009 From Patient Zero to the Big Sick

The nekomemetic viral hypothesis seemed to be consistent with human history. The virus existed from the earliest times, even though contagion was certainly limited back then, both because of the limited population and the primitiveness of metatechnics. So although it indirectly procured only infinitesimal irritations to the environment, the way it worked was the same as when it would later reach an extreme. Plus, nekomemetic contamination also explained the correlation between the expanding infection of the biosphere and the subsequent transformations of the techno-political machinery of the human species.

It was impossible to find a well-defined first contagion because the origins of the nekomemetic disease seemed too distant and blurred with those of the species. The duration on Earth of the genus Homo (about 2 million years) seemed minuscule compared to the billions of years that our host planet had existed. Moreover, with the exception of the last ten thousand years, Homo erectus, initially, and (so-called) sapiens later, had led a nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle, without the Earth's ecosystem being disrupted more than by any other species.A brief civilization of a hundred centuries followed, of which we only really know about a quarter. So we don't know, and perhaps it is not even very important to know, how the process that triggered the present situation began, but perhaps the zero nekomemetic contagion should sought among the homines erecti who succeeded in mastering fire about 1.5 million years ago. Was it any of them who, more or less consciously, got out of hand with this new power, causing the first injury by human hand to the surrounding environment?

But neither the control of fire, nor the material or immaterial tools such as pre-languages and other modes of communication – and thus metatechnics in general – can be indicated with absolute certainty as the causes or origins of the nekomemetic disease. Especially in the areas of influence of certain religions, there were those who used the nekomemetic disease as the revelation of an original sin, and took advantage of it to launch yet another indiscriminate crusade against technics. We should instead ask whether the extraordinary persistence of the disease does not come from the interaction between metatechnics, the behaviors induced by it, and other vital parameters, such as, for example, territoriality. It is still a mystery to me how all this then developed into the modes of market centrality, competition and property, which characterized the final phase of our civilization. But even without the scientific evidence of the time-machine, these latter obsessions certainly contributed decisively to creating the conditions for mass contamination.

More extensive research confirmed our first impression: nekomemetic disease was contagious and widespread, but individual infectious loads and virulence mattered enormously compared to other common diseases. Probably flexibility and adaptability were closely related to the immateriality of the disease.

We have already seen how its virulence in an infected human manifested in a transformation into an active pathogen of the biosphere septicemia. Infectivity, on the other hand, was the ability to spread it through contagious memes. In contrast to many other illnesses, there were no proportional links between virulence and infectivity, but in the case of the Big Sick, which constituted the backbone of the capitalist elites, often both skyrocketed. The Big Sick acted not only individually as terrible pathogens of septicemia, but also had a unique faculty for spreading the disease. The ability of a sick person to remotely contaminate vast environments like global biohypermedia had never been observed in any other material infectious disease, and this had terrible consequences for the health status of the biosphere. The Big Sicks were special pathogens capable of creating localized or even global foci of infection. The worst cases, like the technobros and masters of global platforms, had spreading power so strong they could transmit infected memes to entire multitudes. Sometimes the tenfold viral charge of the Big Sick could act locally in a specific territory on Earth. Although this possibility had existed since the beginning of metatechnics, this became gradually more sensitive and acute in the phases managed by capitalism. We were born in an era in which we could observe the construction of the large and destructive industrial complexes, and at the same time the extractive obsession that seemed to have taken hold of the ruling class of that era. There was no given relationship between the location of the human nekomemetic pandemic and that of the biosphere's septicemia. We need only think, for example, of the severity of this infection in many southern territories colonized by the Big Sick of the North.

A brief digression to clarify the use of the terms North, South or West in the following narrative: In general, I have used the term "North" to refer to the wealthier and "developed" countries and "South" for the poorer regions, often subject to colonization and racial discrimination. The use of the term "West" adds a political connotation with reference to the post/colonial power of the Bias Empire and Europe to "North". I admit that these definitions are imprecise. For example: the industrialized North included Australia, while Japan or South Korea were an integrated part of the geopolitical West.

Let us now return to the characteristics of the disease as a function of the individual: the viral load often depended on the peculiarities of the sufferer, the power they held in society, their skills, family, and many other variables... Only in the Neolib Gov did the power of superinfectivity of a very small part of the human population begin to become evident, and probably influenced the movements of that era. Those who were part of the ruling core of the Ecofin AltaSphere, including of course the techno-tycoons, possessed infectious power because of the means at their disposal. Later, the loss of control over material and immaterial territories would limit their sphere of action. Those born in these spheres were automatically exposed to the strong nekomemetic charges that spread from there. They were intangible pendants of genetic inheritance, but even more easily manipulated than the latter had become. There was thus a strong likelihood of remaining infected and propagating it throughout their lifespan.

As I mentioned earlier with respect to the characteristics of the disease, the Big Sick had no physical symptoms like fever, pain, rash, or anything else. The only symptom, which was not only perceptible but also difficult to mimic, was their behavior toward their surroundings, including other humans, nonhumans, and inorganic components. For the reasons I have explained, the Big Sick were more relevant agents of contagion to the biosphere. However, even when they could no longer hide it, despite their declarations and major summits, they showed only verbal concern about the obvious worsening of the situation. They were convinced that they could rely on all the technological means at their disposal to protect themselves from the consequences of an ecological collapse. Ultimately they would leave, abandoning the remaining Earthlings, human and non-human, to their fate.

However, the storm of viral nekomemas invested the new generations of homo (self-styled) sapiens, who were infected at an early age.

The septicaemia of the biosphere was now manifesting itself in larger and larger areas with a myriad of negative phenomena that I have already mentioned, including rising temperatures and sea levels, etc., and it then had strong repercussions on food production and, by now almost everywhere, even on the availability of drinking water, which had been largely privatized. The multitudes of dominated were obviously suffering the most severe consequences. So it was in the huge concentrations of poverty in the territories and great metropolises all over the world and particularly in the great postcolonial South where the known contagions were compounded by the intangible and insidious nekomemetic virus. All this increased tenfold the migratory flows to escape the advancing septicaemia in the most affected areas within just a few decades.

For these reasons and many more, the spread of contamination was high and steadily increasing. But even with the population decline and, later, collapse, the contamination did not decrease in percentage. The Ecofin AltaSphere and the Post/ates began to abandon certain territories and areas that were difficult to manage, which became unattractive economically and geostrategically. At the same time, they began to create bigger and bigger areas protected by high physical and/or technological walls, following the example of the techno-tycoons who had prepared the terrain in previous years by acquiring habitable and cultivable land in remote, peripheral and partially preserved places, from Africa to New Zealand. This gives us a better understanding of how such a disease was now on the threshold of a pandemic, spreading septicemia and threatening to destroy much of Earth's web of life. However, the biosphere, which had faced many challenges throughout its history, would survive. After all, it had already withstood several mass extinctions. In previous cases, the cause was abiotic in nature, such as dynamic planetary events or meteorite impacts. Now, for the first time, it was life itself, developed on Earth, that was generating a new extinction event. On one hand, it seemed that this infection caused by humans was something transient, since the pathogen was eliminating itself. However, on the other hand, we were facing a far-reaching phenomenon, generated by a biotic factor of human origin. A species included in the biosphere was attacking vital networks, making the nekomemetic virus a kind of autoimmune disease.