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The West is Afraid of Robots. The Global South is Afraid of Today: A Dark Comedy in Three Acts
Mar. 25, 2025. 12 mins. read.
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Existential dread and kale smoothies: Professor Begelaw’s satirical interview exposes the absurdity of the West's AI panic while real-world crises rage on.
When Simulations Collide: A Sarcastic Chronicle of Western Panic, AI Doomers, and the People Who Just Want Lunch
Act One: The Prologue: On Simulated Fears & the Luxury of Existential Panic
Yesterday (this piece was originally drafted on March 06, 2025, but editing took longer than expected), I read a deeply unsettling feature in The Guardian titled ‘They wanted to save us from a dark AI future. Then six people were killed’. If I was the writer I would have titled it ‘From Code to Chaos: The Radical Descent of an AI Prophet’. The piece, a fantastic one, chronicled the journey of Ziz—a once-obscure programmer in the San Francisco Bay Area—who mutated from an AI risk theorist into an alleged architect of domestic terrorism. Her story, a grotesque parable of our times, left me equal parts baffled and nauseated. As a born-and-raised Ethiopian, my psyche—steeped in the ‘pragmatism’ of the Global South—struggles to parse the West’s obsession with abstract apocalypses while concrete suffering festers in plain sight.
On my second read, I attempted to distill the article’s central thesis. To my mind, it is this: Extreme ideological conviction, when divorced from material reality and amplified by insular subcultures, becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy of violence. Ziz’s followers, marinating in rationalist jargon and AI doomerism, weaponized her theories into a crusade against a world they deemed already doomed. A cautionary tale, yes—but one that feels like a parody when viewed from Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, where existential risk is not a thought experiment but the daily calculus of survival: “Will the water run today?” Or if it is from Bahir Dar, Ethiopia: “Will the drone strike miss?”
This cognitive dissonance—between Western existential fabulism and the Global South’s grinding present—led me to consult my favorite imaginary contrarian thinker: Professor Darios Begelaw, the mercurial Ethiopian physicist and co-discoverer of the Four Laws of Simulated Reality. For those unacquainted with his work, I recommend reading my previous article, where terms like ‘Berbere’, ‘Ketema’, and ‘Merkato’ are explained.
Begelaw is equal parts genius and gadfly, a man who argues we inhabit a glitchy simulation run by “incompetent demigods with a fetish for irony.” He is also, notably, the least politically correct intellectual alive—a quality that makes him uniquely suited to dissect Western neuroses, I guess this is why my mind always runs to ‘Prof’ whenever I am facing such discourses.
Reaching Professor Begelaw is no small feat. He resides in Addis Ababa’s crumbling Merkato district called Berbere Tera, a place where “the internet” is a rumor and smartphones are relics of a decadent future. Our correspondence relies on a chain of messengers: elderly women who trade his handwritten ‘screeds’ for bags of berbere pepper. When I shared The Guardian piece and asked his thoughts on AI risk cults, he responded with characteristic bile: “The West fears tomorrow’s fiction while selling yesterday’s lies. Send cigarettes!”
What followed was a blistering essay (published below as Act Two) that reframes Ziz’s story not as an anomaly, but as the logical endpoint of a civilization unmoored from reality. Begelaw mocks Silicon Valley’s “apocalypse cosplay,” and contrasts it with the quiet resilience of Gaza’s bakers and Merkato’s merchants, and concludes—with typical gloom—that the West’s “simulated fears” are a luxury the Global South cannot afford.
To contextualize his claims, I conducted a short interview (Act Three). True to form, Begelaw answered questions between power outages, pausing only to heckle passersby and lament the price of qetema. His tone is abrasive, his analogies crude, and his logic merciless. I have redacted nothing, softened nothing. As he insists: “Offense is the first vaccine against delusion.”
The article and interview that follow are not meant to comfort. They are meant to confront—to juxtapose the West’s speculative panic with the Global South’s immediate struggle. Whether you find Begelaw brilliant or bigoted, his message is unignorable: A world that frets over imaginary tomorrows will starve today. Here, my advice is you should proceed with caution. And I will quote Professor Darios Begelaw from my previous article so you will remember his warning:
When you open your eyes, avoid staring directly at the sun.
–Professor Darios Begelaw
[The following pages contain Professor Begelaw’s article and our accompanying interview.]
Act Two: The Article: The West’s Existential Crisis: A Tragicomedy from Silicon Valley While the World Burns Quietly
Subheading: “But have you considered the 0.0001% chance AI turns us into paperclips?!”—Meanwhile, Gaza rebuilds its third bakery this week.
The Doomsday LARP (Live-Action Role-Play)
Ah, the West. A land where existential dread is a luxury item, like artisanal kale or a $800 juicer that claims to align your chakras. Enter the ‘Less Wrong’ movement, a group of Silicon Valley philosophers who’ve concluded that humanity’s biggest threat isn’t climate collapse or nuclear war—no, no—it’s the vague possibility that future humans might have slightly less ethical fiber. Their manifesto? “If we can’t optimize every hypothetical tomorrow, why even live today?” Cue violins.
Then there’s Eliezer Yudkowsky, the AI Cassandra who’s already written humanity’s obituary. “We’re all dead!” he declares, sipping a fair-trade kale latté in his panic room stocked with 50 years of freeze-dried guacamole. Never mind that actual humans in Sudan or Yemen or even Ukraine are busy dodging actual bullets, not hypothetical rogue algorithms. But sure, Eliezer, keep screaming into the void. The void is fascinating.
And who could forget Sam ‘Altruism™’ Bankman-Fried? The man who pledged to donate all his money to save future beings—right after he finished defrauding billions in the present. The irony! His arrest was a poetic masterpiece: a man so worried about theoretical suffering he forgot real people like not being scammed. Bravo, Sam. The Global South salutes your commitment to performance art.
The Optimism of the Already Doomed
Let’s pivot to the Global South, where hope isn’t a think-tank topic—it’s a survival tactic. In Gaza, kids build sandcastles in rubble, mastering the art of “trauma-informed play”. In Lagos, entrepreneurs sell solar-powered phone chargers during blackouts, because who needs a stable grid when you’ve got grit? And in Haiti, farmers plant crops in soil salted by gang violence, muttering, “Maybe next season.”
The bright future here writes itself: A Palestinian grandmother, when asked about her hopes for the future, shrugs and says, “I survived ’48, ’67, and three Israeli offensives. If Skynet wants a turn, habibi, tell it to take a number.” Meanwhile, a Congolese miner laughs at the West’s AI panic: “You fear future machines? We fear present-day machine guns!”
It’s almost inspiring. While the West doomscrolls Twitter debates about ‘longtermism’, an Ethiopian mother barters fuel for medicine and names her child ‘Tesfaye’ (My Hope). Because when your present is a dumpster fire, you don’t have the privilege of crying over tomorrow’s hypothetical ashes.
The Softness of the West, or ‘How to Lose a Civilization Without Trying’
The conclusion? The West has gone soft. Not “avocado toast” soft—more like “collapsed into a quivering puddle at the first sign of discomfort” soft. While academics in Cambridge debate whether breathing is ethical under late-stage capitalism, a Syrian refugee stitches tents in the rain and hums a lullaby.
The West’s threats are hypothetical: AI, asteroids, a misaligned AGI accidentally turning New York into a paperclip. The Global South’s threats are real: drones, droughts, and the lingering ghost of colonialism. But hey, at least Elon’s building a Mars colony for the 12 people who’ll outlive the apocalypse. Priorities!
In the end, the joke’s on the West. While they’re busy “saving the future,” the rest of the world is mastering the art of living—finding hope in the ruins, joy in the chaos, and dark humor in the face of oblivion. After all, if you’ve survived genocide, poverty, and being called “resilient” by NPR, what’s a little robot uprising?
Final Line: The West may have invented anxiety, but the Global South wrote the manual on dark comedy. We are all the punchline.
Act Three: Interview With Professor Darios Begelaw by Hruy Tsegaye
About the interviewer: The imaginary Hruy is an Ethiopian futurist, essayist, and critical theorist based in Addis Ababa. Some of his work focuses on economic disparities between the Global North and South, aka global inequality. Currently, he does not own a juicer; his broke weeks ago.
Simulated Realities & Western Delusions: A Darkly Humorous Dialogue with Professor Darios Begelaw
Hruy: Professor Begelaw, your team’s Four Laws of Simulation have ruffled feathers. Let’s start with the 2nd Law: Universal Amnesic Syndrome. You claim humanity’s collective forgetfulness proves we’re in a simulation. But isn’t this just… human nature?
Prof. Begelaw: [Laughs, adjusts a cracked pair of glasses.] ‘Human nature’ is the West’s favorite scapegoat! Of course we forget. The USA just ‘forgot’ its coups birthed today’s wars in Ukraine escalating, inshallah, to WW3! Europe just ‘forgot’ colonialism birthed today’s refugees. But when a Sudanese mother forgets her child’s birthday because she’s foraging for water, that’s something else, that’s human nature? No. In a simulation, amnesia is programmed. The West gets selective memory downgrades; the Global South gets the Ctrl+Alt+Del treatment.
Hruy: Your 4th Law, Filthy SSOS (‘Sheer Stupid Shines Over Smart’), mocks Kim Kardashian outselling Stephen Hawking. Isn’t that just… capitalism?
Prof. Begelaw: Capitalism? [Snorts.] Capitalism is Merkato merchants selling flip-flops made of tires while Silicon Valley sells AI ethics to people who’ve never missed a meal. The real simulation is watching Yudkowsky panic about paperclip-maximizing AIs while Gaza rebuilds bakeries with rubble. Tell me, who’s the bigger fool: The man fearing robot overlords, or the man ignoring the overlords already here?
Hruy: Let’s discuss Rothko’s Feces—your 1st Law. You argue the world spends on ‘shit’ while others starve. Yet the West donates billions in aid. Irony?
Prof. Begelaw: [Leans forward, grinning.] Aid is the West’s favorite tax-deductible guilt ritual. Donate a billion dollars after stealing ten. Meanwhile, in Berbere Tera, a child trades a sack of berbere for a day’s meal. No NGOs, no TED Talks—just survival.
Hruy: Your final Law, WaMMI (“Why Me Mommy Cry”), blames victimhood for perpetuating injustice. Isn’t that tone-deaf?
Prof. Begelaw: [Eyes flash.] Let me tell you about tone: in Ethiopia, we name children ‘Tesfaye’—My Hope—while dodging drones. In the West, you name your fears ‘Existential Risk’ and cry into your avocado toast. WaMMI isn’t victim-blaming—it’s exposing the simulation’s cheat code: Keep the wretched busy weeping, so the architects keep stealing. The West’s tears are a luxury; ours are a leaky faucet.
Hruy: You’ve mocked figures like Sam Bankman-Fried, who pledged altruism before his fraud conviction. What’s the lesson?
Prof. Begelaw: Sam is the West’s patron saint! A man so obsessed with saving humanity he forgot people exist today. He’s the logical end of your longtermism cult: Steal $8 billion today and promise to donate $1 billion tomorrow. Meanwhile, in Merkato, a pickpocket steals $8 to feed his sister. Who’s the criminal? The simulation rewards grand delusions, not grandmas eating dirt.
Hruy: You call the West ‘soft’. That is a hard word against a society advancing AI, space travel…
Prof. Begelaw: The West is a soufflé—puffed up, hollow, collapsing at a pinprick. You fear AI because you’ve never faced a real threat. In Palestine, hope is breathing between bombings. In Congo, hope is outliving the mines. Your threats are intellectual masturbation. The Global South’s threats are bullets, droughts, and Western saviors.
The simulation’s glitch? The West thinks it’s the protagonist. Newsflash: You’re the comic relief.
Hruy: Finally, you mention kale frequently, why?
Prof. Begelaw: In the article I sent to you, I wrote: “In the West, existential dread is a luxury item, like artisanal kale or a $800 juicer…” Here, kale is a stand-in for the West’s obsession with performative wellness, hyper-privileged anxieties, and the commodification of even the most basic human needs (eating, breathing, existing) into overpriced lifestyle brands. Kale isn’t just a leafy green; it’s a symbol of a culture that treats survival as a hobby—something to optimize while ignoring the fact that much of the world is just trying to survive.
Hruy: I have no comment, but if I am not annoying you: Why kale specifically?
Prof. Begelaw: You are annoying me! You call yourself born and raised Ethiopian but you can’t see the humor in kale reference? Are you a rich kid – you don’t look like one. You are raised on kale: cheap staple food for us! Anyways, here is why:
1. Artisanal kale mocks the West’s fetish for ethical consumption (e.g., $15 organic kale smoothies) as a substitute for addressing systemic inequality.
2. It’s a luxury of worry—the idea that only those with full bellies can afford to panic about AI or ‘longtermism’ while others worry about literal hunger.
3. Contrast: In the Global South, in your beloved Ethiopia, “kale” is a bitter weed foraged during famine, not a $10 salad add-on. Ask your mama, or remember your young’n days, how many times you were forced to eat kale for breakfast, lunch, and dinner – assuming you are from a middle-class family that can afford to put something in their unsatisfiable kid’s belly three times a day. You and I, we both know, the average Ethiopian eats one and half times a day! Don’t be an annoying brat because I fucken know, you know, why I used kale for my metaphor.
Hruy: Thank you Professor Darios Begelaw, do you have any last word for our readers on Mindplex?
Prof. Begelaw: What what, Mindwhat? Ah I don’t care! Dear readers, This interview was transcribed in a Merkato alleyway during a blackout. I, Professor Darios Begelaw, charged three Birr and a cigarette. See you soon and your donations are accepted in tears or crypto.
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