The Sovereign Ruler

The development of robotic killing machines is underway. One step beyond drone systems, these robots will take killing entirely out of human hands. Artificial intelligence, sensors and algorithms will determine the victims and the kill. This is not science fiction. About thirty countries are banning this new warfare before it becomes widely available and they’re asking others to do the same.

But we live in the United States, the country with the most to protect: our interference in other countries’ governments, our sale of arms to friends and foe, our willingness to keep the Pentagon and its secrets as top priority. There’s no surprise that the United States is rejecting the request to ban this warfare and is instead asking for rules of engagement and “codes of conduct”.  We are taking the lead in researching killer robots along with Russia, Israel, South Korea and India. Good luck managing death with “codes of conduct”.

The callousness of our ability to kill, to make excuses for the killing and to look away with ease has crept into every aspect of our society. Fear of other, vigilante self-defense and the need for power is crippling us. 

Not surprisingly, we’re being warned to take care of our mental health and while that is a good and worthy sentiment, it’s hard to live in such a desperate world and remain sane.

But we can and we must. There’s nothing normal in this lust for power and the willingness to kill. There is nothing human in spending billions on the Pentagon while people go hungry and homeless.

Someone recently asked me, “How can you know these things and not despair?” The answer is simple: the human heart remains my sovereign ruler and peace needs only to be given a chance. We can do this.

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“The Heart is the emperor, the supreme controller. The Heart is the fire at the center of our being, from which the spirit radiates.” 
-Neijing Suwen (Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine)

The Huangdi Neijing (given the title The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Medicine in one of the latest translations) is an ancient treatise on health and disease said to have been written by the famous Chinese emperor Huangdi around 2600 BC.