The Golem

The Golem

Many of you are familiar with the medieval Yiddish tales of the golem--a creature made of clay, and of magic. In some ways, golem tales are predecessors of the Frankenstein story, and a reminder that what we create may soon not take our orders. Worth reading in full is

"The Golem Will Turn"

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The Golem will turn.
There was a time when we, the people, needed big things done for our country. We needed something to keep us safe, to do our heavy lifting, and to manage the things we hadn't time to manage.

We created for ourselves a Government.
We created for ourselves a Golem.

A Golem with more power than any one of us, to do our bidding, and work when we couldn't work, and protect us as we slept.

For a time, it was good.

The Golem mindlessly followed our orders. We voted, and it counted our votes the way we wanted it to, and executed the orders by the process we agreed upon. It kept us safe, and made decisions based solely on our wills and our votes.
It was our most trusted, most loyal servant.

As time wore on, the times got harder. We asked more of our Golem than it could deliver. It needed to become larger to protect us from bigger threats. It needed a longer reach to affect the spread of the country. It needed more faculties to process the requests of the increasing number of masters it had.

It needed more clay.

The Golem helped make our country a superpower. A strength in the world unlike any other. But with this strength, came more responsibilities. The Golem had to be smarter than ever. It needed to weigh the complex requests and requirements of a world with the will of its masters.

It needed more clay.

Tragedy, as a group strikes at our very hearts. Worse, it targets us from within our own ranks. There have been criminals within our borders since the country began, but this was different. It was something we had never faced. Once again, we asked that the Golem be made larger, be given more reach, and granted more power to process information. But for the first time, we asked the Golem to turn its gaze upon us, its masters.

It needed more clay.

Yes, about $800 billion worth.