LOL! Bluesky post from tech journalist Brian Merchant

[highplainsdem]

Amazing.

thx so much @month-of-august.bsky.social

— Brian Merchant (@bcmerchant.bsky.social) 2025-07-01T20:53:16.417Z

[leftieNanner]

1. I have no idea what this means. Nt

[highplainsdem]

3. Sorry. I've seen so many casual, unexplained references to the Butlerian Jihad here - and on Twitter, Bluesky and

Reddit - that I didn't think I needed to explain. It's from Frank Herbert's fictional universe for Dune, and those books were very popular with boomers several decades ago, and of course Dune got more attention again with the films. Plus it's been mentioned a lot again because of the current AI bubble.

From Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune_(franchise)#The_Butlerian_Jihad

As explained in Dune, the Butlerian Jihad is a conflict taking place over 11,000 years in the future[7] (and over 10,000 years before the events of Dune), which results in the total destruction of virtually all forms of "computers, thinking machines, and conscious robots".[8] With the prohibition "Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind," the creation of even the simplest thinking machines is outlawed and made taboo,[8] which has a profound influence on the socio-political and technological development of humanity in the Dune series.[9] Herbert refers to the Jihad several times in the novels, but does not give much detail on how he imagined the causes and nature of the conflict.[10] Critical analysis has often associated the term with Samuel Butler and his 1863 essay "Darwin among the Machines", which advocated the destruction of all advanced machines.[11]

[leftieNanner]

6. Thanks for explaining

I should have known that reference. I've only read Dune three times.

[highplainsdem]

7. I've been reminded of it constantly the last few years because of people's reactions to generative AI

and the craziness of the AI bros. And most recently it's been mentioned a lot because of Pope Leo's warnings about AI.

If you look at the Bluesky link I posted in another reply here

https://bsky.app/search?q=+butlerian+jihad

you'll see, among other posts, lots of Blueskyers mentioning the Butlerian Jihad as they comment on a post from a Blueskyer named Sean, who wrote "Finally, a Holy War I can join" as he commented on a WSJ story with the headline "Pope Leo Takes On AI as a Potential Threat To Humanity.". Unfortunately Sean has his Bluesky settings so his posts won't display on other sites

Who knew the Butlerian Jihad would be so Catholic

— Brian Merchant (@bcmerchant.bsky.social) 2025-06-19T19:02:01.250Z

but if you click on that post to open the Bluesky page, you can see it. It was amusing to see photos of Pope Leo pop up again and again as I scrolled through posts referring to the Butlerian Jihad.

[madinmaryland]

4. Don't worry, I didn't understand the reference either and I am a boomer.

[highplainsdem]

5. Again, I'm sorry. But it has been mentioned casually here, and for some idea of how often

people refer to it on Bluesky:

https://bsky.app/search?q=butlerian+jihad