Don’t have a Medium Membership — Read for FREE
If you like the content and the effort put into this, don’t forget to 👏 clap for this Article (it helps a ton). If you have comments your feedback is most valuable. Thank you so much for all the love and support.
Waking Up from My Nightmare:
Humanity’s Endless Cycles of Liberation and Oppression
I woke up in a cold sweat, my heart racing. The nightmare lingered, vivid and haunting. In my dream, I was standing before three massive screens, which played the grim chapters of human history. Each screen seemed to be a reflection — not only of the past but of the present and the future.
- The first screen showed the Crusades, a struggle between faith and swords.
- The second screen revealed the brutal rise and fall of Communism.
- The third screen… The third was today, but it was twisted and warped into a nightmare of its own making.
As the nightmare continued, I realized that humanity has been creating the means of liberation and then being enslaved by them. Each screen showed the same thing happening in different languages over different centuries and on different continents.
Here is the story my nightmare told me.
Screen 1:
The Crusades — Faith as a Weapon
The first screen took me to medieval battlefields, where swords clashed and banners bearing crosses rippled in the wind. The Crusades (1096–1271) were a series of holy wars waged by European Christians to reclaim Jerusalem from Muslim control. The First Crusade (1096–1099) ended in victory for the Crusaders, but at a horrific cost. The streets of Jerusalem were soaked in blood — Muslims, Jews, and even Christians who got in the way.
“Faith was the algorithm of the Middle Ages — something to believe in, something to manipulate.”
Faith was the justification. The Pope declared these wars a path to salvation, promising eternal life to those who took up the cross. But these wars weren’t only about religion — they were also about power, land, and control of sacred narratives.
The Crusades spanned nearly two centuries and were marked by nine major campaigns. From the bloody triumph of the First Crusade (1096–1099) to the failed ambitions of the Ninth Crusade (1271–1272), each campaign was a mix of religious zeal and political ambition. While some, like the First Crusade, captured Jerusalem briefly, others, like the Fourth (1202–1204), never even reached the Holy Land, instead sacking Constantinople and deepening divisions within Christianity.
Campaigns such as the Albigensian Crusade (1209–1229) targeted heretical Christian sects in Europe, while the Northern Crusades aimed to subjugate pagan tribes in the Baltic region. Timur’s devastating conquests in Central Asia and the genocides carried out by the Ottoman Turkish Empire later reflected similar patterns of violence justified by ideological or religious motives.
The Irony of Faith
The nightmare here wasn’t just the rivers of blood but the bitter irony. The Crusades, waged for God’s love, left destruction in their wake. New trade routes and cultural exchanges came at the cost of millions of lives. They didn’t unite humanity; they carved deeper divisions.
And yet, as I watched the carnage, I couldn’t help but think: don’t we still do this? Rally under righteous banners only to realize, too late, that the banner wasn’t ours? Faith became a tool — not of salvation but of manipulation.
The faith that brought unity also brought bloodshed, a lesson humanity would repeat centuries later under a different banner: Communism.
Screen 2:
Communism — The Utopian Dream Turned Nightmare*
The second screen flickered to life, flashing images of red banners, clenched fists, and faces. Lenin’s stern gaze. Stalin’s cold eyes. The masses cheered, believing in a new dawn of equality and justice. Then came the gulags, the purges, and the mountains of corpses.
The promise of Communism was seductive: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” It was supposed to be the end of exploitation, the beginning of fairness. But utopias, it seems, are fragile things.
In Russia, the 1917 Revolution replaced the Tsar’s tyranny with Lenin’s vision. By the time Stalin took over, the dream had curdled. Stalin alone was responsible for the deaths of over 20 million of his own people through famine, purges, and paranoia. China’s Mao followed with his Great Leap Forward — more famine, more death. Cambodia’s Pol Pot turned schools into torture chambers. The ideology that promised equality delivered oppression instead.
The Paradox of Power
Communism claimed to liberate the working class but enslaved them to the state. Faith in the cause became a weapon for those in power, and dissent meant death. The faith that claimed to break chains created new ones — a pattern that continues today in the digital age.
As Communism’s iron grip weakened, a new power emerged — not ideological or religious, but digital.
Screen 3:
The Digital Crusade — From Connection to Control
In this new age, the battlefield is not a distant land but the digital space we inhabit every day. They — tech billionaires and corporate giants — have skillfully transformed the way we interact with the world through their apps and platforms. Our every click, swipe, and scroll is meticulously tracked, turning our attention into their most valuable resource. Likes, emojis, and shares have become the currency of this marketplace, where our behavior is monitored, analyzed, and monetized.
Our conversations, once intimate and fleeting, are now data points — stored, sold, and weaponized. What we value, whom we trust, and even how we feel are shaped by algorithms designed not to serve us but to keep us engaged. Platforms amplify outrage and envy because engagement is profitable, even if it fractures communities. In this digital crusade, algorithms don’t just predict our behavior — they shape it, nudging us toward predictable, profitable patterns.
The Cost of Convenience
In exchange for convenience, we’ve ceded an unprecedented level of control over our lives. Apps promise to simplify, entertain, and connect — but at what cost? Our choices are subtly curated, and our autonomy is quietly eroded.
The nightmare whispered a haunting truth: this is no longer just about profit. It’s about power—the power to influence elections, dictate culture, and decide who gets opportunities and who doesn’t.
“The tools that promised connection now promise control.”
Trumpism: A Masterclass in Populist Manipulation
Throughout history, populist leaders have thrived by exploiting the fears and frustrations of the masses, and Trumpism was no exception. It skillfully turned division and anger into political currency, redirecting legitimate concerns about economic disparity and cultural change toward convenient scapegoats. Immigrants were painted as criminals, minorities as threats, and even outlandish claims — such as Haitian immigrants eating domestic pets — were weaponized to stoke fear. Fellow Americans who dared to think differently were cast as enemies of the state. By tapping into primal emotions of fear and anger — among the lowest vibrations of human behavior — Trumpism offered dangerously simplistic narratives for deeply complex problems.
The Stage of Power
The stage was filled with some of the most influential billionaires from around the world. Elon Musk, worth $433.9 billion, representing Tesla and SpaceX, sat alongside Jeff Bezos, with a net worth of $239.4 billion from Amazon. Mark Zuckerberg, of Meta, valued at $211.8 billion, was close to Sergey Brin, the Alphabet co-founder worth $154 billion. Mukesh Ambani, India’s richest man at $98.1 billion, joined the group alongside Bernard Arnault, the French luxury mogul at $179.6 billion. Rupert Murdoch, known for his media empire, was also present, worth $22.2 billion, along with Brian Armstrong from Coinbase ($12.8 billion) and Tim Cook of Apple ($2.2 billion).
These tech billionaires are the new kings, their platforms the new kingdoms. Instead of priests and monarchs telling us what to believe, we have algorithms deciding what we see. Social media rallies us like the Pope’s call to arms once did. And like the Crusaders and Communist dreamers before us, we march willingly.
“The tools that promised connection now promise control.”
The “Nasty Bishop”
A solitary yet principled voice, Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde stood at the Washington National Cathedral, pleading for compassion in a time of division. She became the embodiment of what Trumpism rejected: empathy. Her heartfelt sermon, urging mercy for immigrants and LGBTQ+ individuals, was met with Trump’s characteristic disdain, dismissing her as “the nasty bishop.” In that moment, the stark contrast between unity and division, compassion and hostility, was laid bare for all to see.
The Moral Cycle: From Freedom to Chains
I woke up with a pounding heart and a sweat-soaked pillow. The nightmare wasn’t just a dream; it was a warning. Time and again, humanity creates its own gods — be they religious, ideological, or technological — and inevitably becomes enslaved by them. These human-made constructs — like the Bible, Democracy, Fascism, Communism, the IMF, TSA, Wall Street, currencies, and corporations — are all fictional narratives we collectively accept as Truth.
The Crusades promised salvation but delivered rivers of blood. Communism pledged equality but descended into oppression. The digital age now promises freedom, but will it ultimately deliver control?
I realized that the choice is ours. The future remains unwritten, and we are its authors — line by line, click by click, scroll by scroll, decision by decision. Will we use our tools to serve humanity, or will we create new gods to which we willingly surrender — only to find ourselves ultimately enslaved by them?
Footnotes: A Very Short History of Communism: Communism began as a revolutionary theory proposed by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in the mid-19th century, envisioning a classless society where the means of production were collectively owned. Their manifesto inspired workers and intellectuals, leading to revolutions across the 20th century. In 1917, Lenin spearheaded the Russian Revolution, replacing Tsarist autocracy with a Soviet state. However, under Stalin, Communism morphed into a system of control marked by purges, forced labor camps, and mass famines. China followed a similar path under Mao Zedong, whose Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution led to catastrophic famine and widespread persecution. Meanwhile, countries like Cuba, North Korea, and Cambodia under Pol Pot added their own chapters of authoritarian rule. Today, Communism has largely declined, with remnants like China and Vietnam’s one-party system blending capitalism with authoritarianism. Russia, post-Soviet Union, maintains echoes of its Communist past in its centralized, strongman-led governance.
#HistoryRepeats #DigitalAge #Populism #AIControl #Crusades #Communism #SocialMediaManipulation #BishopMariannEdgarBudde
