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Dalai Lama: Behind Our Anxiety, the Fear of Being Unneeded

nytimes.com

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Re: Dalai Lama: Behind Our Anxiety, the Fear of Being Unneeded

#141

Post by droopyEyelids »

cossatot wrote: post #134
blfr wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's ignoring risks. It's like being the richest you've ever been in 2007. True but not reassuring. We have nukes, very worrying demographic trends in the west with massive migrations, and a declining hegemon. We're comfortable but fragile. What I want to say is that Taleb seems to have a better handle on things than Pinker.

What's worrisome about the immigration trends? I personally like them, and feel that they're more stabilizing than not: we're less likely to go to war with a nation of whose ethnicities make up some substantial fraction of our populace, and may be treated better in the case of war (look at German-American vs. Japanese-American treatment in WWII). But these are only my views. You can ask Taleb about his views on Middl…

Worrisome because consequences of climate change have the potential to cause 100s of millions of humans to move in a timeframe that is impossible to deal with.

Re: Dalai Lama: Behind Our Anxiety, the Fear of Being Unneeded

#142

Post by Pamar »

habosa wrote: post #128

There is a lot of discussion on HN (in this thread and in many others) about what we will do when technology replaces a significant fraction of our jobs. People are talking about a 10%, 50%, or even 99% reduction in the workforce size due to technological advances (mostly AI). I totally reject the conclusion that the workforce will be significantly reduced by any imminent technology. Look at humans throughout history…

I totally reject the conclusion that the workforce will be significantly reduced by any imminent technology.

Your main point is correct, but take in account this, too: So far technology has replaced or created new jobs requiring not much more in terms of skills. To make a very simple example: cars were not extremely more difficult to drive than a cart. And way easier (less physical strength required, for example) than riding a horse.

So if someone was intellectually capable of learning to drive a cart, they could probably manage a truck. People leaving their farm (thanks to increased mechanization of farm labor) could move to the city and work in a plant or in a blue collar job with little training.

Of course, advances in science and technology also created whole new jobs that required a lot of study (I dunno... Engineer, Chemist) but it was not like everyone who was made redundant as a cart driver or a farmer would move to the nearest city and become a scientist.

So the problem seems to be this: assume that half of the truckers will be made redundant in 10 years. How many of them will succesfully "pivot" in something else, like truck AI programmer? 1 in 1000? Of course, they could become ... truck mechanics... but, wait... we already had mechanics working on human-driven trucks, and the fact that some trucks are now autonomous will not require an large amount of extra repair shops to cater for them. So, what will the not-truck-driver-anymore guys do?

Re: Dalai Lama: Behind Our Anxiety, the Fear of Being Unneeded

#143

Post by [deleted] »

ohyoutravel wrote: post #132
petre wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh no please not Trump again, he's got all the bad press in the Western World. I read a Dalai Lama article to bust into Trump bad press yet again. Someone's gotta build and repair those self driving trucks, ey? And it won't be robots or software developers with a laptop, it's gonna be non educated hard working males of all colors who are not afraid to get their hands dirty. Otherwise your politicians are gonna orches…

>>Someone's gotta build and repair those self driving trucks, ey? And it won't be robots or software developers with a laptop, it's gonna be non educated hard working males of all colors who are not afraid to get their hands dirty. Presumably it will mostly be the people who currently repair the trucks continuing to do so, which still creates the problem of what to do with the former truck drivers replaced by autonom…

[deleted]

Re: Dalai Lama: Behind Our Anxiety, the Fear of Being Unneeded

#144

Post by petre »

ohyoutravel wrote: post #132
petre wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh no please not Trump again, he's got all the bad press in the Western World. I read a Dalai Lama article to bust into Trump bad press yet again. Someone's gotta build and repair those self driving trucks, ey? And it won't be robots or software developers with a laptop, it's gonna be non educated hard working males of all colors who are not afraid to get their hands dirty. Otherwise your politicians are gonna orches…

>>Someone's gotta build and repair those self driving trucks, ey? And it won't be robots or software developers with a laptop, it's gonna be non educated hard working males of all colors who are not afraid to get their hands dirty. Presumably it will mostly be the people who currently repair the trucks continuing to do so, which still creates the problem of what to do with the former truck drivers replaced by autonom…

Autonomous truck towers for instance. Because there's gonna be a lot of towing until the autonomous trucks work out.

Re: Dalai Lama: Behind Our Anxiety, the Fear of Being Unneeded

#145

Post by imaginology »

sjclemmy wrote: post #16

It's odd, the world is the safest and most stable that it has ever been. There has never been a better time to be a human being, and yet, the media and certain politicians would have you believe that there is disaster after disaster, terrorist plots afoot around every corner, feeding your fear day after day. If ever there was an example of the devil at work, then that's it(and I'm not even religious). Uncertainty abo…

> It's odd, the world is the safest and most stable that it has ever been.

Tell that to Mother Earth, who is about to show us all who is boss. Climate change is much worse than most people realise.

You may also be unaware of what is going on in Syria, and the fact that NATO has ordered the deployment of thousands of troops to Eastern Europe to put pressure on Russia, a nuclear-armed country.

Re: Dalai Lama: Behind Our Anxiety, the Fear of Being Unneeded

#146

Post by iza »

orasis wrote: post #93

This is the big missing piece with basic income: People need meaning in their lives as much as they need money.

Personally I do not feel my job adds meaning to my life. In fact it deprives me of the time and energy to pursue the meaningful things I actually want to do.

Re: Dalai Lama: Behind Our Anxiety, the Fear of Being Unneeded

#147

Post by sctb »

ChefDenominator wrote: post #130

I have asked almost everyone I know if they have a subscription to: nytimes.com wsj.com forbes.com Guess what? I don't even have any minor acquaintances with subscriptions to these sites. So how come every single aggregator that I visit has articles from these sites commonly among the top and featured positions?

Please stop reposting this. See also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989.

Re: Dalai Lama: Behind Our Anxiety, the Fear of Being Unneeded

#148

Post by tim333 »

rokhayakebe wrote: post #101
sjclemmy wrote: post #16

It's odd, the world is the safest and most stable that it has ever been. There has never been a better time to be a human being, and yet, the media and certain politicians would have you believe that there is disaster after disaster, terrorist plots afoot around every corner, feeding your fear day after day. If ever there was an example of the devil at work, then that's it(and I'm not even religious). Uncertainty abo…

There has never been a better time to be a human being Very myopic, first world, privileged view of the world.

The non first world is on a roll just now, in terms of wealth and life expectancy at any rate.

Re: Dalai Lama: Behind Our Anxiety, the Fear of Being Unneeded

#149

Post by blueprint »

Not necessarily. For most people, yes. But for those with eyes open the anxiety and agony is that our solutions are needed but that we cannot enlighten human societies. The best we seem to be able to do is either fund activities on our own or find those who have kept themselves true enough to be able to understand, recognize, correctly learn, and practice truths. But it's difficult to find those who want to know, so while valuable, this way is quite arduous and lonely. The Dalai Lama may talk about western psychology's abandonment and bonding conditions, but he has not wanted to meet even me as I know the one truth that he has not been able to realize even half of one of Buddha's teachings.

Re: Dalai Lama: Behind Our Anxiety, the Fear of Being Unneeded

#150

Post by eeeeeeeeeeeee »

wozer wrote: post #70
sjclemmy wrote: post #16

It's odd, the world is the safest and most stable that it has ever been. There has never been a better time to be a human being, and yet, the media and certain politicians would have you believe that there is disaster after disaster, terrorist plots afoot around every corner, feeding your fear day after day. If ever there was an example of the devil at work, then that's it(and I'm not even religious). Uncertainty abo…

As the Dalai Lama writes, to feel needed is a basic human need. For more and more people, this need is NOT fulfilled. So, no, this is not the best time to be a human being.

In that entire article, that is the one thing you took away and felt the need to comment about here?

He never said this was the best time for every single human being in the entire world, nor did he say that now will definitely be better than the future. I think this was obvious for anyone reading it.

It's unfortunate that you chose to focus on such a small part of the overall theme he was trying to make.

And the theme was not just about physical need, but all human need. And if the point he was trying to make was that some humans do not get the basic necessities, the article would have been about that. But the fact that we see many people that DO have their basic human needs met and still feel they have no purpose, speaks to a much larger issue than curing poverty.

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