Life Before AI, Remembered, By James Reed

Here is my narrative tale inspired by the Zero Hedge article "We Are the Last Humans in World History Who Remember What Life Was Like Before AI"

https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/we-are-last-humans-world-history-who-remember-what-life-was-ai

telling a story about the last people who recall life before AI and the internet. My little tale explores their memories, contrasts them with a tech-saturated present, and argue that life was indeed better then.

The Last Rememberers

In a dusty attic of a crumbling Aussie farmhouse, three figures sat around a flickering wood fire: Eleanor, 85, with silver hair cascading like a forgotten river; Marcus, 87, his hands gnarled from decades of manual labor; and young Clara, 19, their granddaughter, born into a world where AI whispered in every ear. The oldies were the last who remembered—truly remembered—life before the internet and artificial intelligence swallowed humanity whole. The Zero Hedge piece had called them "the last humans in world history" to know that lost age, and here they were, clinging to it like a fading dream.

Eleanor began, her voice trembling with reverence. "I was a girl before AI took over, before screens owned us. We'd ride bikes down gravel roads, the wind tearing at our laughter—no GPS, no algorithms nudging us home. My father fixed tractors with his hands, not some AI drone. We'd sit on the porch, swapping stories, not scrolling feeds." Marcus nodded, his eyes distant. "I courted your grandma with letters—ink on paper, not texts. Took me a week to write one, and her smile when she got it? Worth more than any instant "like." Work was hard—hauling hay, mending fences—but it felt real. You owned your sweat."

Clara, her neural implant dimmed for the night, leaned in. "But wasn't it slow? Lonely? The AI says we're connected now, billions of voices, all at once." Eleanor chuckled, a sound both bitter and warm. "Connected? You're wired to shadows, not souls. Back then, we looked people in the eye, neighbours, not avatars. If you were lonely, you walked to a friend's house, not swiped for a bot's comfort. Slow? Sure. But it gave us time to think, to feel."

The Zero Hedge article had painted their era as a vanishing Eden: a time when kids played tag in yards, not VR arenas; when knowledge came from books or elders, not Google's infinite churn; when silence was a gift, not a glitch. Marcus picked up the thread. "I fished with my dad, no apps tracking the best spots. We'd guess, fail, laugh. Failure taught us. Now? AI hands you perfection, fish caught, crops planted, wars planned, all without you lifting a finger, at least as they tell us. But what's left of us when we don't struggle?"

Outside, the hum of drones patrolled the fields, planting seeds with surgical precision. Clara's world was efficient, sterile: AI governed everything, weather forecasts, meal plans, even her dreams, sculpted by algorithms. The article mourned this as "the death of humanity's spirit," and Eleanor agreed. "We grew our food—tomatoes that burst with summer, not lab slabs. Mistakes were ours, not some machine's to fix. And God, the stars—we saw them, not through a filter. You don't know what it's like to lie in grass, no notifications buzzing, just crickets and your own heartbeat."

Was it better? I say yes, and they'd argue it too. Life before AI and the internet, as the Zero Hedge piece evokes, was raw, human—messy but alive. Relationships demanded effort: a handwritten note carried weight a text never could. Work had meaning: Marcus's calluses told stories AI's seamless outputs erase. Creativity thrived in boredom—Eleanor's childhood sketches born from rainy days, not AI prompts. Social media posts echo this, lamenting how kids today "don't climb trees, just swipe"—a sentiment the article ties to lost agency. Back then, you shaped your world, not the other way around.

Clara frowned. "But the AI cures diseases, feeds billions. You had smallpox, famines." Marcus conceded, "True, medicine's sharper now, my hip's titanium, thanks to it. But we had resilience, not reliance. We fought sickness with grit, not just pills. Famines? Rare where I was, we grew enough, shared enough. Now, one AI crash, and your cities starve." Eleanor added, "And cures don't fix the soul. We had faith—church bells, not chatbots, held us together. You've got health, sure, but no heart."

The tale darkened as they spoke of the present. The article warned of AI's omnipotence, every thought tracked, every choice nudged. Clara's generation didn't remember privacy: her implant logged her attic visit, flagged as "nostalgic deviation." Tech critics rail against this, calling it "digital slavery," a far cry from Eleanor's unmonitored youth. Marcus sighed, "We argued face-to-face, loud, messy, free. Your debates? AI moderates them, picks winners before you start. Better? No. We lived; you're managed."

As the fire dimmed, Clara touched an old photo, Eleanor and Marcus, young, grinning in a pre-digital dusk. "I want that," she whispered. They smiled, but the weight of loss hung heavy. Life before was better, not flawless, hardship stung, ignorance cost, but it was theirs, unscripted, human. The Zero Hedge lament rang true: they were the last to know it, and Clara, tethered to AI's hum, could only imagine. Outside, the drones whirred on, oblivious to the attic's fading fire light.

https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/we-are-last-humans-world-history-who-remember-what-life-was-ai

"Oliver Anthony, a former factory worker who emerged from the woods of Virginia, gained national attention in the late summer of 2023 with his song "Rich Men North of Richmond." The song became the No. 1 song on iTunes for weeks, resonating as an anthem for over 80 million Americans who have been smeared, ignored, mocked, slandered, and robbed by the Deep State that President Trump and Elon Musk's DOGE are firing in mass. Now, Anthony has elevated his message, warning about the dangers of the technological society.

On Tuesday, Anthony spoke at the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship event in London. The big question is: Why was this internet-famous singer invited to speak at a conference with world leaders? And how do his credentials compare to those of others in the room?

Maybe ARC's founder, Jordan Peterson, a Canadian author and former psychology professor, is behind the invite.

Besides that... Anthony warned:

And in my unprofessional opinion neuroplasticity has made us increasingly digitally proficient but at a cost of being digitally dependent, and if being hired on as a London cab driver can change your brain on an MRI scan and if life experiences like PSD can alter the DNA and sperm what irreversible alterations will 30,000 hours of staring into algorithmically fed into a state of hypnosis due to the human mind or to their offspring?

In this short breath of time, we live in a state of existence that quite possibly no one else in world history has. We have both access to instant global connectivity, infinite information, and consumer-level access to artificial intelligence, but we are the last few humans in world history who remember what life was like before it. We are the last living people in history to have experienced life before the digital age.

I fear that it may become nearly impossible for younger generations to even differentiate the digital world from the real one before the end of my lifetime. There is nothing inherently wrong with technology. There is nothing wrong with instant connection, and there is nothing intrinsically bad about access to abundant information, but what is bad is the lack of control and agency that we have over these systems and without realizing it we are being programmed and our culture is becoming commodified therefore, the more time we spend on these digital information systems the more we revert to the mean of one of a fixed set of broad internet cohorts - in other words the more time we spend online the more commoditized our culture, the more tribal our psychology, and the more vulnerable we become.

...

I'm just here to remind you that we don't need our false Idols. We should no longer rely on politicians who bow down to money to manage our city or our states. We need to find the real leaders everywhere and empower them. Western North Carolina was proof to me that there is an army of good people left in this world who want to do good things. We just have to give them places to gather and give them the ability to act, and so I close with this do not fret because of those who are evil or be envious of those who do wrong for like the grass, they will soon wither like green plants they will soon die away trust in the Lord and do good dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture take. Delight in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. So I'll see you on April the 5th in Spruce Pine, North Carolina, for the first official gathering.

It is now my life's mission to revive Rural America one town at a time. It's called the Rural Revival Project, so thank you for listening."

Grammar aside, his heart is in the right place!