The story about the Tower of Babel is pretty historically accurate when you realize that before Judeo-Christianity came onto the scene people weren’t that patriotically attached to their own deities.
Basically, gods and cultures weren’t connected. “The one you call Pluto, we call Hades. The one you call Krishna, we call Herakles,” the Greeks said under Alexander the Great as he conquered Central Asia, “We’re all speaking the same language at our core.”
All of that changed when Exodus 20:5 was written down:
“You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me.”
Before that was written you’d have a hard time telling apart someone from the time of polytheism and someone who now says, “I’m not religious, just spiritual – I will always believe in a higher power.”
I nerd out about great business strategy so this isn’t a bash on Judeo-Christianity in any way, quite the opposite. As John Gray wrote, “Modern politics is just a chapter in the book of religion.” And it can be argued that modern business is as well.
Us humans are religious animals, and we’re not the only primates who are. Even elephants are religious, so who in their right mind would hate on someone using science to reach us at the core of what we are and always will be? That’s just being smart. Apple Inc. could learn a thing or two from Judeo-Christianity.
Or, you could say they already did. We all did actually. Listen closely the next time an app or website makes it harder for you to leave or to watch a video on another website, you can practically hear the AI-gods in the machine whispering, “Stay, you shall not bow down to them or worship them…”
As someone once joked, “When YHWH/Jehovah said I am the one true god all of the other gods died laughing.”
Because this is all about not having competition. You can’t have someone all to yourself without first telling them that you’re the one, and that talking to others is wrong. You can’t have someone all to yourself without being jealous.