The concept of Judgment Day (a.k.a. Last Judgment, Final Judgment, Day of Reckoning, Day of Judgment, Doomsday, or The Day of the Lord) is part of the Abrahamic religions. This refers to a group of monotheistic religions that worship the God of Abraham. In addition to Judaism, Christianity and Islam, these also include the Baháʼí Faith, the Druze Faith, Samaritanism, and others.
It probably goes without saying (but I’ll say it anyway) that the idea of Judgment Day is also to be found in the Frashokereti of Zoroastrianism — that is, the Zoroastrian doctrine of a final renovation of the universe, at which time evil will be destroyed and everything remaining will be in perfect unity with Ahura Mazda (a.k.a. God).
As an aside, what is now known as Zoroastrianism was founded by an ancient Iranian prophet called, you guessed it, Zoroaster. This sagacious scholar is also known as Zarathustra, Zarathushtra Spitama, and Ashu Zarathushtra. The reason this is of interest — at least, of interest to me — is that one of my all-time favorite films, 2001: A Space Odyssey, features the initial fanfare from Richard Strauss’s tone poem (orchestral music) titled Also Sprach Zarathustra (“Thus Spake Zarathustra”).
Unfortunately, as interesting as all of this may be, nothing I’ve said thus far pertains to the type of Judgment Day I wish to talk about.
In the 1992 American science fiction action film, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, we learn that an artificial intelligence (AI) called Skynet will be given control of the United States’ nuclear missiles. It will subsequently initiate a nuclear holocaust on August 29, 1997, which will be known thereafter as “Judgment Day.”
The reason I mention this here is that my chum Jay Dowling just sent me a link to an article describing how DARPA Flies a Black Hawk Helicopter Without a Pilot for 30 Minutes.
That’s just great. It wasn’t good enough to build canine and humanoid robots that can out-dance us (see Do You Love Me? And Beam Me Up Spotty!). Noooo, we had to go and equip a military helicopter with the ability to fly itself at all times of the day and night. Apply a similar treatment to other mobile (land, sea, and air) weapons systems, throw in an artificial intelligence, and… you get my drift.
I just dispatched the butler to fetch my brown corduroy trousers. How about you? Do you have any thoughts you’d case to share on any of this?
It appears we may be our own worst enemy.
No — that would be the French 🙂
From TS Eliot’s poem “The Hollow Men”: “This is the way the world ends, Not with a bang but a whimper. Which kinda goes against this theory. (I thought it was JBS Haldane, which would give it a bit more authority I think…. hut not.)
Right now, there seems to be more threat from Covid and other lurgys than nuclear armageddons. Score 1 to TS Eliot…
Time to get Arnold out of retirement. When I finish my time machine, we can send him back to prevent the AI takeover. While he is back in time, maybe he can contact Kenau to warn him not to immerse himself in the Metaverse.