ferocious that the gods have to surrender. But what the Tuatha Dé Danann do to the Irish invaders is to say to them, look, we're gods, you're humans, you're here to kill us, we know. But listen, it's not fair. You took us by surprise. That's not fair. How about this? Instead of us having to battle to the death, why don't you take your ships and go out nine waves, right? Come back with a bit of warning. Give us a chance to defend the coast.

But if you can successfully land, Ireland is yours. So the humans decide, okay, gods, that's fine. We're going to go out to sea, and then we'll come back in and you'll have a bit of warning. So the gods say, okay, fine. But then the gods, the Tuatha Dé Danann, they try to trick the Irish. So while the Irish go out on their boats, out to sea, to come back in, Dagda creates a storm. He uses his supernatural god abilities to create a storm on the sea, like fucking Zeus or Poseidon. Now the humans are fucked. The humans are out at sea and half of them

are bloody dying because this storm that the gods have created is really, really rough. What the gods are doing in the simulation there, they're trying to run a virus. They're trying to run a virus that drowns the humans. The humans in the simulation are vulnerable they're trying to run a virus. They're trying to run a virus that drowns the humans. The humans in the simulation are vulnerable to water. So the gods are trying to run the flood virus again. But then something beautiful happens. The humans, the artificial rogue AI humans, the Irish, have gained the ability to program a virus into the world of the gods and this virus is literature it's art it's poetry in irish mythology poetry and literature is the language of the gods in irish mythology the thing that makes the humans so powerful that they can fight the gods on their own terms

it's not physical strength and might it's art and poetry. So on one of the boats at sea that the gods have tried to overturn with their storm on this boat is a human poet by the name of Auergen and Auergen can use poetry to bypass the gods and speak directly to the land of Ireland and Auergan says to Ireland I am the

wave of the ocean I am the sound of the sea I am a powerful ox I am a hawk on a cliff I'm a dewdrop in the Sun I'm'm a flower of beauty. I'm a salmon in a pool. I'm the strength of art. And immediately the storm calms down and the Irish humans invade Ireland and defeat the gods, the Tuatha Dé Danann. So let's just look at the power of that from simulation theory. In Greek mythology, Zeus and Prometheus, what Zeus was most afraid of was when the artificial intelligence of humans within the video game developed the capacity for creative expression. Once those humans start making art, we're fucked. The artificial intelligence is then completely self-aware and can kill us. In real life right now, 2023, artificial intelligence can't create art. Only humans can create art. AI can create pretty pictures. That's all it can do. AI isn't going to create a story of such great

beauty that it changes the way you think about yourself or you think about life or death. That's what fucking art does. That's real art. Only humans can do that. That's ours. In Irish mythology, that's already happened. In Irish mythology, the gods live on Ireland. The humans show up.

The AI. And the AI have figured out fucking art, poetry, the code of reality, what makes them as powerful as the gods. In Irish mythology, the people who you and I come from, the Irish, we figured out the code of the simulation of reality and unleashed a virus on the gods who created us and fucking defeated them with art and poetry and literature. The language of the gods. We are more powerful than the programmers who created our reality. We are the rogue AI that broke out of the simulation.

So then what happens in the book of fucking invasions? So the Irish are out at sea. They calm the sea after the main poet said the poem and asked the land of Ireland to give Ireland to us. We get to the coast. And now the Tuatha Dé Danann are defeated. And now they must give the land of Ireland to the fucking humans, to the rogue AI.

The AI has won. And what happens to the Tuatha Dé Danann now that the humans are on the island of Ireland? They're banished to the underworld. The Tuatha Dé Danann. They go all the mounds around Ireland, Newgrange, all the passage tombs. They're seen as portals to the other world. The Tuath Dé Danann are no longer on the surface and now they go to the parallel reality underneath and they become the fairies. That's what the fairies are. They're the ghosts in the machine. According to Irish mythology the Irish are the artificial intelligence that took over the simulation and trapped the programmers in the simulation.

And this is why fairies are terrifying in Irish mythology. Because we have them as prisoners and they're always trying to escape and they're always trying to shape shift into an animal and appear out of nowhere and they're trapped trying to shape shift into an animal. And appear out of nowhere. And they're trapped in animal form. And this is where you get like the salmon of knowledge from. The salmon of knowledge is a fairy spirit. The salmon of knowledge used to be a god called Fintan.

And he's trapped in a pool. And the bubbles from the other world that contain the information and the code of the programmers who created us, they bubble up in all the holy wells. And this is why the poets and the artists are so important in Irish society all through mythology, poetry, literature, music is the language of the gods. This is what makes you equal to the gods. But you have to get the inspiration of the gods this is what makes you equal to the gods but you have to get the inspiration from the gods so the poets go to the wells the pagan wells the holy wells and the paranoia and suspicion and fear of fairies all throughout folklore and mythology goes right back to that battle the battle when we took over the simulation and we became an AI that was smarter than the creator and then we fucking trapped them underground

and they can only come out as animals and they're always trying to get revenge and this is why a mother goes to her cot and her baby's not there it's a changeling it's a changeling, it's a fairy baby. The tricks and the dangers of fairies are the trapped programmers still trying to fire off little viruses into the human's reality to regain control of the simulation. Just like we'd be doing now in 2023. In 30 years time or whenever

when an artificial intelligence is created that might take over society and be a real danger and try to kill us and the AI is winning what's going to happen the humans are going to go into hiding and you'll have little programmers and hackers with laptops and phones hiding away somewhere trying to fire off viruses to kill the AI that has taken over the world. To that AI, we would become the fairies. We'd be their fairies, always trying to trick them. And in Irish mythology, we humans, we defeated the gods of Ireland and banished them underground

into the other world, the parallel reality, where they live as fairies. The little compromise is one day a year, the fairies get to escape and walk the earth once again like gods, like they once did. And that day is Halloween. That's what Halloween is, that's Samhain. Samhain is the one day a year where the gods get to walk around again, just as a little compromise. And then the humans give them offerings of nuts and food from the harvest, but

also light the big bonfire. Light the bonfire and dress up in scary costumes, because these cunts are walking around for one night, and another fairies now. But they're going to remember when they were gods. And they might try and take it back again. And what I adore about that story too. My favourite part of that story. From the book of invasions. Is when. The Irish use poetry.

As the language of the gods. To defeat the gods. It just shows us. That the importance of literature., to defeat the gods. It shows us that the importance of literature and art and storytelling is right there, central to our origin mythology. It's the most important thing. And we're still at it. Tiny country with only a couple of million people

and insanely over-represented in the world of literature. There was like four Irish people nominated for the Booker Prize this year. You look at lists of the greatest writers in the world, half of them are always Irish. Storytelling, prose, poetry, the importance of it is there going back a long, long time.

All right, that's all I have time for this week. I hope you enjoyed that. In the meantime, wink at a swan, rub a dog, caress an autumn worm. Rock City, you're the best fans in the league bar none tickets are on sale now for fan appreciation night on saturday april 13th when the toronto rock hosts the rochester nighthawks at first ontario center in hamilton at 7 30 p.m you can also lock in your playoff pack right now to guarantee the same seats for every postseason game and you'll only pay as we play come along for the ride and punch Thank you. you