It’s lead to plenty of good as well, a luddite I am not. I love my tech. I love conversing with people online, I became a happy mIRC user well over 20 years ago, I use telegram & discord daily. I just really, really despise tech’s current trajectory. I grew up wanting this stuff to supplement my life, not control & rule over it. The days where I want to toss it all in the trash and run off to the woods are increasing all the time. I didn’t want an internet where i’m constantly having to ask myself every image… is this real? I certainly don’t want one that’s constantly surveilling me and I definitely don’t want one that’s about to threaten to lock me out, or up(!), the moment I commit wrongspeak.
The analogy would be a 17 year old kid passing his driving test and getting straight in a 500bhp rear wheel drive sports car. We as a society have just collectively done that over the last two decades. And it feels like we’re just about to take it nuclear with AI.
So we can dwell on all of that past or set ourselves some basic goals and ambitions to aim for. Refocus. Change the conversation.
Somebody responded to me earlier that “at least we have reusable rockets”. Do you know what I really want? It’s really quite basic - clean air, clean water and clean energy. Let’s collectively work to tick those three off the list, for every.single.soul here on this planet first, then after that, we can focus on making them free for everybody. Then we can set our sights on the stars.