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We've made the world too complicated

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Re: We've made the world too complicated

#291

Post by hashmal »

numpad0 wrote: post #263
terbo wrote: post #141

"And here you find civilized man. Civilized man refused to adapt himself to his environment. Instead he adapted his environment to suit him. So he built cities, roads, vehicles, machinery. And he put up power lines to run his labour-saving devices. But he some how didn't know when to stop. The more he improved his surroundings to make life easier the more complicated he made it. So now his children are sentenced to 1…

The entire concept of kids and public schools is a wealth redistribution mechanism and a solution to problems created by the industrial revolution. The concept of younger humans always existed, but itwas supercharged to the degree we know today. Kids have infinite hit points and are easily manipulated. In a pure unregulated labor market, this drives out everyone but dumbest kids as laborers, and that's bad on many le…

It's a solution only at a superficial level, regarding wealth redistribution. It's just very hard to leave the social class you're born in. Not everyone is doomed by it, far from it, but not enough to consider it a solved problem.

Heck, it's not even considered a problem when your family is wealthy.

Re: We've made the world too complicated

#292

Post by latexr »

Aurornis wrote: post #187
terbo wrote: post #141

"And here you find civilized man. Civilized man refused to adapt himself to his environment. Instead he adapted his environment to suit him. So he built cities, roads, vehicles, machinery. And he put up power lines to run his labour-saving devices. But he some how didn't know when to stop. The more he improved his surroundings to make life easier the more complicated he made it. So now his children are sentenced to 1…

There are many parts of the world that are less civilized: Where children do not get 10-15 years of schooling and life is reduced to more simple survival. Not many people try to move toward those civilizations. The people in those civilizations usually try hard to leave them. Underneath the elegant writing style in that quote is just another variation of nostalgia for a past that didn’t exist. We like to romanticize…

> The quote above is just the high brow literature analog of TikTok tradwife content, both serving to feed angst about the present by contrasting with an idealized re-imagination of the past that only works if you don’t look too deep.

The quote is from the introduction of a comedy movie from 1980. Not high brow, not literature, before TikTok and tradwife content, before social media, not aiming to feed angst, not meant to be too deep. It’s the setup for 90 minutes of jokes.

Re: We've made the world too complicated

#293

Post by willguest »

the author is not describing the world. they are describing their experience of it. classic mistake, and quite an anxious version of it.

it's not wrong, but it is tangled in the waves...

people who choose to live in deep in ignorance do so well. many evil people sleep sweetly because they simply do not care.

those that care swim to the surface to escape the pressure, but there they find waves, smashing them against the cliffs.

the trick is to break free from the surface. clearly the author has the will, but not yet the tools. to help, i would suggest the following:

- learn the difference between complexity and complicatedness - learn about systems thinking - keep developing your emotional smarts, and actively use this capacity - read Krishnamurti

Re: We've made the world too complicated

#294

Post by CriticalRegion »

rixed wrote: post #242
stiglitz wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Described by Marx (in too many words, unfortunately) as “alienation”

Rather by Graeber (with way too many words still) as "bullshit jobs".

I get the appeal of his arguments but after reading the book, it just doesn't sit right with me. A lot if it reminds me too much of fascist arguments about how all of those city liberals don't do actual labor and the only "real jobs" are farm jobs or something.

Re: We've made the world too complicated

#295

Post by wolttam »

> Our internal intuition about right and wrong seems to leave us at an early age

Well, mine didn’t. It’s called respect and love your neighbours, treat others as you would like to be treated.

It’s pretty simple and feels deeply ingrained

Re: We've made the world too complicated

#296

Post by incr_me »

stiglitz wrote: post #162
keiferski wrote: post #49

I think this feeling of everything being too complex is a natural consequence of work that is done for long-term abstract ends, rather than immediate and local ones. At least I think it is for me. Working remotely for an international software company is great for its lifestyle flexibility, but sometimes I just want to be a baker, chef, bike repairman, etc. that solves an immediate problem for a real person standing…

Described by Marx (in too many words, unfortunately) as “alienation”

The reason Marx developed the more advanced category of commodity fetishism was, in a way, to expose the real alienation in the fantasy that one could opt out of "alienation" by becoming a baker, bike repairman, etc. The heart of a heartless world, indeed.

Re: We've made the world too complicated

#298

Post by CriticalRegion »

petre wrote: post #212
nradov wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much money and power is required? Should we stop technological development now or do humans still need new stuff?

Others won't stop it, the'll just invade later on. Look at Lebanon for instance.

Is your argument that Lebanon chose to stop advancing technologically and got invaded by a technologically superior nation for that?

Re: We've made the world too complicated

#299

Post by incr_me »

CriticalRegion wrote: post #294
rixed wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rather by Graeber (with way too many words still) as "bullshit jobs".

I get the appeal of his arguments but after reading the book, it just doesn't sit right with me. A lot if it reminds me too much of fascist arguments about how all of those city liberals don't do actual labor and the only "real jobs" are farm jobs or something.

I agree. I think Stardew Valley is an exhibition of pastoral fascism disguised as a liberal cozy game. A highly mystifying piece of art. I would give it more leeway if it weren't the fact that its utopian imagination is so limited; you build relationships by gifting the exact items the townspeople desire, production still market oriented, homelessness is understood as a choice, large corporations are violently negated in favor of petty production, etc.

For what it's worth, even ignoring the fact that "uselessness" is an ideologically mediated concept, and so taking his horizon for granted, Graeber's work is empirically incorrect. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/09500170211015067 His was the bullshit job.

Re: We've made the world too complicated

#300

Post by RGamma »

cityofdelusion wrote: post #153
_nxwj wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've read many accounts of the lives of mostly hunter-gatherer tribes living far more care-free and convenient lives. Yes they had no way of treating most diseases, facing natural disasters, and preventable deaths, but from what I understand the reports of scarcity and constant danger are far overblown, at least within certain periods. https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2025/09/anthropological-summer/

Survivorship bias. All the corpses aren't here to tell us anything. Just 100 years ago, most parents would bury at least one of their infant children. People back then were tough, because the physically and emotionally weak died off. Humanity's "natural state" is like the animals, to kill or be killed, to wage war, to reproduce, to die. The difference is we have a big brain that strongly incentivizes us to try to lea…

The natural ("prehistoric") state used to be a low density distribution of mobile tribes, which sidestepped a lot of the problems that afflict civilizations, like pandemics and local resource exhaustion.
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