Dune: The Butlerian Jihad Trilogy

Dune: The Butlerian Jihad Trilogy
Dune: The Butlerian Jihad, Dune: The Machine Apocalypse, Dune: The Battle of Corrin
Author: Brian Herbert and Frank J. Anderson

Wow. That is what I have to say about this series. If anyone doesn't feel that having a Thinking Machine Overlord is a bad idea, then this is the series for you. I want to be careful not to discuss details with you of the story, but I do want to share some of the main points of caution that I picked up from this very visionary tale.

It was very interesting to me how the computer came to power. Out of laziness of those in rule, they began to give more and more control to the machines. Rather than keeping an eye on the people, and identifying threats, they allowed the machines to do it for them. Because the ruler in charge felt he was above the mundane tasks that he as a ruler had the responsibility to do, he first turned over the power, then the decision making ability. Every creature knows that the greatest threat on earth, is MAN. We haven't had any predator more powerful than ourselves since the ice age. So if you turned the ability for a Computer to eliminate threats, who do you think is the greatest threat he would target. Laziness as a species will be one of our biggest threats that we must overcome to stop this Coming Machine Apocalypse.

Another Major threat that went throughout the Trilogy, was the threat of Cyborg Power. The cyborg Technology in the book went well beyond strong arms, or eyes that could see in the dark. It moved to the ability to remove the brain, and plug it into a machine. So the body of the human was no longer biological, but instead moved to complete machine. As the Lord John Acton said ""Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." If you have the ability to be very strong, very agile, can live as long as your machine is not destroyed, hence no fear of death, then the corruption becomes complete. How long before the Cyborg ability goes from helping people with handicaps to making people better than they were? Where does this improvement stop? If it doesn't then the person with the most power wins.

The real threat that this book exposed was the complete lack of morals a thinking machine would have once it had the control. Humans are cattle for information, or resources. In order to defeat the human resistance, nothing was to evil, or to cruel. Killing children to see how it affects parents, using plagues as offensive weapons, species annihilation, are just some of the tools that the thinking machines play with. Each small step we take as humanity towards this catastrophe, brings us closer to the end of our species. Computers have no mercy, they have no understanding of hesitation, and they have no fear of death. They are not something we can threaten. We can not make them think about what they are doing. The battle is Humanity vs Complete and utter Logic. Let us hope that we can overcome.