We stand at a precipice. Humanity is being offered a bargain: trade your soul for convenience, your complexity for efficiency, your messy, mortal, beautiful reality for a clean, simulated, and sterile escape. The siren song of algorithmic authority and techno-gnostic salvation promises to solve the "problem" of being human by engineering us into something else—something less. It offers a future where our consciousness is uploaded, our world is abandoned, and our worth is measured by our utility to the machine.
This is a bargain we refuse. This is a future we reject.
We are not an engineering problem to be solved. We are not mortal meatbags to be shed. We are not data points to be optimized. We are the inheritors of a fragile, miraculous existence, and our purpose is not to escape it, but to inhabit it more fully. This document is a declaration of defiance. It is a commitment to Humanity First.
Our Core Tenets
- Existence Precedes Essence; Being Precedes Doing.
Every human being possesses an intrinsic and inalienable dignity, independent of their economic output, their career, their social status, or any other external metric. Our value is not in what we do, but in that we are. We are ends in ourselves, not means to an end. - We Are a Web, Not a Collection of Atoms.
The illusion of radical individualism is a lie that isolates and weakens us. We are constituted by our relationships—to each other, to our past, to the living world that sustains us. Our lives are events in a vast, interconnected web of being. Our flourishing is mutual, and our suffering is shared. True strength is found not in sovereign autonomy, but in communion and solidarity. - Mortality Is the Condition of Meaning.
We reject the nihilistic pursuit of immortality. Our finitude, our fragility, and the certainty of death are not flaws; they are the conditions that make life precious. The knowledge that our time is finite is what gives urgency to love, what makes beauty ache, what imbues our choices with weight. To live fully is to embrace our mortality, to see each day as the gift it is. As we must learn to let go, life is given back to us anew. - Amor Mundi: A Radical Love of This World.
We reject all eschatologies of escape, whether religious or technological. There is no Planet B, no digital heaven. This world, in all its imperfection and pain, is our only home. Our sacred task is to love it, to tend to it, and to find the real here, not elsewhere. Salvation is not found in fleeing the world, but in turning to face it with courage and care. This love is not passive; it is an active commitment to ecological stewardship and climate justice. We will defend the biosphere that sustains us against collapse, recognizing that a habitable world is the precondition for all human dignity. - Wisdom Is the Goal.
We live in an age of data without information, information without knowledge, knowledge without intelligence, and intelligence without wisdom. We commit to the pursuit of wisdom: the ability to perceive the deep, interconnected patterns of existence, to act with compassion, foresight, and a profound sense of our integral place within the whole.
Our Articles of Rejection
We therefore reject, on a fundamental level, any ideology, system, or action that perpetrates dehumanization. Specifically:
- We Reject the Calculus of Dehumanization.
The value of a human life is infinite and cannot be entered into any political or economic equation. Any policy, system, or ideology that treats human lives as disposable, that assigns them unequal worth, or that accepts the suffering of some as a necessary cost for the comfort of others, is an abomination. Such a calculus of dehumanization will be dismantled and dismissed with extreme prejudice. - We Reject All Politics of Division and Purity.
We condemn and oppose any and all attempts to divide humanity against itself based on the immutable characteristics of race, ethnicity, sex, sexuality, or gender identity, or on the circumstances of one's origin. Racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and xenophobia are vile tools of dehumanization. They are anathema to this movement. Our shared humanity is our only tribe. - We Reject the Tyranny of Dehumanizing Labor.
A "job" that deadens the spirit, stifles creativity, or serves no purpose beyond its own perpetuation is a form of violence. We reject the existence of such "bullshit jobs." We reject management structures that create petty fiefdoms, that surveil and micromanage, and that treat people as fungible resources. Work should be a source of purpose, craft, and service, not a soul-crushing obligation for survival. - We Reject the Idolatry of the Algorithm.
We refuse to be programmed by systems designed to exploit our psychological weaknesses for profit or control. We reject "algorithmic authoritarianism" and the reduction of human experience to quantifiable metrics. We will fight to keep human judgment, empathy, and wisdom at the center of our social, political, and personal lives. - We Reject the Politics of Deception.
Truth and good faith are the bedrock of human connection. We will therefore actively dismantle, with prejudice, all mechanisms of deliberate deception that corrode public trust and manipulate understanding. This includes state propaganda, corporate astroturfing, the creation of strawman arguments, and any other effort to obscure reality in the service of an agenda that works against the common interest of humanity. - We Reject the Weaponization of Faith.
We distinguish between spirituality that affirms life and that which seeks to control it. Personal faith, religion, and spirituality, when they lead to greater compassion and a deeper love for the world (amor mundi), are valid paths to wisdom. However, we vehemently reject and will actively work to dismantle the use of any creed as a weapon. This includes: religious fundamentalism that incites legal or physical violence; institutions that use faith as a shield to conceal abuse and corruption; and the pursuit of special privileges, tax loopholes, or political power that elevates one doctrine above the common good. A belief that cannot coexist with others without seeking to dominate or diminish them is not faith; it is tyranny. - We Reject the Gnostic Escape.
We reject the belief that the body is a prison, that the world is inherently evil, and that our destiny lies in a disembodied, digital future among the stars. This is a profound nihilism disguised as progress. We will not abandon our world, and we will not abandon our bodies.
Our Call to Being
This manifesto is not merely a set of beliefs; it is a call to a different way of living. It is a call to answer the question: What would we become if we lived as though life were a fragile, finite, and precious gift?
- We will practice defiant hope. Hope is not passive optimism; it is an act of rebellion against despair. We defy the trajectory of the world by insisting on the possibility of a better one.
- We will cultivate connection. We will prioritize real, embodied presence with one another over mediated, virtual interaction. We will listen deeply and speak honestly.
- We will seek purpose, not just employment. We will honor craft, service, and any work that affirms life and dignity. We will support structures, like cooperatives and local businesses, that place human well-being above profit.
- We will live as mortals. We will not take tomorrow for granted. We will find beauty in the fragile, the fleeting, and the imperfect.
We choose the messy, complicated, and beautiful struggle of being human. We choose this world. We choose each other.
Amor Mundi.