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Have you ever met an American? We're not as wealthy as you might think. Income is offset by cost of living, we're not exactly bathing in gold-plated rose petals

Have you ever met an American? We're not as wealthy as you might think. Income is offset by cost of living, we're not exactly bathing in gold-plated rose petals. Quality of life for the average citizen is not that different from any other civilized country. Xenophobia (which is not shared by the entire population) is not specific to the states either. Do you watch European news? What's happening in China with the Uighurs? In fact, I would argue that most countries are more xenophobic if anything, they just don't have to deal with as many foreigners who want to move there and people here are actually more used to immigrants than in other places where everyone is 'the same'. In Latin America, xenophobia is gaining ground as well with the Venezuelan crisis and this is an instance where the immigrants are people of the same race/culture. > as Nietzsche explained.. Are you sure he wasn't talking about himself?

dnomad 8y ago
> Xenophobia (which is not shared by the entire population) is not specific to the states either. I think the investment hypothesis is a bit more subtle than that. It goes beyond mere xenophobia into a kind of devout isolationism. What we're interested in are technologies and trends that promote loneliness. Facebook can be pressed into service for classical xenophobia, but you need Twitter -- pure rapid-fire alerts, shorn of all social context -- to really draw in the paranoiac. Youtube with its never ending flood of videos about new threats, new dangers, and new outrages, all packaged neatly into 30-minute videos. Reddit is another prime example of "anonymous networks" that provide unity through division. When evaluating technologies that might appeal to the paranoiac we're looking for whatever helps people throw up walls, makes them more mobile, lets them hide, lets them engage in only very limited contact on their own terms. We really like robots of all sorts -- not just physical bots that deliver food but highly customized algorithms that can deliver fake news and sex bots that can deliver fake love... anything that reduces or eliminates daily contact with the dreaded Other (human beings).

dnomad 8y ago

> Xenophobia (which is not shared by the entire population) is not specific to the states either. I think the investment hypothesis is a bit more subtle than that. It goes beyond mere xenophobia into a kind of devout isolationism. What we're interested in are technologies and trends that promote loneliness. Facebook can be pressed into service for classical xenophobia, but you need Twitter -- pure rapid-fire alerts, shorn of all social context -- to really draw in the paranoiac. Youtube with its never ending flood of videos about new threats, new dangers, and new outrages, all packaged neatly into 30-minute videos. Reddit is another prime example of "anonymous networks" that provide unity through division. When evaluating technologies that might appeal to the paranoiac we're looking for whatever helps people throw up walls, makes them more mobile, lets them hide, lets them engage in only very limited contact on their own terms. We really like robots of all sorts -- not just physical bots that deliver food but highly customized algorithms that can deliver fake news and sex bots that can deliver fake love... anything that reduces or eliminates daily contact with the dreaded Other (human beings).