Canal
Artificial Intelligence vs Ancestral Intelligence
Unmasking “Artificial Intelligence”: A Call for Ancestral Wisdom
The term “artificial intelligence” is a misnomer, a clever rebrand of sophisticated software. It’s a complex algorithm, trained to mimic thought, but in reality, it merely recycles information it’s been fed. We shouldn’t get caught in semantic debates about “intelligence.” Instead, let’s redefine it as “that which life does.” Can we truly conceive of anything more intelligent than living biology? I don’t believe so. What other world do we inhabit?
This leads me to propose the concept of ancestral intelligence: true intelligence, distinct from the mimicry that simultaneously destroys it. The very fact that we find “artificial intelligence” relevant is a testament to a media-fueled illusion, a trap that parades apocalypses and fear to distract us. The deception is subtle, yet profound.
Powerful computers and vast data centers can process and present information elegantly, but this isn’t intelligence. There’s no consciousness, no genuine thought, no creative spark. It’s just the same old content, repackaged and shiny, capable of writing for you—if your goal is repetition, not creation.
The Capitalist Trap: Erasing Ancestry, Fostering Junk
Capitalist materialism thrives on creating artificial needs. It does this by systematically eroding cultural ancestry, health, wealth, access to land, and community resources. Natural territories and their cultures are ravaged, creating misery that forces inhabitants into academia and urban migration, seeking a “better opportunity” that rarely materializes in the first generation. Subsequent generations, if they succeed, often forget the inherent abundance and gratuitousness of nature, falling into perpetual enslavement to the “junk production” industry they now proudly embrace.
Today’s “AI” is merely the latest iteration of a long-standing system of mind abduction and the expropriation of human life. The apocalypse isn’t coming; it happened long ago. When I began conceptualizing “The Seed of a New World” in 2016, the shocking extent of mindless faith in “development” and “modernity” was already evident.
In some ways, modern technocratic mind control is less effective than the more potent theological, symbolic, and patriarchal impositions that swept ancestral cultures some 500 years ago. This “new update” of the old world order is effective precisely because its predecessor is so deeply entrenched. Millions will reject a “progressive” transhumanist agenda, only to gravitate with greater force to the previous, religiously-based anti-natural order. For those who believe they benefit, it’s a win-win.
Challenging the Status Quo: A Call for Reconnection
I anticipate whispers of fanaticism, of this proposition being a “cult,” simply because I advocate for people coming together, for one community, or, as the Aymara say, “one heart and one mind.” For those raised in confinement, freedom can seem insane, even as a deep inner yearning for it persists. The upside-down “intelligence” that sustains this system—and people’s adherence to it—is the alluring possibility that by climbing the fiduciary wealth pyramid, one can buy anything and everything, thereby eliminating the need to create. Everyone is enticed by this promise of monetary freedom, the freedom to enjoy wealth stolen from future generations and from the countless animal, plant, and human lives that never “made it.”
The systemic genocidal model we’re caught in makes our lives just enjoyable enough to habituate us, yet miserable enough to transgenerationally erode our humanity. This keeps us striving for a better position within the system, investing our creative power and life-energy into an ascent that seemingly improves our standing, even as our communities, towns, territories, bodies, and minds considerably deteriorate.
The true genius here, the invisible artificial intelligence at work, operates internally: through our belief systems, an occult worship of money, an effective brainwashing and distraction-entertainment industry, a demoralizing and fragmented society, and an indoctrinating academic system that is presented as the only path to success.
Defining the Artifice: A Path to Demise
Artificial intelligence, then, is an artifact, an artifice, designed to trick humanity into its own demise, dragging with it countless living creatures and even entire species and ecosystems.
When we choose to understand this—to believe in ourselves and doubt the omnipresent layer of dark, “intelligent” deceit—we begin to excavate and discern what is truly real. At the foundational spiritual and epistemological levels, there’s extensive work to be done in decolonizing our minds and souls from deeply rooted and internalized agreements and beliefs that actively work against our expansion, freedom, and well-being. Upon these layers, political and structural systems were built. By digging there, we are forced to expose the unlawfulness of every “republic” or “state” and constitution we believe protects us. Only by examining history with an awakened mind can we uncover the false beliefs we blindly follow, realizing these states were created to institutionalize, normalize, and falsely democratize a system of continuous expropriation, genocide, and centralized control.
The Controlled Narrative: Suppressing True Knowledge
Above these states, a system of knowledge was cast, where the genocidal agenda controlled what information was deemed true. Academies, educational institutions, and scientific research facilities have been created, manipulated, or co-opted by the interests of those with financial power. Just as the religious inquisition burned those who spoke against the papal state’s imperialist agenda, the financial, corporate, and military complex now invests vast resources in censoring, manipulating, and creating false science that suits their interests, while silencing or imprisoning dissenters.
The problem isn’t solely manipulated information, but a millennia-long creation of a “box-of-perception” thinking that favors only what is economically, institutionally, or, historically, religiously approved. Just as scientific research was penalized by the church before the Renaissance, mystical thinking today faces a “shadow banning” by media and institutions. Solutions to our civilizational decline are often presented solely through an intellectual, academic, Western mechanistic-naturalist language and paradigm. This limitation prevents us from imagining and considering alternative solutions.
Reconnecting with Ancestral Intelligence: A Path to Liberation
Sadly, this information may only reach those fortunate enough to experience a spiritual revelation that opens them to knowledge beyond the imposed Technosphere. My words may reach someone, but true understanding might not. If you are among the lucky few, like me, you are likely undergoing a decades-long process of decolonization, healing, and reconstruction of your mind and soul. We are in the process of reconnecting with the true ancestral intelligence that defines all that is real: the biosphere. This path presents monumental individual challenges that must be overcome to end technocratic world domination and destruction.
Reconnecting with ancestral intelligence requires us to engage with living ancestral cultures—indigenous peoples—and to learn from those who have passed on, yet left extensive structures, evidence, and knowledge of their way of life. Among the many lessons, one crucial structural mindset, difficult even for those on this path, is belief. Pre-colonial cultures always believed in something. Belief is the gateway to understanding what we cannot directly observe or logically corroborate. As humans, we have learned immensely by trusting others’ words. Imagine a cave tribe: one member discovers a dangerous predator and advises how to avoid it. The tribe can choose to believe and act, or mistrust and risk danger. The same applies to animals. During a drought, an elephant troop trusts its elder, who has made the journey before, to find water. She might be wrong, but it’s their best option.
Artificial intelligence has subtly convinced us that we can live in a world without belief, that we can “know everything.” Yet, this is twisted because we cannot pragmatically corroborate everything ourselves, so we resort to believing what the system presents as unquestionable, proven knowledge. We are tricked into thinking we “know” something when in fact we simply “believe” it—a blurry line that defines epistemology. There are limits to what can be proven by instruments and observed by research, but that’s only part of the problem. The other part is the corrupt and deceitful nature of the structures underlying the institutions and personnel responsible for that research and observation, and the forces and interests that drive them.
Beyond the Artifice: Embracing Skepticism and Intuition
Becoming aware makes us sanely skeptical, a state we must maintain with everything. We must learn to be tightrope walkers between what we know, what we can know, our sources of information, and what we believe, trust, and intuit. We can be forever jailed in the prison of institutional and media sources if they remain our sole reference, because we were never taught to listen to the wind, that it has a mind of its own, as do water, stars, the moon, the sun—you name it. To quote such sources risks losing credibility, and that is precisely the point of this article. Humanity’s problems cannot be solved from the mindset that created them: the artifice. We must turn to another source of intelligence, of language, and even a new categorical framework to propose solutions to the seemingly insoluble problems we’ve faced for centuries.
In her 269-page essay, “TRANS-RITUAL COSMO-POETICS, Proposal for a symbolic system to inspire the experience of the sacred,” for the Master’s degree in Transdisciplinary Studies for Sustainability at the Universidad Veracruzana, Dayana Fuentes powerfully demonstrates the necessity of understanding our relationship with the cosmos from a broader perspective and with a language beyond mechanistic logic and Western colonial institutional sources. This is just one example among hundreds. To a great extent, the concept of decolonization encapsulates the core argument of this essay or chapter, and for that, countless extensive books already exist.
In 2013, during the decline of Evo Morales’s administration in Bolivia—which had begun as a decolonial process for native nations—a dozen participants, including myself, gathered for years in all-night discussions about decolonization led by philosopher Rafael Bautista Segales, brother of the renowned Juan José Bautista Segales, a leading figure in the field. We learned the importance of congruent discourse and coherent language, writing, and reading. We understood that the native worldview had to be the foundation for comprehending our world and finding solutions to critical problems as Bolivians, as natives. Sociologist Silvia Rivera reminded us that even if we no longer spoke a native language or didn’t “look” native, we were still obligated to identify with something; we certainly weren’t Europeans, much less colonialists or imperialists. A combined identity was and is possible and necessary. Our allegiance is to the land we inhabit, and our roots lie with its people, cultures, and philosophical, spiritual, social, and cosmological constructs.
I mention these experiences to lay the groundwork for my thesis, but I must also point out a limitation in their thinking, specifically in Rafael Bautista’s. He once orally stated in a workshop, “We are not going to go back to the fields,” projecting his own limitations onto the community he was trying to build. He tried to make us believe the “colonial” issue could be solved through politics, books, and well-presented discourses, where, as he quoted, “we could reach Evo Morales and have him listen to us, and maybe then he could understand the correct way to govern and take Bolivia to true freedom.”
This discussion unfolded amidst the blatant evidence that all efforts to make Bolivia a truly sovereign native nation, for whatever reasons, had failed. Colonialism—internal, psychological, structural, and more—had percolated through the thin, shiny, “artificial” wrapping of the now-called “Plurinational State of Bolivia” and the newly created Constitution, which had liberated native nations in a very limited and artificial way. The newly created (artificial) structures that initially brought hope and inspiration and some reform from corrupt external interference were now failing, and the real actions taken by institutions were pushing local genocide and ecocide further than ever before.
This period in world history, in this region (as everywhere else), demonstrates the failure of all attempts at true solutions. It shows how deeply we must reach within ourselves, detaching from the very mind structures, beliefs, and knowledge bases, to truly reform our lives and those of others. It reveals how far beyond conventional thinking we must imagine, listen, trust, and believe to make a real difference. Pragmatism has proven insufficient. Our egos, which only listen to the “educated” and “experts,” are keeping us here, at war.
Action Over Intellect: The Seed of a New World
A mindset adorned with fancy words and extensive knowledge is what many believe attracts readers and fosters trust in the writer and the written word. We resort to “educated” writing as the only means to effect change. If we were to seek guidance from a native elder, we might appreciate their words but look elsewhere for leadership, judging them as “not educated enough.” Here again, our artificial intelligence deceives us.
There is no recipe for following, listening to, or finding ancestral intelligence; only direct experience can bring understanding. My critical objective in writing this, even if not enough “rationality” has been presented, is to make this point. Critical, because I believe our survival as human beings depends on this ability to listen. This shift—from needing external rational evidence to convince your mind, to simply being able to look inside yourself and know from your heart what I’m talking about—is the shift that needs to occur in every human being to navigate this civilizational crisis and war.
I have delivered this (hopefully) compelling, yet straightforward, short essay as an introduction to “The Seed of a New World. Paititi Ecovillage, Muxuq Nina Yachaywasi: A Civilizational Model,” which I uploaded to Academia in 2016. Since then, I’ve received emails about related papers with very attractive titles that I look forward to reading soon, and which I invite you to explore as well. Some of the most compelling titles include:
- “Reimagining the Way to an Ecological Civilization” by Jeremy Hutton
- “The Civilization at a Crossroads: Constructing the Paradigm Shift” by Gennady Shkliarevsky
- “Transcending the Coloniality of Development: Moving Beyond Human/Nature Hierarchies” by Tanya Casas
- “Integrating Biosemiotics and Biohermeneutics in the Quest for Ecological Civilization as a Practical Utopia” by Arran Gare
Like these, countless other books and works reveal the path we must follow if we wish to attempt a resolution to today’s crisis. If it’s not a lack of knowledge or understanding stopping us from achieving peace, then what is?
This introductory text aims to point out the answer: intellectual action versus other action. Good thinkers and writers, adept at mapping out the rational road to this goal, believe (for we cannot escape belief) that someone else will pick up their writing and apply it. They go so far as to identify the problem and propose a solution. Yet, someone bound for action to make their ideas visible hasn’t emerged for at least a century, since these concepts first appeared in books. As you will discover in “The Seed of a New World,” there’s a section on prophecy. While the text as a whole employs other languages and more rational arguments to propose the project (note: it is a project, an action, not merely words), it also relies on an argument not based on rationality, but belief—belief in a prophecy, a vision, an idea someone once wrote.
We live in an imposed, all-destructive, decultured, industrial-military civilization that is extensively intellectual but profoundly unintelligent. Please use your mind to follow your heart and find that seed within you where the tree of ancestral intelligence can grow. If it grows, please consider understanding the following project as a solid means to achieve the peace and freedom we have all, for generations, been awaiting.
