THE SHITHOUSE AND THE SINGULARITY: A Manifesto Against the Banality of Violence

 

As we witness the most powerful naval fleet in history move toward the entry onto the Persian Gulf to potentially obliterate Iran, we are faced with a chilling "banality of violence." While millions face destruction and Palestine endures unprecedented deprivation, our media remains obsessed with the faulty toilets on the USS Gerald R. Ford. We have become a population that finds more interest in the plumbing of the aggressor than the humanity of the victim

What we describe as civilization has become a thin veneer for a global decline into immorality. For centuries, we have mistaken the "balance of power" for peace, allowing mightier nations to use their strength to subjugate the weak for resources and markets. This systemic decay has reached a horrific zenith: today, the most powerful naval force in history—the U.S. Gerald R. Ford strike group—moves with clinical precision to potentially obliterate another nation. Yet, the world's media is not discussing the morality of mass murder. Instead, it is obsessed with the faulty toilets on the warship.

This is the banality of violence: the conversion of a machine of "obliteration" into a viral joke about a "shithouse." While we laugh at the clogged pipes of an $13 billion armada, we remain silent about the millions of lives it is poised to extinguish. We have become so inured to the deprivation in Palestine and the impending "first sin" of killing that we find more interest in the plumbing of the aggressor than the humanity of the victim.

The Epstein papers further reveal the depth of this rot, showing how a "moral elite"—including figures like Noam Chomsky and Deepak Chopra—can be captured and compromised by those with no restraints on their depravity. We are forced to ask: Are we a lost species?

The answer is no, but the way forward requires a radical shift in how we define our existence. In his latest work, Irreducible (2024), Federico Faggin provides the scientific key to our survival. He argues that we are not biological machines, but quantum beings whose consciousness is irreducible and inextricably connected via a universal field. To Faggin, any act of violence is an act against the self because it ignores the fundamental quantum entanglement of all life—man, beast, and trees.

This scientific singularity provides the modern foundation for Mahatma Gandhi’s Satyagraha (Truth-Force), Ahimsa (Non-violence) and Swaraj. Gandhi understood that if humanity is truly singular, then violence is an illogical attempt to solve a problem by attacking one's own body. Satyagraha (Truth-Force) explains that if you use violence to defeat an oppressor, you just become a new kind of oppressor. Truth (satya), is the weapon to defeat the oppressor. During the 1930 Salt March, he didn't use weapons; he used the truth that the British salt tax was an immoral "plunder" of a basic human right.

Ahimsa (non-violence), Gandhi taught, is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. If we are all part of a singular humanity, then killing is a "suicidal act" that destroys the soul of the killer as much as the body of the victim.

Self-Rule (Swaraj): Gandhi’s ultimate goal was "Swaraj," which means self-governance. He argued that if you cannot control your own impulses toward greed and violence, you will always be a slave to an empire or an oligarch. Self-governance was what was absent in those named in the Epstein papers.

These very human principles show that we are not so depraved as a species as to not understand where we failed, nor so lost as to be without a map. By replacing the "balance of power" with a balance of consciousness, we reclaim our humanity from the oligarchs. We are the universe’s power; our evolution lies in the willingness to finally recognize that there is no "other."

In Malaysia as we are in the process of reviewing the trajectories of education, those involved in the process may want to consider adding a new subject on humanity based on the above at all levels of education.