8 ms·

The cancer has befallen the whole planet. Everything will be made to money. The whole world is becoming one big machine.

wrong_variable 11y ago
Damn, glass half empty much ?
- sunnybythesea 11y ago
  what glass?
- rbanffy 11y ago
  A bank owns the glass. You just rent it.
losteric 11y ago
We're seeing the rise of humanity's vile offspring (to borrow from Accelerando)... ethereal ideas birthed from greed and made corporeal by law, financial machines beyond the power or comprehension of individuals.
- sanderjd 11y ago
  At this point, I'm honestly not sure if this thread is a series of extremely pessimistic people, or a fairly clever riff on Lovecraftian doom writing.
  - StavrosK 11y ago
    Looks more like Kafka to me. Not enough "horror" and "unspeakable" to be Lovecraft.
    - sanderjd 11y ago
      Nah, Kafka is more banal.
  - EC1 11y ago
    What part of it isn't true though? Don't look at how it reads, just read the words. I feel the same way, like you're being stomped in the face every day by an invisible boot except nobody knows who's wearing it, but we all feel it. We are collectively losing our identities and blending into one due to how hyper connected we are and how available cheap forms of entertainment are. It's all quite eerie. I still haven't really found a way to articulate it but I'd love to chat with someone more in depth about it.
    - mikekchar 11y ago
      Earlier someone said that they want to opt out of the whole thing. Although I'm not you and I can't know precisely what you are feeling, I'm going to make an educated guess that this is the key to your freedom. This invisible boot is an illusion. I once read an article on privilege. The idea is that if you were a slave owner, you could "promote" some of your slaves to be "head slaves". This privilege creates a kind of vacuum. Instead of wanting to be free, slaves compete to become "head slave". If you randomly promote some every once in a while, it erases the idea that slaves should want to be free. Even without some tinfoil hat inspired cabal, you can probably imagine how we have managed to enslave ourselves. If you make or have a lot of money, you can use it for privilege. People compete for this privilege instead of considering if they would rather be free. A small proportion of people become rich -- through hard work, or luck (it doesn't actually matter), keeping the system going. I don't recommend quitting society altogether :-) You don't need to indulge in some self-sufficiency, neck beard fantasy, but I recommend making something entirely from scratch. See if you can borrow some land for a season and grow a garden, or make beer, or sew something... whatever. The closer to scratch you can do it, the better, but don't stress about it. Then, once you have something nice, wander over to your neighbours and give it to them. Keep doing that. It helps to get good at only one thing so that you don't get overwhelmed. Next, look at how much money you spend. Try to challenge yourself to see how little money you could spend and still be happy. We're trying to break the weird "obvious" rules that everybody else lives by, so try not to accumulate too much money. The more you can shrink the amount you need, the easier it will be to be happy with the amount that you have. At the same time, stop reading the newspaper and watching TV news programs. Instead, challenge yourself to think about, "What is actually important to me. Do I care that North Korea is creating missiles. Even if I do, is there anything I want to do about it?". Keep trying to shrink the amount of useless drama in your life. Find ways to be alerted to the things that you care about and that you want to act on. It's best that the number of those kinds of things are very small because otherwise you will wear yourself out. Try your best to actually do something positive about those very small number of things. After that, I think you will find that you are no longer being stomped in the face every day. At worst, some clueless people are tripping over you every once in a while. It hurts sometimes, but it's not something that has to trouble you too much. Yes, you have to pay taxes and yes, evil people are spending that tax money on things you don't like. But, unless this is the one thing that you want to fix in your life, it's just useless drama. Give them the damn money -- you don't need it anyway. Yes, you have to obey laws, even the ones you don't agree with. Fight the bad ones that you need to fight and save your strength wrt to ones you don't need to fight. Yes, there are jerks everywhere you look -- even your neighbours. But the more you get to know your neighbours, the easier it will be to create a mini society where everyone is reasonably friendly and occasionally people drop by to give you home made jam. In other words, just step off the escalator to weird-ville. It doesn't have to be eerie.
  - eli_gottlieb 11y ago
    Welcome to how I perceive most of the rest of everyone. What weird fear-drugs are they even on?
    - berntb 11y ago
      I have been on both sides of the fence. I had continuous allergy problems without knowing it for a large part of my life. Among the effects were a minor depression. When I got rid of the allergies I had a bit of an identity conflict, I wasn't the one I thought. My humour and world view weren't as dark, I liked people more. It is a strange to adjust your self image so much after 40.
      - leonroy 11y ago
        Did change in diet play a part in getting rid of your allergies? I only ask because a great deal of recent research suggests our behaviour is strongly affected by our gut bacteria which are in turn affected by our overall diet.
        berntb 11y ago
        Well, a diet without allergens made a big difference. :-) Also, I lowered coffee/sugar intak drastically when I wasn't tired all the time. I still have the allergies. They got worse, which is why their existence obvious. (The main problem it took time was that I was bad for five days after eating anything wrong, so I never really saw anything but sick.)
  - rbanffy 11y ago
    People work a lot, are more productive than ever and, yet, the benefits of that are disproportionately funnelled to a tiny minority who owns the means of production. Most of the people consider this arrangement is moral, viable and sustainable and will defend it to their death. Why would we be pessimistic?
    - vlehto 11y ago
      And the only alternative seems to be to swich the guys who get the money funnel. Or some other guys who get the money funnel. Or some other guys... Yup. Feeling pessimist now.
  - arcanus 11y ago
    I was getting a more cyberpunk vibe, but I like where you are going regardless.
imtringued 11y ago
We fear superhuman AI yet we don't realise we already are that hypothetical paperclip maximiser.
- arcanus 11y ago
  Reminds me of the quote from the game Deus Ex: The checks and balances of democratic governments were invented because human beings themselves realized how unfit they were to govern themselves. They needed a system, an industrial-age machine. Without the use of computing machines our ancestors had to arrange themselves in crude structures that formalized decision-making. Now are merely developing a decision-making system that does not involve organic beings.

wrong_variable 11y ago

Damn, glass half empty much ?

sunnybythesea 11y ago
what glass?
rbanffy 11y ago
A bank owns the glass. You just rent it.

losteric 11y ago

We're seeing the rise of humanity's vile offspring (to borrow from Accelerando)... ethereal ideas birthed from greed and made corporeal by law, financial machines beyond the power or comprehension of individuals.

sanderjd 11y ago
At this point, I'm honestly not sure if this thread is a series of extremely pessimistic people, or a fairly clever riff on Lovecraftian doom writing.
- StavrosK 11y ago
  Looks more like Kafka to me. Not enough "horror" and "unspeakable" to be Lovecraft.
  - sanderjd 11y ago
    Nah, Kafka is more banal.
- EC1 11y ago
  What part of it isn't true though? Don't look at how it reads, just read the words. I feel the same way, like you're being stomped in the face every day by an invisible boot except nobody knows who's wearing it, but we all feel it. We are collectively losing our identities and blending into one due to how hyper connected we are and how available cheap forms of entertainment are. It's all quite eerie. I still haven't really found a way to articulate it but I'd love to chat with someone more in depth about it.
  - mikekchar 11y ago
    Earlier someone said that they want to opt out of the whole thing. Although I'm not you and I can't know precisely what you are feeling, I'm going to make an educated guess that this is the key to your freedom. This invisible boot is an illusion. I once read an article on privilege. The idea is that if you were a slave owner, you could "promote" some of your slaves to be "head slaves". This privilege creates a kind of vacuum. Instead of wanting to be free, slaves compete to become "head slave". If you randomly promote some every once in a while, it erases the idea that slaves should want to be free. Even without some tinfoil hat inspired cabal, you can probably imagine how we have managed to enslave ourselves. If you make or have a lot of money, you can use it for privilege. People compete for this privilege instead of considering if they would rather be free. A small proportion of people become rich -- through hard work, or luck (it doesn't actually matter), keeping the system going. I don't recommend quitting society altogether :-) You don't need to indulge in some self-sufficiency, neck beard fantasy, but I recommend making something entirely from scratch. See if you can borrow some land for a season and grow a garden, or make beer, or sew something... whatever. The closer to scratch you can do it, the better, but don't stress about it. Then, once you have something nice, wander over to your neighbours and give it to them. Keep doing that. It helps to get good at only one thing so that you don't get overwhelmed. Next, look at how much money you spend. Try to challenge yourself to see how little money you could spend and still be happy. We're trying to break the weird "obvious" rules that everybody else lives by, so try not to accumulate too much money. The more you can shrink the amount you need, the easier it will be to be happy with the amount that you have. At the same time, stop reading the newspaper and watching TV news programs. Instead, challenge yourself to think about, "What is actually important to me. Do I care that North Korea is creating missiles. Even if I do, is there anything I want to do about it?". Keep trying to shrink the amount of useless drama in your life. Find ways to be alerted to the things that you care about and that you want to act on. It's best that the number of those kinds of things are very small because otherwise you will wear yourself out. Try your best to actually do something positive about those very small number of things. After that, I think you will find that you are no longer being stomped in the face every day. At worst, some clueless people are tripping over you every once in a while. It hurts sometimes, but it's not something that has to trouble you too much. Yes, you have to pay taxes and yes, evil people are spending that tax money on things you don't like. But, unless this is the one thing that you want to fix in your life, it's just useless drama. Give them the damn money -- you don't need it anyway. Yes, you have to obey laws, even the ones you don't agree with. Fight the bad ones that you need to fight and save your strength wrt to ones you don't need to fight. Yes, there are jerks everywhere you look -- even your neighbours. But the more you get to know your neighbours, the easier it will be to create a mini society where everyone is reasonably friendly and occasionally people drop by to give you home made jam. In other words, just step off the escalator to weird-ville. It doesn't have to be eerie.
- eli_gottlieb 11y ago
  Welcome to how I perceive most of the rest of everyone. What weird fear-drugs are they even on?
  - berntb 11y ago
    I have been on both sides of the fence. I had continuous allergy problems without knowing it for a large part of my life. Among the effects were a minor depression. When I got rid of the allergies I had a bit of an identity conflict, I wasn't the one I thought. My humour and world view weren't as dark, I liked people more. It is a strange to adjust your self image so much after 40.
    - leonroy 11y ago
      Did change in diet play a part in getting rid of your allergies? I only ask because a great deal of recent research suggests our behaviour is strongly affected by our gut bacteria which are in turn affected by our overall diet.
      - berntb 11y ago
        Well, a diet without allergens made a big difference. :-) Also, I lowered coffee/sugar intak drastically when I wasn't tired all the time. I still have the allergies. They got worse, which is why their existence obvious. (The main problem it took time was that I was bad for five days after eating anything wrong, so I never really saw anything but sick.)
- rbanffy 11y ago
  People work a lot, are more productive than ever and, yet, the benefits of that are disproportionately funnelled to a tiny minority who owns the means of production. Most of the people consider this arrangement is moral, viable and sustainable and will defend it to their death. Why would we be pessimistic?
  - vlehto 11y ago
    And the only alternative seems to be to swich the guys who get the money funnel. Or some other guys who get the money funnel. Or some other guys... Yup. Feeling pessimist now.
- arcanus 11y ago
  I was getting a more cyberpunk vibe, but I like where you are going regardless.

imtringued 11y ago

We fear superhuman AI yet we don't realise we already are that hypothetical paperclip maximiser.

arcanus 11y ago
Reminds me of the quote from the game Deus Ex: The checks and balances of democratic governments were invented because human beings themselves realized how unfit they were to govern themselves. They needed a system, an industrial-age machine. Without the use of computing machines our ancestors had to arrange themselves in crude structures that formalized decision-making. Now are merely developing a decision-making system that does not involve organic beings.