​The Technological Trap of the Last Times

Digital slavery. Photo: UOJ

​We see that throughout the entire period of Christian history, the world has, in one way or another, gravitated toward an anti-Christian way of life. The pride of rulers and the passions of people, taken as a whole, prevailed over piety and purity. True Christians have always been a small flock, and it has always been persecuted from two sides – both from without and from within.

But a distinctive feature of our world has become its globalization. Today, information is transmitted almost instantaneously. Something happening on one edge of the earth reaches the opposite edge within seconds. The internet and universal digitalization are gradually uniting all of humanity into a single supra-state system. Never before could such a thing even have been imagined.

​The global network of human passions

​Indeed, in reality all these technologies are neutral. A microphone equally obediently transmits both a sermon on love and calls for genocide; artificial intelligence algorithms can systematize theological texts or build flawless systems of total control.

However, the modern digital infrastructure and media environment possess specific properties that make them ideal resonators of human passions.

Social networks are designed to hold the user's attention at any cost. The most effective trigger of attention is negative emotion – anger, righteous indignation, fear. Algorithms recommend content that reinforces a person's existing prejudices, forming self-enclosed information bubbles. As a result, society is instantly divided into irreconcilable camps ready to dehumanize their opponents. The younger generation is actively developing a syndrome of fragmented consciousness, because of which a person loses the ability for a deep, meaningful perception of life.

​Loss of personal spiritual responsibility

The constant stream of short videos, notifications, and news headlines destroys a person's capacity for sustained concentration, deep reflection, and quiet prayer. Spiritual life requires silence and inward contemplation, whereas the modern media landscape offers an endless race across the surface.

​Moreover, the emergence of AI, for all the positive aspects associated with its capabilities, in one way or another leads to the alienation of responsibility for one's own choices and the loss of critical thinking. With the development of AI systems and algorithmic management, moral choice is being delegated to programs. A person becomes accustomed to entrusting choice to an external authority – a recommendation system, a rating, a smart assistant – gradually becoming unaccustomed to personal spiritual discernment.

​Whereas previously many passions were restrained by physical locality, the opinion of neighbors, and the institution of the family, today the internet provides the illusion of complete anonymity and impunity: from access to corrupting content to participating in the harassment of a person on the other side of the planet.

Technological progress has not created new sins, but it has removed the former natural barriers and given human passions the tools for instantaneous global action.

All these and similar factors will change the very mentality of man, his inner world, which has essentially remained unchanged for centuries. For thousands of years, people passed down the tradition of life from generation to generation, based on the experience of their ancestors. In the near future, a new type of humanity will be formed on the basis of those synaptic connections that the virtual world will create in our brains. And this will happen practically from the cradle. The father and mother, teacher and mentor, friend and advisor on all life issues will become the all-knowing and all-seeing window of the virtual world. The succession of generations will no longer be from father to son, but from screen to screen.

​A Comfortable World Without Christ

​The final substitution will offer the world not chaos and outright satanism, but a highly efficient, outwardly humane, comfortable, and justly arranged world without Christ. It will promise the solution of all of humanity's external problems: victory over diseases, overcoming economic crises and social instability, absolute digital order and security.

​No miracles or supernatural revelations will help such humanity anymore. As the Revelation of John the Theologian says, at the end of times two witnesses of God will appear, who will preach with great power and perform signs, but this will only provoke hatred, and their murder will become an occasion for universal rejoicing (Rev. 11:3–10).

​Essentially, this is a repetition of what happened during the earthly life of the Savior, when He raised the four-day-dead Lazarus. The reaction to this obvious and greatest miracle was the decision to kill not only Christ, but also Lazarus. When a person's heart has already chosen comfort, its own righteousness, or ideology, any proof of the Truth will be met with irritation and aggression. The Gospel says: "And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened" (Matt. 24:22).

​The Limit of the Earthly History of Humanity

​This shortening will be caused by the fact that the historical environment itself will exhaust its potential. When society becomes a totally regulated system, where every step is algorithmized, and any manifestation of sincere, free spiritual life meets fierce resistance from the structure, the continuation of history will lose its meaning.

​History is the space given to man for free self-determination in relation to God.

When the conditions of this freedom are destroyed either by the absolute choice of evil or by absolute systemic determination, the historical process comes to its completion. History moves toward its limit, but the main question of eschatology is not a question of date or external circumstances. It is the question of what our heart will turn out to be when eternity touches time.

Read also