Have you seen that Marvel movie where the marvel heroes create a robot supervillain? In an attempt to protect the world, some of these well-meaning heroes create a sentient robot, and, as all of these movies seem to go, everything seems to go wrong. This robot lusts for power and control and sees human life as an unpredictable and annoying plague that is all too easily eradicated from the Earth. The heroes rally together to ultimately defeat this villain in the end but not before they face a particularly frustrating problem. The robot is aware of the temporary nature of his body and thus uploads his consciousness to the cloud. From that position he bounces around through various android hosts to avoid capture or death. The heroes only defeat their opponent when they have destroyed every single one of the robot-bodies this consciousness created.
That problem got me thinking. The ability to deposit a bit of itself across multiple hosts is a bit like what a virus does. As we have learned all too well recently (no comment), viruses deposit themselves into our bodies, using them as machines to continue to propagate their kind. And like this robotic dictator, they become effectively immortal, omnipresent, and omniscient. In evolutionary terms, it is a winning model. It is almost impossible to completely eradicate its presence since it has become so commonplace.
Now what if we flipped the meaning? Instead of this being the story of the cancer of evil or sickness, what if the thing that was deposited throughout many hosts was good? What would happen then? What would happen to the world if each of us deposited a bit of goodness in every single person we interacted with throughout our short lifespans? We would become immortal, living in the memories of millions of people and impossible to erase. Now, what if that goodness we deposited, caused those people to be more prone to goodness. You see where I’m going with this. It is the recipe for massive good that can never be erased from the world.
Let’s leave the doomsday scenarios to the big screen and embrace the fact that the real world is full so much goodness. Let’s participate, let’s contribute, and let’s build together.