If We’re Going To Play The “Disruption” Game

 Justice disrupts humanity. And it’s the only idea/concept/essence/reality that has a valid claim to. Because justice deals equitably with all. 

AI doesn’t “disrupt humanity.” It serves the interests of those who control it. Karp doesn’t care about the workers. That’s snake oil. You can tell very simply. The technology of AI doesn’t disrupt him; it serves his interests. As does the law, as does the government. Without those twin pillars, he can’t control property to build data centers, overcome objections to displace people (all the “right people”) and sell his services to the owners who want to reap more rewards. Karp is not introducing a new thing; he is just the same old robber baron we’ve seen before. 

And who gives technology the authority to “disrupt humanity”? The whole of humanity? Or the Tech Bros? Who even put them in charge? Humanity? Or the system of injustice that prevails?

The law of Moses may have included rules we find bizarre, like never boiling a kid in its mother’s milk, or essentially eating a cheeseburger (my kryptonite), but the essence of that law is justice for the poor = justice for all. 

Woe to him who builds his palace by unrighteousness, 

 his upper rooms by injustice, 

making his own people work for nothing,

 not paying them for their labor. 

14 He says, ‘I will build myself a great palace with spacious upper rooms.’

 So he makes large windows in it, panels it with cedar and decorates it in red. 

15 “Does it make you a king to have more and more cedar? 

Did not your father have food and drink? 

 He did what was right and just, 

 so all went well with him. 

16 He defended the cause of the poor and needy, 

 and so all went well. 

Is that not what it means to know me?” declares the Lord.

Jeremiah 22:13-16

Jeremiah sums it up nicely. The essence of the law if Moses is to defend the cause of the poor and needy; then all is well with the people, with humanity. Justice disrupts humanity by disrupting our selfishness and greed. Which is not a rapacious desire for too much; it’s just a selfish desire to think of ourselves first, and foremost.

"What keeps you from giving now? Isn't the poor person there? Aren't your own warehouses full? Isn't the reward promised? The command is clear: the hungry person is dying now, the naked person is freezing now, the person in debt is beaten now-and you want to wait until tomorrow? "I'm not doing any harm," you say. "I just want to keep what I own, that's all." You own! You are like someone who sits down in a theater and keeps everyone else away, saying that what is there for everyone's use is your own. . . . If everyone took only what they needed and gave the rest to those in need, there would be no such thing as rich and poor. After all, didn't you come into life naked, and won't you return naked to the earth?

"The bread in your cupboard belongs to the hungry person; the coat hanging unused in your closet belongs to the person who needs it; the shoes rotting in your closet belong to the person with no shoes; the money which you put in the bank belongs to the poor. You do wrong to everyone you could help, but fail to help."

Basil
4th Century

"The large rooms of which you are so proud are in fact your shame. They are big enough to hold crowds--and also big enough to shut out the voices of the poor....There is your sister or brother, naked, crying! And you stand confused over the choice of an attractive floor covering."

Ambrose
4th Century

That is how you disrupt humanity. It doesn’t put a dime in a Tech Bros pocket, but that is the system of injustice that exploits humanity and disrupts our connection to each other. Justice is like the rain: it falls on the just and the unjust alike. It disrupts systems of injustice, and benefits humanity. Humanity has enough disruptions. It doesn’t need one more. It needs justice, that doesn’t serve the wealthy who control the systems of injustice. Humanity needs the justice that disrupts those systems, and put people first. People who are stewards of each other, because we were meant to care for each other, and for God’s creation. We were not meant to claim what is for everybody’s use, as exclusively our own. 

You want to really disrupt humanity? Seek justice.