Periphetes was a murderous robber demigod who stalked the road between Athens and Troezen, attacking travelers with a club made of bronze. I came across this ancient Greek story looking for a historical characterization of an event I deduced probably happened at some point-- someone having discovered the ability to melt rocks and extract metal began redicuously terrorizing his neighbors as some sort of wizard, but was really just a lunatic waving about a metal wand. What I found in the literary expression of Periphetes has a lot more to do with open-source technology.
Network society is almost 60 years old. Over the next 50 years, we’ll see developments that entangle continents and cultures even more, finally establishing the first species-based culture since the etiological events of Babel. In the next 500 years, I predict we will be raising children on the moon, and in a thousand years, I believe socioeconomic divisions will be completely destroyed. But for now, here we are. War is still very real and enemies wave technological accomplishments at one another like early bronze age loons waving bronze sticks, harder than any stone or wood, but infinately limited in their application and artistic expression compared to what is coming. Soon the age would bring sword, shield and spear; helmet and plow and hook.
Periphetes had a bronze club, not just a stick. Such a weapon would have been extremely dangerous to anyone facing him, even with a sword. The weight and density of the metal would have crushed the mightiest of warriors but Periphetes only faced one traveling hero. His favorite prey was the lonely traveler.
Periphetes probably was also a large being-- a demigod-- who'd probably stolen the bronze and tin or gold necessary to obtain his famed weapon. Through his depraved nature he had more resources than he needed to express his thoughts in the medium. He did not fashion a great sword, axe or trident built a crude tool of brute force. This weapon represents both the power of access to resources (the tin and copper make bronze) and technology (a furnace hot enough to combine them), and overall a lack of enthusiasm for the crafting of tools. What he was enthusiastic about was typical of any demigod-- profit and power.
Periphetes was eventually killed and relieved of his club by Theseus the famed future king of Athens, but until then, people could not move freely between Athens, a name refering to Athena, goddess of wisdom and Troezen a name we suspect refers to sustained (but otherwise plain) life. The myth sees Theseus as a messianic figure, removing obstacles between life and wisdom one-by-one, freeing the people of Greece to live out the legacy we know them for today. Many of his labors, which include defeating the man-eating half bull, half human Minotaur were not done with brute force, but by wit and cunning.
Theseus tricked Periphetes into handing over his club by taunting him, "It's just a piece of shiny wood," he mocked. "Check it out for yourself," said Periphetes and handed it over. Theseus took the weapon and tested it on Periphetes head. Modern society is in a similar situation. Artificial intelligence threatens to destroy job markets while also increasing costs to resources like power and clean water. All the while, we are uncertain of its ultimate value. The Bronze Club of tech oligarchs around the world are glutting billions of dollars worth of investments clearly needed elsewhere in the economy.
The bright side is, like Periphetes they have offered us the handle of this new technology. AI companies are competing with releases of free, public versions of their large language model and machine learning softwares. While LLMs are useful as a search engines, content writers, editors and more. With a little wit and cunning the average person can use what seems to be a wooden pencil and use it a tool to solve some of the biggest issues of our age. Imagine creating an open-source program with a free code generator that empowers billions of common users in ways the Bronze Club refuses to. Richard Stallman is a leader in open-source development who maintains that until the common person knows how to operate a computer without their standard Mac or Windows operating system we will never be free. We will always be terrorized by the limitations on personal freedom caused by loons with metal sticks, until we gather the courage and wit to take hold of it ourselves
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