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We've made the world too complicated

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Re: We've made the world too complicated

#351

Post by pnexk »

TFA’s author notes they’ve watched Adam Curtis’s Hypernormalization. As someone who is vary of his Century of Self documentary, I think it’s worth remembering how deceptive visual mediums can be.

It’s not that textual arguments and essays cannot mislead and make muddled arguments… but presentation and style in documentaries/video essays have an immense capability to convince the average viewer of an articulated idea or claim’s factuality in a way that text cannot.

None of this is to say documentaries or YouTube essays cannot make correct points or share beautiful ideas that are grounded, but that it’s far more difficult to disentangle half-truths, correct statements from half baked ideas presented with historical footage and sober background music.

Re: We've made the world too complicated

#352

Post by ksymph »

latexr wrote: post #279
metaphor wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man. George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman

That quote gets less convincing by the day. It has reached a state where it’s regurgitated without proper context or consideration and is now no more than a deepity. There are plenty of “unreasonable men” adapting the world to themselves. Bezos, Musk, Trump, they are all changing the world for the worse.

> There are plenty of “unreasonable men” adapting the world to themselves.

You say that like it's a counterexample, but is that not literally what the quote is saying? I mean what's the difference between that and:

> the unreasonable [man] persists in trying to adapt the world to himself.

Re: We've made the world too complicated

#353

Post by coldtea »

Aurornis wrote: post #191
jmilloy wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are overlooking the part of the quote that says "but he somehow didn't know when to stop". Given the option of somewhere with or without modern medicine and housing, yes people choose the "civilized" version even when it is complicated, hazardous, meaningless, addictive. That doesn't mean it isn't appropriate to critique the parts of modern life that have more to do with people trying to have more money a…

> I think you are overlooking the part of the quote that says "but he somehow didn't know when to stop". I don’t think you can extract that point in isolation when one of the anchors for “didn’t know when to stop” includes 10 years of schooling for children as being too far. So the point in the past is at least anchored to the pre-education era. You seem to be talking about modern-modern era problems as you imagine t…

>when one of the anchors for “didn’t know when to stop” includes 10 years of schooling for children as being too far.

10 years of schooling for children is too far. We just adapted to the masochism and forgot how unnatural it is. Then we grow and splurge on therapy and anti-depressants or lose ourselves in addictions and the rat race.

Or become empty idiots who find this "normal".

Re: We've made the world too complicated

#354

Post by plaguuuuuu »

pnexk wrote: post #351

TFA’s author notes they’ve watched Adam Curtis’s Hypernormalization. As someone who is vary of his Century of Self documentary, I think it’s worth remembering how deceptive visual mediums can be. It’s not that textual arguments and essays cannot mislead and make muddled arguments… but presentation and style in documentaries/video essays have an immense capability to convince the average viewer of an articulated idea…

Also worth reading, especially today in LLM age: Simulacra and Simulation by Beaudrillard. Heavily inspired The Matrix. Although unlike the movie, he saw simulacra as irreversibly replacing reality, ie you can't get out of the matrix.

Re: We've made the world too complicated

#355

Post by genewitch »

bsenftner wrote: post #345
aspenmayer wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yS_c2qqA-6Y

Trying to watch, I have never had a youTube video with such a poor experience. Every 20 seconds there is a 2-5 second buffering. extremely painful.

it's on your end, works fine here and i go out of my way to piss google off.

with that being said, both my extremely liberal doctor of political science friend and myself (i lean authoritarian and center) find it to be ... underwhelming.

Re: We've made the world too complicated

#356

Post by latexr »

ksymph wrote: post #352
latexr wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That quote gets less convincing by the day. It has reached a state where it’s regurgitated without proper context or consideration and is now no more than a deepity. There are plenty of “unreasonable men” adapting the world to themselves. Bezos, Musk, Trump, they are all changing the world for the worse.

> There are plenty of “unreasonable men” adapting the world to themselves. You say that like it's a counterexample, but is that not literally what the quote is saying? I mean what's the difference between that and: > the unreasonable [man] persists in trying to adapt the world to himself.

I think Wikipedia does a good job of defining what most people understand by “progress”.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progress

> Progress is movement towards a perceived refined, improved, or otherwise desired state.

I.e. progress is understood as positive advancement. Otherwise we use other words like “regression”.

The quote as it is typically used is advocating for the unreasonable man because they precipitate progress. My point is that we shouldn’t idolise this idea of advancement in the abstract, because pretty clearly it can turn everything to shit. We’re not benefiting from those unreasonable men, quite the contrary.

Re: We've made the world too complicated

#357

Post by xedrac »

farley13 wrote: post #194
cdrini wrote: post #140

Thought-provoking write-up. One part of this is the "meaning of human life". Part of that for me is: humans are the only known lifeform that can look at the stars and try to understand. And, to the best of our understanding, this ability arose from winning a billion biological lotteries, from the blind system of nature and natural selection which by complete coincidence, stumbled on intelligence as a beneficial trait…

Agree. If you walk through a forest there are billions of little things from creatures to bits of dna just looking to pass on their particular brand of biologic layout to another generation. They would love to involve you. on a world swirling through the chaos of hard and ephemeral matter one big rock away from a new trajectory. No, we in no way created the complexity. We have some baby complexities we've created som…

> I happen to subscribe to the general belief that we should aim to make life suck less for others in the future.

In pursuit of this noble goal, one can do more harm than good, if not careful. Take for instance a wealthy parent that gifts their child with $5,000,000 so they never have to work, hoping their child's life will be easier than their own. What is the likely result of this gift? A child that never learns the value of money, and goes broke all too soon with no skills to survive.

Re: We've made the world too complicated

#358

Post by solfox »

I agree with this sentiment. And it's hard to change. But there are plenty of examples of people exiting the normalized system and choosing a different life. Even small changes can make a big impact on mental health, like stopping reading the news.

But I'd encourage the author to consider what setting an example might look like for them. What does a less complicated life look like? Then live it, and eventually, more will follow.

Re: We've made the world too complicated

#359

Post by ian_j_butler »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #336
ian_j_butler wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Being afraid of losing one’s job is quite a step up from being afraid of a rival tribe ransacking your village. Or a predatory animal. Or bacterial infections. Obviously, things could be better. But they could be much, much worse. If you talk to people, I think you'll find there are an increasing number who don't actually agree with your idea of worse. It's a question of comforts vs agency. Victims of slavery or di…

Those people are free to move to Afghanistan or Somalia or the Congo. I doubt they will. > Do you want to fight and perhaps die in an desperate battle with a deadly but essentially honest viking invader? No, real life is not a hero wish fulfillment movie.

> Those people are free to move to Afghanistan or Somalia or the Congo. I doubt they will.

This is barely relevant, because it's not a plan for agency or comfort, it's strictly worse in that it would destroy both, in addition to adding displacement and isolation.

> No, real life is not a hero wish fulfillment movie.

Frankly that's just projecting your cowardice onto everyone else. But there's a point where anyone will trade comfort for agency. Ready to lose access to modern dentistry if you don't ever have to worry about the coercive attention of the tax man? How about losing access to hot water if your vote is worth 1000x? No more scented soap if you can work on your schedule instead of the one the boss chooses?

By your logic, Ukraine would fold the first time the power went out. And there's a reason you can't just opt out of capitalism or citizenship, that land which is not used is still off limits everywhere, and so on. It's because probably a fifth of the population would take a very big hit in comfort to increase their agency

Re: We've made the world too complicated

#360

Post by fwipsy »

timacles wrote: post #337
pyrale wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess the issue is that, on average, our society looks more like Phillip Morris or Meta than it looks like a school or an hospital. And, most of all, the people our society promotes to steer itself tend to be the kind that thrives at Meta rather than in a school.

To be more precise, the late stage capitalism phase we are in has designed itself around destroying anything that contributes to society. Nothing can exist without making a profit. If there is something that is useful, our system makes sure it will be exploited for maximum profit which will in turn destroy that very things.

That's not true. Capitalism is merely indifferent to things without economic value. If something is monetizable it will be monetized, which can be very harmful in itself, but capitalism does not seek destruction for it's own sake.
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