"The Hivemind is a universal horror, far more terrifying than anything science fiction writers have ever dreamed up, and it seeks to devour us all."
For those who are not overly involved with social media or online communities in any fashion, the term hivemind may sound like something ripped out of a science fiction movie, and I honestly wish that was the case.
Unfortunately the hivemind is not only terrifyingly real, but is now more powerful than at any other time in history.
Now obviously before we continue I must clarify that the hivemind is not a literal being with lots of tentacles and antennas, but that does little to make it less dangerous.
While the internet has resulted in near apocalyptic levels of growth for the hivemind, it has existed long before the internet, where often more traditional forms of media and even word of mouth helped to spread false narratives in effort to sway the masses.
Unfortunately the speed and convenience of the internet has resulted in a hivemind in which lies can become accepted as “common knowledge” in a matter of hours, and for those vulnerable to its pull, the hivemind at times can feel like an invincible enemy.
The hivemind is a colloquial term for a phenomenon where people stop thinking for themselves and instead adopt the thoughts, agendas, and beliefs of a larger group in effort to avoid loneliness, derision, or alienation.
It takes courage, intellect, creativity, and most importantly integrity to stand up against a lie and say the truth, especially when it is not popular to do so.
We have all seen examples of people karma farming by making negative comments aimed at whatever popular thing the hivemind (which must always be contradictory and deceptive) has directed their ire at.
From Minecraft to Crypto, and Xbox to AI, the hivemind always seeks to eradicate objective reality with subjective reality, to replace reason with insanity, and honesty with deception.
Tim despises coffee, even the smell of it repulses him. In his subjective opinion there is no such thing as a good cup of coffee anywhere. All coffee is terrible, and he declares that coffee is “very unpopular” and “no one likes coffee” based entirely on his own dislike.
Due to his loud and public disdain for coffee, he attracts other coworkers who agree coffee is indeed terrible, and so combined they begin to bully the majority who like coffee. They start to insinuate that anyone who likes coffee must have “a financial stake in Starbucks” or are being “paid to shill”.
In their subjective reality, only their opinion matters. There is no room for rationality or reality, only one “truth” exists: coffee is bad, and anyone who claims to like coffee is also bad by extension and should be derided and bullied into silence.
As a result, others who perhaps have no strong feelings about coffee, or perhaps even enjoy a cup now and again decide either to stay silent to avoid being bullied or join the hivemind in effort to feel part of something bigger, to get instant acceptance from a group whose only criteria is “hate who and what we hate”.
To a very lonely person that is a tempting offer. Instant camaraderie, instant credibility, instant status.
Suddenly lonely Larry is not a nobody, he is one of the “cool kids” who looks down on those “filthy coffee shills”.
And unlike those “filthy coffee shills”, he is “on the right side” of the argument.
Now he can be assured that the only correct reaction to someone posting the truth, such as examples of how popular coffee is or its long history of being very popular, is to spam them with insults, downvotes, and mockery.
After all, the hivemind hates coffee drinkers, and the hivemind would turn on him if he ever showed even a moment of free thought or originality.
Now let us look at the same scenario, but this time Tim is objective about his dislike of coffee.
Tim dislikes coffee, the smell makes him sick, he never drinks it, but he is well aware of how popular coffee is. He does not try to gaslight people into thinking no one likes coffee, nor does he accuse anyone who enjoys coffee of being a shill.
In this scenario Tim is a rational human being who thinks for himself and understands that while he does not like coffee, billions love it, and that his subjective reality does not override objective reality.
In the examples above it is easy to see how ridiculous the hivemind is and how toxic and damaging it is to human interactions, but this example is no more ridiculous than the hundreds of examples that occur every single day on popular gaming subreddits and Twitter feeds alone.
Example.
User A: Comments that X game is dead and no one plays it anymore. His post is upvoted by the hivemind built around hatred for that game.
User B: Posts a link showing that X game is actually very active with millions of active players and very high review scores, only to be downvoted into oblivion, called a shill, slandered, cussed out, reported, and harassed with “suicide notices” on Reddit and at times worse examples such as death threats and even in rare cases acts of physical violence.
In the above example User B posted objective truth. The game really is that popular, and while User A is free to hate it (though wasting your life hating inanimate objects is not very healthy), he not only seeks to live in a false subjective reality but to “punish” anyone who dares pull back the curtain and reveal how fictional his reality truly is.
The biggest appeal of the hivemind is clearly instant acceptance and pseudo validation. People who are part of the hivemind can feel perfectly validated in everything they say and do as long as it is in line with the hivemind.
You often see this on Steam where a very popular game has negative reviews with the same number of likes on each, while the overwhelmingly majority of reviews which are positive have far fewer likes for the simple reason that the people who liked the game did so because they actually liked it. They have not built their identity around it, so they feel no need to upvote every single other person who also liked it in effort to score points for the team.
Does that happen at times? Oh sure, but mostly in the context of X vs Y such as the console wars or within the more extreme elements of the Steam community who have become so ingrained with the “pro Steam” hivemind they might as well be The Borg from Star Trek.
I like Steam, I use Steam, and have done so for many, many years, yet I like it no more or less than any other launcher. And yet you will have people who fly into a rage at the very idea someone would launch a game on another storefront and not Steam.
A few years ago there were multiple horror stories of developers being targeted and harassed for launching on Epic Game Store instead of Steam.
Even those too timid to openly send death threats did their part by ensuring every single thread or post that was positive about Epic Game Store or exclusive titles there was downvoted into oblivion.
They did not care how they hurt the developers finances, hurt indie developers, or deprived themselves and others of great games. All they saw was someone who stood against their hivemind, and that was enough to enrage them beyond any semblance of reason or rationality.
I have seen people wish death on the spouses and children of developers for releasing titles on other storefronts or consoles.
All in all it is sick, wrong, and leads to the question, who created the hivemind and for what purpose?
When it comes to deciding who created a particular hivemind, it is important to look at where it started and what it hopes to accomplish. We have all encountered the relatively benign attempts at creating a hivemind, such as when a company or politician pays people to pretend to like a certain product.
Often they will have someone post a question such as “Do you know the best place to get my engine fixed?” or “What is the best way to damp proof my ceiling?” only for a handful of accounts to all post various praise of a certain brand, service or product.
They often repeat this over several days and occasionally weeks until anytime a real question pops up, most people instantly think of “good old Jim’s Tire and Oil” anytime someone asks about needing to find a mechanic, assured it must be good as “everyone is using it”.
Manmade hiveminds are deceptive but ultimately benign.
While they are based on deception, and that is indeed a sin, the only thing they truly accomplish is increasing sales of a certain product or service, and not corrupt people on a core level, unlike our next example.
The next type of hivemind is one instigated by humans but spread by bots and algorithms.
These are often used to influence the result of important issues such as elections and referendums and to negatively shape opinion on social issues such as immigration, refugees, welfare, and the war in Ukraine.
These hiveminds seek to do harm and corrupt all those they encounter.
This type of hivemind is incredibly dangerous as it is built not only on lies, but it exists to spread false narratives about vulnerable and often innocent people, and eradicate the humanity, morality and decency of as many people as possible.
Finally we have the third and most dangerous of all: the hivemind created and fuelled by the potential for darkness within the human heart.
Since the creation of man, the great deceiver Satan has sought to corrupt what God created, and humanity’s free will is something he has always sought to control. And what better way to gain that control than by encouraging people to surrender it willingly.
No one can objectively look at the phenomenon of the hivemind and deny that at its core it is evil. It encourages people to spread lies, persecute the truth, choose what is false, and punish those who speak against it.
It encourages people to lose compassion, empathy, and integrity and exchange it for the praise of others in the hivemind.
It essentially strips people of the very sparks of divinity God has given us: empathy, creativity, intellect, the ability to reason, and the ability to choose what is right, all of which willingly surrendered to gain the praise of people who would just as soon leave you dying in a ditch if the hivemind ever turned against you.
In the Gospel of Matthew Jesus Christ said you will know them by their fruit, and the same applies to the hivemind. If you see nothing but evil, perhaps that should be your signal to escape the hivemind now while your soul is still intact and your conscience has not died entirely.
I encourage everyone reading this to check your own post history, your own behaviour.
Do you stand for what is objectively true? Or do you only say and do those things you know will gain the approval of others, even when you know they are wrong?
Life is fleeting, eternity is a very long time, and wasting your life spreading lies in service of a hivemind only to end up spending eternity in hell for your actions seems like a tragic waste of a human life in my mind, and hopefully in yours.
Remember, it is not what you did, but what you do next that is important. It is never too late to repent, turn from your sin, and seek Jesus. And for everyone reading this, I hope you will at least consider the cost of your actions.
After all, no matter how much you hate Epic Game Store, Minecraft, or Ben and Jerry’s, is it really worth spending an eternity in hell over?
If you would like to read what Jesus Christ actually said about a variety of subjects including the importance of telling the truth and the universal need of a savior, please visit Disciples of Christ – Jesus In His Own Words ↪.
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