Childhood's End of Evangelion

I’m what’s called a “late adopter” of technology. I don’t chase after the hottest tech, or jump into the latest online trends. I wait until something’s been trialed and tested by Average Joe before I’m willing to spend any money or time on it.

As a teenager I was quite resistant to text messaging, it seemed pointless to me, and somehow more self-centered than just making a call. Of course, when I finally did cave in and start communicating that way, I found that I much preferred it and began to dislike regular calls (we’re going full Millenial here folks).

I also refused to use Facebook at first, until a friend of mine forced me into it by making an account in my name. I didn’t spend any time browsing Youtube until a few years ago. I still don’t understand Twitter (and I don’t want to, though it would behoove me to do so as a writer).

I am still unnerved by the way the internet has consumed so much of our lives. As one who resisted it for a long time, I found myself here all the same, with an infinite-scroll addiction and phantom phone syndrome.

But we’re on the bleeding edge of The Future, and there are much scarier things than smartphones on the way. Sci-fi ain’t so fi anymore, what with bio-engineered cats, mouse-brained cyborgs, the mind-meld machine, AI deep-learning algorithms that even their creators can’t decipher.

All of it feels like it’s building to some inconceivable new reality, that at some point the final switch will flip and we’ll suddenly all be absorbed into a digital hive mind. Indeed many tech-heads believe in the Singularity, a point at which humans and machines will become one and the same.

This prospect used to scare me, I suppose it still does when put in such terms, but as our present world sort of, well, teeters on the verge of self-annihilation, I have ceased to view technology as an enemy, and now see it as more or less the only way out of this mess we’ve made.

Based on the way the world’s political institutions have been behaving, it’s clear that collectively—and for the most part individually—humanity is in over its head. AI might be the one thing that can bail us out.

I am of the opinion that the Singularity has probably already happened, and it will be future historians who identify the specific moment—most likely in the early 2010s—when people became one with their machines. I mean, what would happen to you personally if the internet was suddenly and irreversibly destroyed? What would happen to our civilization?

When Mother Nature lashed out at us with the Rona, computers, the internet, and smart phones became the critical things allowing me to keep my job, and to do it from remote locations far removed from Virus City. More than that, ever since I moved to South America the internet has been the only way for me to communicate with friends and family, which has been ever more important since travel has become so risky.

Last year technology saved me personally, and who knows how many millions of others. It has the potential to save the world, considering the advancements in renewable energy, plus GMO crops and hydroponic farms. That’s not to mention the incredibly short time it took the medical community to develop multiple vaccines for covid. And I mean, come on, we have motherfuckin’ mechas now!

I feel that our present time—the last 150 years or so—is the sudden tipping point of a chemical reaction, a period of rapid, dramatic change… and we’re right in the middle of it now. By no means have we arrived at the next homeostasis, the next stable, sustainable way of life, and nature can’t balance itself out until we do.

But I believe that we will make it there, with the help of computers, AI, robotics, all that. The trick will be using it correctly, because technology itself is neither good nor evil, that choice is made by the people who use it. It’s people we need to worry about, not technology… The Iron Giant was right.

But the Iron Giant portrayed technology as a separate, literally alien entity, rather than an appendage of humankind itself. If we want to talk about the Singularity we gotta get weirder, and to go there I want to talk about a book and a totally unrelated movie, two very different stories that mirror each other in a surprising and beautiful way.

MAJOR SPOILERS FOR CHILDHOOD’S END and END OF EVANGELION AHEAD

Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke is a short science-fiction novel from the 1950s. At the time when I read it, I was not so interested in sci-fi, but the concepts and imagery really stuck with me, and I still think about it today. (Years later I learned that when it was originally published it made a huge impact on one of my favorite authors and lifestyle pioneers, Ken Kesey.)

Without getting into the whole plot, the story builds up to the moment when human evolution reaches a tipping point that causes us to merge with the Overmind, an ancient inter-galactic being that is something like a god. It happens as an unstoppable chemical reaction, isn’t necessarily good nor bad, but is simply a new phase of nature.

This Overmind concept has percolated in my brain for years, but I’ve rarely seen it come up in other media. When we do see hive minds they are usually evil, a force for us individualized humans to destroy—or in the case of Rick and Morty, a neutral force with which humans can coexist, so long as it leaves Earth alone.

It’s not often we see the dissolution of human individuality portrayed as something beautiful or desirable, but in Childhood’s End we do. And though it is shown to be terrifying, it is also the brightest possible future for our species.

(I should note that the Overmind is not brought on by technology, simply by evolution, but stick with me, I’m going somewhere with this.)

Years after reading this book, when I had all but forgotten about it, I watched a movie that had nothing at all to do with Childhood’s End, but which strongly evoked the Overmind, which ended up changing my whole attitude towards the Singularity.

The movie is called The End of Evangelion, the (original) conclusion to the animated series Neon Genesis Evangelion.

This movie had a big impact on me, primarily because I have an obsessive-nostalgia relationship with the original series—that’s a topic for another time, but suffice it to say I was significantly too young for Evangelion when I first saw it, which allowed it to burrow deep in my psyche.

Anyway, this movie has been the topic of many heated debates for many reasons. Even ignoring the actual subject matter of the story, the production of the movie was mired in a saga of fan-creator feedback loops that make it hard to separate text from sub-text from meta-subtext… but don’t worry, I’m not here to get into all of that, nor even to get into philosophical implications of the story. I just want to talk about that sequence… you know… this one:

If you ask me, there is no need to make a Childhood’s End movie*, because the above clip is the perfect visualization for it—not accurate to the text of the novel, but to the spirit of the Overmind.

My favorite part of this sequence, aside from the face-melting psychedelia, is the way the different characters react to having their egos dissolved. Some of them are terrified, others ready and eager, and others simply calm and accepting. It’s a great metaphor for death, but also for the Singularity. If it hasn’t already happened, and if we’re aware of it when it comes, I imagine the experience will feel something like what we see in Evangelion.

And unlike Childhood’s End, the End of Evangelion is brought on by technology. In the reality of the story, this event is something that was destined to happen eventually (depending on the interactions of certain gods/aliens) but humans used technology to bring it upon themselves at their own behest.

As with the Overmind, this event is neither good nor bad, it simply is. Whether we respond to it with fear or with love, the result will be the same. Once the chemical reaction begins, there is nothing we can do to stop it, and no reason that we should stop it either.

Something clicked for me, when I connected the concept of the Overmind to the human responses visualized by Evangelion. It allowed me to see the Singularity as a force of nature rather than a human mistake, something neither benevolent nor evil, something we must learn accept one way or another.

I should point out that these two stories have very different conclusions. Childhood’s End is just that, an end. Whereas Evangelion has a sort of twist and then a double-twist that has been a topic of incessant debate ever since it came out, and which leads to a half reboot/half continuation movie series for which we are still awaiting the final installment.

Despite the differences, I can’t help but see these two stories as parallel representations of a deep human fear, perhaps a prophetic fear, an anxiety in our shared subconscious. And through these stories, and others like them, I believe we can purge that fear and meet our future with open arms.

Alright I’m done! Whew! That was a hard one to write. Do you believe in the Singularity? What is your interpretation of Shinji’s choice in Evangelion? Or Asuka’s final comment?

Thanks for reading! Peace,

Gibbly

*Apparently there was a Childhood’s End miniseries in 2015, I’ve never seen it, might check it out sometime