Earlier quoted context omitted.
The difference I'm trying to discuss is when humans started molding the world to our desires in the forms of agriculture, raising animals as resources, and interfering with ecological cycles. You are right, living in the natural world today would be impossible for most people, requiring generations of local knowledge spread across the community. I should have clarified my meaning of complexity as that which is purely…
Is The Thinking Game, which sounds like a pile of poop, pivotal to your worries, or did you just mention it in passing?
We've made the world too complicated
81–90 of 496 posts
Re: We've made the world too complicated
#82Re: We've made the world too complicated
#83Remind Me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwGI-_-5LFI
Thank you! What a great song and visual representation of exactly what I was thinking of.
"And everywhere I go
There's always something to remind me
Of another place in time"
Re: We've made the world too complicated
#84Just as it has always been. EVERYTHING you use is complicated. The goddamn ATOMS and electronic shells around them are so absurdly complicated that they require quantum computers to even simulate them without approximations. Everything is complicated, and all humanity has ever done is to try to reign in that complexity (you think about macbook GUI, NOT transistors beneath it). So, yeah, I fully disagree with what thi…
> all humanity has ever done is to try to reign in that complexity To what end? “Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, with a single powerful blow, shattered for all time a complex article of fundamental articles of our cultural faith; that the world was capable of repairing any damage we might do to it; that the world was designed to do this, that the world was on our side; that God himself had fashioned the world specific…
There is no end.
The world is the way it is because of the desires that the powerful have chosen to pursue because they felt those were worthy of pursuit.
Everything is about entropy. There are those who obey it and those who fight it and yet all will fall because of it.
There is no written way the world should be / is best.
Life is change.
Just choose for yourself what is a good life but accept that there will always be trade offs
Re: We've made the world too complicated
#85I don't see what is wrong with what the author is describing or why it would be causing us stress under the surface. We understand the things around us to the depth that we need. They arent ugly metallic monsters driving down the road, they're cars. With the internet we are free to learn what we want. We can enjoy the complexities of life and go where our interests take us. Thats a good thing. I learn what I find int…
He tries to grok it all at the same time which is impossible.
Free to learn anything we want but never possible to learn everything.
Re: We've made the world too complicated
#86> I used to want to do many things. Make great art, build great machines, solve important issues. Another pretentious man who thinks he could be a great artist. Great artists are born artists, and they devote 100% of the time and cognitive resources that society allows them to their art. They have no choice, it’s vital for them. Jack of all trades, master of none. If you are an engineer and you truly love art, do art…
Such a nature thing to say.
So what about Leonardo da Vinci and countless other "uomo universalis"... He was not an artist? And an engineer and...
I'm firmly in team nurture / choice and would only say that in our time it's harder to be an artist because to be an artist is to sacrifice a lot of other "great options"...
Re: We've made the world too complicated
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
> all humanity has ever done is to try to reign in that complexity To what end? “Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, with a single powerful blow, shattered for all time a complex article of fundamental articles of our cultural faith; that the world was capable of repairing any damage we might do to it; that the world was designed to do this, that the world was on our side; that God himself had fashioned the world specific…
There is no end. The world is the way it is because of the desires that the powerful have chosen to pursue because they felt those were worthy of pursuit. Everything is about entropy. There are those who obey it and those who fight it and yet all will fall because of it. There is no written way the world should be / is best. Life is change. Just choose for yourself what is a good life but accept that there will alway…
That's true. This brings to mind an idea by Dr. Tom Murphy about sustainability. Human civilization lived sustainably, or in the same state with little change, in the natural world for tens of thousands of years, with much lower entropy than now.
By definition, any behavior that cannot go on forever, or deep into the future is unsustainable. Of course all life on Earth will end and humanity far before it. Maybe our current level sustainability is causing entropy to accelerate.
I'm not saying either way is better, of course better or worse isn't really even a thing. I just wanted to share my thoughts that may inform what I choose for myself to discuss it with others.
Re: We've made the world too complicated
#88Kindest advice: read Derek Sivers's "how to live".
Think of it as a distilled wisdom and a choose your own adventure book which will give you perspective, options, frustration and probably become a "quake book".
Buy it from his own website so the money fully goes to a charity or from amazon because you cannot be bothered to make an account.
If you buy it at his website as a bonus you'll get the audiobook and if you wanna have 2h of full attention read/listening it will enhance the experiebve...
"Maybe our greatest gift to the world is to do as little as possible. To look at the birds, feel the wind and the water in our own hands, and ... nothing more. Eat when we are hungry, laugh when we are happy, cry when we are empty. And maybe that is the greatest gift to ourselves as well."
Who is this "the world"
Anyway keep up the writing.
Have a great day/evening/night
Re: We've made the world too complicated
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yet that human complexity was often created to help us deal with natural complexity. Nature is indifferent. One year may produce an overabundance that the hunter/gatherer may take advantage of, yet the next year may be opposite and people will die from famine. So we learned how to preserve food as best we could. Yet that would result in a growth of population, an over population based on the resources available, so w…
Maybe natural complexity is not supposed to be something we deal with, just something we live with. Adapt ourselves to, move in harmony with, rather than trying to adapt nature to our whims. The trees and rocks and rivers really do have things to say to us; maybe our duty here is just to shut up and listen.
> Maybe natural complexity is not supposed to be something we deal with, just something we live with.
Your ancestors did that, and invented unknowable gods and spirits to explain/blame everything on, so that people can give up trying to understand or manage the unmanageable.
Re: We've made the world too complicated
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is no end. The world is the way it is because of the desires that the powerful have chosen to pursue because they felt those were worthy of pursuit. Everything is about entropy. There are those who obey it and those who fight it and yet all will fall because of it. There is no written way the world should be / is best. Life is change. Just choose for yourself what is a good life but accept that there will alway…
That's true. This brings to mind an idea by Dr. Tom Murphy about sustainability. Human civilization lived sustainably, or in the same state with little change, in the natural world for tens of thousands of years, with much lower entropy than now. By definition, any behavior that cannot go on forever, or deep into the future is unsustainable. Of course all life on Earth will end and humanity far before it. Maybe our c…
Human civilization is often used to describe the last ~ 12k years of us becoming farmers making cities etc.
But way before that, approximately around the time we had both mastered fire and good enough communication skills neanderthals and other homo became the very top of the food chain and started massively altering this planet.
I think scientists in the relevant field call the current extinction period the 4th? One caused by humans.
Sustainable is a "loaded word/concept" of the imprecise language we call English... For who? How long? For self / others? Externalities?
If Mark Zuckerberg creates a robot army and closed loop food producing system and clone installation that keeps him / his descendents alive till the heat death of the universe on an island in Hawai while 99.999999999999999999% of humans and animals die (some other billionaires on new Zealand etc etc) one could argue it's sustainable for said people but not very sustainable for "humanity"
There is no better way. Better way requires a big man / woman / it in the sky / your shoulder who supposedly knows.
You, me and most people on this forum are just the lucky ones (at least top 40% and most likely average top 3% financially ) who can imagine more than we can achieve in life and hence get philosophical from time to time...
Anyway I see you read / quote a lot of books so yeah recommend you the Derek Sivers book "how to live", he's much better than almost everyone at destillation and has the bonus of not having to sell.
Anyway as a tip: You can use sources / references but proof of authority / reference to authority (doctor this,..) Doesn't really add unless it's about a highly practical field. Can just add a source link at the bottom if you wanna reference his words but ideally the idea can stand by itself.