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The Poison We Pick

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Re: The Poison We Pick

#121

Post by clairity »

dnomad wrote: post #69
dmreedy wrote: post #23

I've been talking with my brother a lot about this recently, especially as a function of the overall decrease of 'meaning' in the world. I think it goes back even further, to the advent of postmodernism in the throes of World War I. They were the first lost generation, but I don't think they were the last. The death of modernism and the accompanying assault on the bastions of objective meaning (as discussed in the ar…

Only a very disingenuous reading of history would lead to the conclusion that our society is less "objective" than the past. What has been lost is widespread confidence and faith in those institutions that previously served as the pillars of society -- the church, the king and the nobility. Now people are completely on their own for their worldview. What's become abundantly clear is that people are very, very bad at…

i don’t agree with everything you said but you make an important point here:

“what should really be frightening is the extraordinary poor governance that Americans have enjoyed for the past 20 years. (Seriously, trillions of dollars flushed down the drain on completely pointless wars.)”

those wars were a political attempt to focus americans on an externl enemy and thereby create social cohesion via patriotic solidarity, but vietnam (and to a lesser extent the gulf war) soured us on that strategy. we don’t want to fight random, far-away people we don’t know and don’t threaten us in the least (despite the propaganda of trying to equate muslims with terrorists).

it was literally an attempt to fix domestic issues like the opioid crisis (while also catering to the military-industrial complex) through a reflexive desire to return to post-world war II american prosperity. somehow that failure is lost on many americans, but let’s not do that again.

Re: The Poison We Pick

#122

Post by fsloth »

dmreedy wrote: post #23

I've been talking with my brother a lot about this recently, especially as a function of the overall decrease of 'meaning' in the world. I think it goes back even further, to the advent of postmodernism in the throes of World War I. They were the first lost generation, but I don't think they were the last. The death of modernism and the accompanying assault on the bastions of objective meaning (as discussed in the ar…

Note: This crisis exists only in america. The philosophical context is more or less the same in other rich countries.

I would look in ways american society puts more pressure on individuals, than, say , scandinavian societies do.

I would look to economic and not existential issues.

I think the article nailed it when it pointed out america has no experience of pre-industrial culture at large.

Re: The Poison We Pick

#123

Post by amclennon »

refurb wrote: post #68
dkural wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If black people don't count, sure. I would argue that the US has not been a full democracy until Civil Rights. Jim Crow laws were in effect until 1965. Also, black people could not exercise their vote, were not allowed to attend university, eat in the same restaurants, or even sit on the same section of the bus. As far as black people were concerned, the US was not a democracy.

I can play this game. You don't have freedom of speech in Germany because there are hate language laws. Thus, it's not a democracy. See how silly that is?

> You don't have freedom of speech in Germany because there are hate language laws. Thus, it's not a democracy.

I don't understand the point you're trying to make? The German people can always vote to overturn the laws they've imposed on themselves.

For a large part of American history, black people were literally unable to vote (or were considered 3/5th of a person). That is by definition the opposite of a democracy.

Re: The Poison We Pick

#124

Post by DenisM »

sgentle wrote: post #120

Rather than place the blame on a lack of structure, community or spirituality, I see this as just a natural consequence of a system optimised at every turn for economic output. I've heard a lot about a singularity doomsday scenario where a paperclip-maximising AI realises people are much less useful as paperclip constructors than they are as paperclip ingredients. Surely it can't be so hard to see that the productivi…

The third option is protests of various forms. The most polite one is throwing a brick trough the window of society by electing some loose-cannon politician. The brick went obviously unheeded, and I’m worried of what will follow.

Capitalism has succeeded in its primary goal - amassing resources for capital-intensive projects. We’re done, we have so much capital companies sits on hundreds of billions of dollars. Something new will be needed for the next step.

Re: The Poison We Pick

#125

Post by twentythree »

sgentle wrote: post #120

Rather than place the blame on a lack of structure, community or spirituality, I see this as just a natural consequence of a system optimised at every turn for economic output. I've heard a lot about a singularity doomsday scenario where a paperclip-maximising AI realises people are much less useful as paperclip constructors than they are as paperclip ingredients. Surely it can't be so hard to see that the productivi…

I love the concept of "a system where people have value independent of their productivity."

I worry that the increasing focus on a meritocracy (especially in tech) ignores the fact that it devalues anyone who for whatever reason -- lack of education, lack of natural ability, or just lack of motivation -- doesn't contribute enough to be considered important. It's probably an improvement on the system we had before, where you were valued for being part of the right community or the right family, but I hope this isn't the end goal, and that we can eventually get to a state where we consider everyone inherently valuable.

Re: The Poison We Pick

#126

Post by slfnflctd »

sgentle wrote: post #120

Rather than place the blame on a lack of structure, community or spirituality, I see this as just a natural consequence of a system optimised at every turn for economic output. I've heard a lot about a singularity doomsday scenario where a paperclip-maximising AI realises people are much less useful as paperclip constructors than they are as paperclip ingredients. Surely it can't be so hard to see that the productivi…

> curious to see what America's 3.5 million truck drivers do when they lose their jobs over the next ten years

That is a rather optimistic projection of the rollout of Level 5 autonomy. The total number of heavy trucks sold worldwide was less than 400k in 2014, and no one has full Level 5 yet (if it can even be done large scale at a profit), so I would adjust those expectations. Most 'displaced' truckers should be able to find work unloading automated long-hauls into smaller short-hauls and driving them during a lengthy transition period.

> your only options are to find a system where people have value independent of their productivity, make being valueless palatable, or just go die quietly

Points 1 & 2 are somewhat interconnected. If I add up the retail value of all my non-paid work, it comes to far more than I make at my day job, and I suspect this is true for many others. Much of what our culture calls "valueless" - because no money is involved - does actually have value, and this will become more clear as time continues to reveal how difficult automating everything really is.

We have already seen this, for example, with people posting what used to be called home videos (no revenue) to YouTube and stumbling into large amounts of ad income, and I believe we'll see it in more areas. It may increasingly be a 'gig economy', but it's happening slowly, and some of those gigs are turning out to be pretty good.

Re: The Poison We Pick

#128

Post by kldavis4 »

api wrote: post #115
kldavis4 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment about the rabid consumption of fiction these days hits home for me personally. In this "golden age" of television, with more high quality entertainment than anyone can possibly consume, I've begun to feel that my media consumption is more compulsive escapism than casual enjoyment. I find Pitirim Sorokin's classification of societies as either ideational (spiritual) or sensate (materialistic) helpful in u…

> utterly devastated the individual dignity of man I smell survivorship bias. Have the masses of humanity ever had dignity? In the distant past the peasantry were largely illiterate, so nothing of them survives. What we get are a lot of stories written by upper class literate people suggesting that they had dignity and meaning. In the more recent past they lacked access to broadcast media or television stations, so v…

when I talk about the devastation of human dignity, I am referring to a distinct worldview that robs us of agency and purpose, that says we have no free will and no purpose as individuals other than to seek out our immediate happiness and pleasure.

You can see that worldview in the response to this article by some who suggest that it is not necessarily a bad thing that the people who abuse opioids are dying in such high numbers, that they are self-selecting out of society and society is better off for it.

I agree, that there have always been selfish and cruel people who exploit others for their own purposes and human suffering has always existed. And yes, people have always sought escape from that suffering in some fashion.

We are in a unique point in human history, though, where there are so many people living at a high material standard, but utterly divorced from any sense of higher purpose or meaning. That is the existential question that we desperately need to answer.

Re: The Poison We Pick

#129

Post by CoffeeDregs »

slfnflctd wrote: post #126
sgentle wrote: post #120

Rather than place the blame on a lack of structure, community or spirituality, I see this as just a natural consequence of a system optimised at every turn for economic output. I've heard a lot about a singularity doomsday scenario where a paperclip-maximising AI realises people are much less useful as paperclip constructors than they are as paperclip ingredients. Surely it can't be so hard to see that the productivi…

> curious to see what America's 3.5 million truck drivers do when they lose their jobs over the next ten years That is a rather optimistic projection of the rollout of Level 5 autonomy. The total number of heavy trucks sold worldwide was less than 400k in 2014, and no one has full Level 5 yet (if it can even be done large scale at a profit), so I would adjust those expectations. Most 'displaced' truckers should be ab…

> Most 'displaced' truckers should be able to find work unloading automated long-hauls into smaller short-hauls and driving them during a lengthy transition period.

If a million truckers lose their long-haul trucking jobs, how do a million short-haul trucking jobs simultaneously come into existence? Many long-haul truck already go to distribution centers on the outskirts of metro areas so the long->short-haul transfer systems already exist.

Re: The Poison We Pick

#130

Post by [deleted] »

mistermann wrote: post #114
maratd wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ever-more-powerful market forces actually undermine the foundations of social stability, wreaking havoc on tradition, religion, and robust civil associations Is there an actual example of this? I can't think of a single one.

Society splitting into haves and have nots due to technology, globalization, and a myriad of other things most definitely changes social cohesion. That's just one example, when (if?)people finally start paying attention there will be many more obvious effects.

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