Cognitive Capitalism. Every wave of significant (capitalist) mechanization follows the same pattern: either the extraction of knowledge from humans and its incorporation into the mechanical limb of capital (from "living" to "dead" labor), or the systematic devaluation and destruction, of human knowledge deemed incompatible with the "new world."

This process, which is far from abstract and means the systematic devaluation and prohibition of people who possess "outdated" knowledge, can be observed in the first, second, and third industrial revolutions by anyone interested. The revolutionary character of capitalist restructuring lies precisely in this: the undermining of previously existing human knowledge/relations each time, and the promotion of new, mechanically mediated ones. Of course (to avoid misunderstandings), the social and cognitive horizon where such changes occur is not the same. During the first industrial revolution, the horizon was narrowly focused on the organization of labor in specific sectors, as well as transportation (trains, steamships). In the second, it was broader... In the third, even more so... In the fourth, the horizon of extraction/destruction/mechanization is so expanded that it includes the entirety of daily life - and not just, for example, the robotics in industries, which in reality largely belongs to the third revolution.

In this way, capitalist "development" in each wave produces, creates, the mass ignorance it needs, and the polarization between the "experts" (knowers) and the vastly greater number of "laypeople" violently created each time. A simple, accessible example characteristic of the fourth industrial revolution is the use of GPS for daily travel. A machine with a screen, an algorithm, and the mapping of an area (the different aspects of this specific digital mechanization) require the user to increasingly input their destination (the starting point/location is already known to the machine...). From there on, the journey is mechanically guided with voice commands and visual representations.

It is not difficult for whoever wants to understand that in this way, not only is every empirical knowledge of (and relationship with) any place disappearing, but also any interest in such knowledge. Mechanically guided travel adheres to the simplicity/strictness of the "fastest, easiest" route between a beginning and an end, with complete indifference to anything in between, unless it is of advertising interest according to the user's consumer profile (that is, according to the personal data seized and processed by other algorithms). Getting "lost" in the city, something that has been celebrated by rebellious spirits in the past either as intention or as "accident," either disappears or results in a mechanical error. The same applies to randomness. These are social, empirical qualities of the "old world" - in the new algorithmic capitalist world of absolute precision, they have no place. They are also social knowledge considered useless from a capitalist perspective (in the broad sense): viewed merely as a waste of time.

This transformation is happening again, violently - and the hygienic terror campaign is its most celebratory manifestation so far. The "cognitive capital" of the fourth industrial revolution either finalizes the devaluation/mechanical alienation of social knowledge that already occurred during the third, or inaugurates an even more violent destruction of knowledge and senses regarding the body, "nature" and "naturalness," time, social relations, and much more.

Something interesting is happening from a working-class, competitive perspective. The "average type" of "good soldier in the war against the invisible enemy" is the one who believes the dominant demagogy, thinks they are "sufficiently informed" through this belief, refuses or can no longer thoroughly investigate institutional theorems, suffers from their contradictions but has nothing else to hold onto except the authority of system-embedded "experts" (i.e., specialized idiots). The "good soldiers," in the overwhelming majority, are not only deeply but also stubbornly, selfishly ignorant, while at the same time believing exactly the opposite about themselves: that they know...

From the opposite side, amid the fog of absurdity and reactionary conservatism, one encounters many who were forced to search - and they did! They read and reread, compared, discussed, arrived at documented conclusions against which the only thing left for the "new systematics" is what they inherited from the old: threats, whining, deletions, censorship. Although we do not mythologize this kind of self-formation (often it lacks the depth required for substantive critique), it is a fact: it is far more likely to find people with knowledge and solid arguments among those opposed to the hygienic terror campaign than among those defending it.

Thus, this is what is happening: "cognitive capitalism," the capitalism of "smart machines," "smart algorithms," "artificial intelligence," concentrates, capitalizes, and shapes fanatical supporters out of ignorants - and tries to neutralize questioners not merely as such, but (and this has strategic character) as unassimilated knowers!

At first glance, it seems contradictory: do the bosses of "cognitive" capitalism want people incapable of distinguishing even the most elementary developments? Exactly!!! The engineering of everything, the mechanical/digital mediation of all things, means the removal of even the most basic non-mechanical knowledge of daily life from humans. And the transformation of life (social and natural) into the operation of machines and subjugation to the technicians of capital.

The "poor in spirit" as masses with individual illusions will not be blessed in the afterlife. The bosses of the "great reset" advertise that "you will have no personal property and you will be happy" - they don't mean communism, but that everything will be rented from companies... With finer print, the contract of the capitalist future reads: "you will be an unskilled worker of daily life, a simple operator of smart devices, obedient, and you will be happy"...

Ziggy Stardust