pull down to refresh
I don't disagree with your general point. Man is on an upward trajectory as a species, but that does not take away the frustration of each person's lived experience, nor is it much consolation. Trying to would be little bit like saying to those sailors who are aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln -- don't worry, old chap, things are improving, you just can't see it from over there. Even if objectively that may be the case, my guess would be that it doesn't feel much like it is.
The problems that I can see, and maybe OP can relate, are:
- the dizzying rate of technological change
- the obsession with bad news in the media
- add to that the media's now 24 minute news cycles
- the diminishing quality of the average person's social interactions
- the man behind the curtain has come out in the open and is taunting us
On the last point, it has been clear for so many for so long that lived experiences do not really track with what we are being told is going on. Now, that is true AND more obvious than ever AND it really looks like nobody cares. Business as usual. The curse is in the knowledge of what is happening.
It takes patience knowing what to do and where to go knowing all this. I would start with scripture if you are struggling because these problems are not new, and there's a lot of useful data about how to deal with them in ancient texts, IMO. Getting offline is important, as well. Being present in the community and around like-minded people can just help to put things into perspective. Knowing you are not alone, and sometimes reminding yourself that your needs, by some miracle, are being provided for, and even more than that, as scoresby pointed out, and trying to see that hard times really do bring out the best in people if you are willing to see it.
- the dizzying rate of technological change
Is any of it useful for you? I personally don't mind the technological change itself, because I'm using it to my benefit. But I truly mind the general/popular application of all the new-ish technologies. When I deal with normies, which is not so often anymore, I am mostly sad when I see what all the technological marvel is being used for: the human progress does not nearly follow the pace of development, as evident by entering any western subway system and having an easier job counting the people that are not doomscrolling than those that are, often on one hand, out of a couple hundred.
- the man behind the curtain has come out in the open and is taunting us
Is it really taunting if the targets are of no significance? They're just milking the cattle. What's happening is that the people are the commodity now. Your hard earned money, your attention, your vote. It's all being targeted by systematic extraction. You're not a stakeholder as a customer, user or voter. You're the cattle.
Is any of it useful for you
Very much. I can work way more efficiently in most cases. Although I can accomplish more, it doesn't make me work less. I might not be average in this way. As you pointed out, possibly most people prefer to be mindless.
Is it really taunting if the targets are of no significance
I think it is. My view is that these chattel do have significance. If a critical mass were to snap out of their collective illusions, then it would be obvious that they do.
But you're probably right. Most people probably don't pay attention too closely, and are not bothered too much by the rate of technological change. I'm guessing they're more often perterbed, if at all, by the perception of change, driven by grandiose narratives.
Do you expect they'll succeed in their crusade in declaeing consciousness in the newly sprung Super Intelligence?
My view is that these chattel do have significance
Ideally, I'd agree. But realistically, if you comply, you're insignificant. These guys only worry about those they cannot coerce, trick, or mislead. Everyone that buys their bullshit is enslaved. Pay taxes? Enslaved. Be a good little consumer? Enslaved. Yes, also if you vote for commies. They're often even worse.
Do you expect they'll succeed in their crusade in declaring consciousness in the newly sprung Super Intelligence?
It really depends on what you would label a success. These guys simply wanna be rich and powerful just like every other retard. I'm sure they're already rich. So they'll just keep the narrative going no matter what's real. Worse, I'm convinced they gaslit themselves and they actually believe all the bs they're putting out there. Its like they're stuck in their little ultraLARP. I guess the clinical term for that is psychosis. Corporate psychosis or maybe even industry psychosis in this case. Self-induced. Compliments of the indoctrination committee.
Even if tomorrow orange man makes an EO declaring that anyone that doesn't recognize the conscience is an enemy of the empire, will get abducted and shipped to Guantanamo, it doesn't mean that the intelligence is superb or that it actually is conscious. Can fake everything now and EOs are the correct way to manipulate the world, because yes we've all become that retarded. So we'll only know if it really is dangerous right before we all go extinct. It's not really something that keeps me awake at night though, tbh.
Everything in that world is human instructed, even if they didn't read the instructions before they fed it into the bot (they didn't.) Yes, also those magic jailbreaks where some bot hacks someone else's property. It's all plain old negligence and morally I'd say its undesirable and its only a matter of time before heads roll. In the end, any Apocalypse will still be man-made. Nothing super about it. Mostly sad.
- the diminishing quality of the average person's social interactions
This one is huge for me:
- the diminishing quality of the average person's social interactions
Not just quality, but quantity. People need people - interaction with other human beings - and most of what they're getting is apps and games that give you a twisted caricature of that interaction.
China won the trade war.
Trump is backing The Zionists Greater Israel Project.
Religion is not the solution.
can you be more specific?
can you be more specific? do you have an example?
You still cannot accept that China won the trade war and that US hegemony is under direct challenge as a result of an economic and political force that is not aligned with your cultural biases.
Acknowledging the many fucked up things that are happening doesn't necessarily have to lead to doomerism.
I used to read a lot of history, particularly contemporary chronicles or accounts of events. And two things stand out: 1) that humans frequently did absolutely horrible things to each other and 2) most of the time they didn't seem to think it was a very big deal. There's a lot of "We flayed him alive and fed his entrails to pigs while he was still alive, after which we had a splendid dinner of singing and dancing and wholesome family time."
I'm sure a lot gets lost in translation, but I think a larger percentage of humans think that they shouldn't do violence to others than any time in the past. This seems like a pretty good movement in humanity. Couple it with there being more food available, more knowledge available, and the compounding nature of human invention (we don't all have to start with the wheel, but can benefit from things humans have done) and I think things are actually looking up.
Maybe it is just cope on my part, but I can't help but observe that my odds of death by warlord or death by plague seem to have gone down, and this is probably true for a good chunk of the world.