I swore to myself that there will be nothing of a political nature in Headless Chicken, but I guess with all that hype going about with the “shocking” results, I ended up commenting on my friends’ blog and article. As such I shall thus still remain true to my word (making me a hopeless politician) and if yer interested in my two cents worth you can visit http://g-e-r-g-a-s-i.blogspot.com/2008/03/left-is-new-right.html#comments and http://thecicak.com/why-im-voting-why-we-need-to-fix-the-flaws-in-the-system/ Mainly I said in those comments that the Internet was a major factor in influencing the results. This got me ticking how much cyberspace is shaping our future. Sure we know about all those social networking sites, and I’ve read countless articles on how a digital society can manipulate real life events, but to witness it in our own backyard and at such a large scale truly amazes me how powerful the World Wide Web can be.

Indeed everything is going online, a brooding giant breathes behind the computer screen ready to strike. It raises its view and decision, and this has profound impact on politics, businesses as well as the economy and judicial systems and society at large.

I like the idea of having our own place in virtual space. It’s like owning your own universe where you can invite friends to be a part – a growing community where bits and pieces of our self are in everyone else. And as computing power accelerates I wonder how much more is ahead. Can we create our own Matrix? Each person possessing his or her ideal state - be it narcissistic, romantic, mythical or scientific. And we don’t go in to a site just to read, watch and listen, we also taste, smell and feel. We absorb in to the URL, and in 3-dimensional fashion socialize with avatars amidst virtual architecture, magical pets and alien flora.

And when one day this becomes a reality, what becomes of society? We are already escaping in to an electronic lifestyle, will we now immerse in it? Will we find the digital more appealing than the natural? And when we can, will we choose to live in it instead? Will we even interact? Preferring to commune with our own creations because they both compliment and complement us. Who will we be?

Thus ultimately, this takes us to the theory of Singularity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity proposed by scientists like Raymond Kurzweil http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Kurzweil http://www.kurzweilai.net/ and Vernor Vinge. The Singularity is a point in the future when technological advancements supersede human intelligence, and as such mankind is joined to machines becoming a new hybrid species, first as individual AIs that can merge and separate at will, take diverse forms and switch between the physical and digital and later transcending to a collective consciousness taking over the universe, converting “dumb” matter (rocks, gas etc) to intelligent stuff, and finally interacting beyond outer space.

I repeat then, “Who will we be?” Our individual person is so important to us; can we still then ever be unique? Can we maintain our individualism and yet be a collective consciousness? I think so; we have demonstrated it in our recent election. All distinct human beings possessing the same voice. Though we long to be different we choose to be the same.

So, how the hell did I get from the 2008 Malaysian election to the sci-fi theory of Singularity? Some workings of my mind I cannot compute, but whatever it is, from here and now with the swearing in of new powers to the transformation of mankind to his divine state I hope we can accommodate our different agendas peacefully.