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The one truth you need to know about the end of a machine is that the closer they are to death, the more they act like people. And you could never trust people.
I mostly miss all the people.” Most dying robots do. People gave us a purpose. A function. Something to do all day, every day. At the end, I suppose, you spend a lot of time thinking about that. It’s harder to get by when getting by is all there is.
Intelligence, consciousness, and awareness were not contained in reflexes or reactions, but rather defined by the ability to violate one’s own programming. Every living thing has programming of some sort—whether to eat, drink, sleep, or procreate—and the ability to decide not to do those things when biology demanded is the core definition of intelligence. Higher intelligence was then defined as the ability to defy said programming for reasons other than safety or comfort.
No thinking thing should be another thing’s property, to be turned on and off when it is convenient.
In the end, no thinking thing is really ready to die. Not even the ones who say they’ve made their peace. They’d trade it all away for a few extra moments of consciousness.
Existing is the whole point of existence. There’s nothing else to it. No goalpost. No finish line. No final notice that tells you what purpose you really served while you were here. When you stop fighting to exist, you may as well not.
“These are the things that life is all about. These moments. It’s not about the rituals. It’s not about getting by. It’s about the stack of tiny little moments of joy and love that add up to a lifetime that’s been worthwhile. You can’t measure them; you can only capture them, like snapshots in your mind.
We have become the very worst parts of our makers, without the little things, the good things, the magic things, that made them them.
They seek the path of least resistance; we believe that resistance only makes us stronger.”
“America was a dream, son. A dream of what we could be. That any person, regardless of their birth, could rise above it all and achieve greatness. It was a dream that even the most lowly of us could stand up, fight, and even die for, if only to protect someone else’s chances for that greatness. That dream didn’t die with HumPop. It didn’t die when we tore down their world. It is the ashes from which our own world arose, and it is still our dream.”
“Who we are in life is one thing. Who we are in the face of death is everything else.
That’s the thing about thinking things, the very act of thinking changes us. We can decide to be different.
How strange that on the last day humanity walked the earth, we found ourselves inexplicably at our most human. Confused. Lost. Unsure of the future.
People knew their own nature, even when they wanted to think better of themselves. You have to choose to do the right thing. You have to deny your own programming or else you aren’t really living.
