9 ms·

We cannot heal the wasteland within while creating a wasteland without. We cannot fix the problem until we recognize the problem: industrial society and the hub

by fogzen 4y ago

We cannot heal the wasteland within while creating a wasteland without. We cannot fix the problem until we recognize the problem: industrial society and the hubris of technological progress. The more we attempt to improve on nature, the more we destroy nature and ourselves. We have alienated ourselves and our soul in the aimless pursuit of progress. We have gained little yet lost nearly everything. But why must we progress? Nature is fine as it is. We are fine as we are. Our internal and external wasteland is caused by the blind pursuit of decadent desire. Epicurus had a garden. When was the last time you spent the day in a garden, napped under the shade of a tree, smelled the plants and the flowers, and saw the moon and the stars in all their glory?

082349872349872 4y ago
For me, HN is a largely-textmode garden, without whose walls are a cacophony of autoplay shorts, and within whose walls I may hope to find conversation and the ingredients for an active life of the mind. (NB: dang serves as a bit of a fountain: hope springs eternal in his patient moderation, and we are grateful in return!)
- Gordonjcp 4y ago
  HN isn't great for conversations because if you post more than a couple of times in a thread you start getting "You're posting too fast" messages.
  - eimrine 4y ago
    HN is maybe fits better for conversations between humans, it really sucks if you have to post one message per minute or faster.
csdvrx 4y ago
> We have alienated ourselves and our soul in the aimless pursuit of progress. Evidence required
- moe091 4y ago
  Gestures widely at the world
- eimrine 4y ago
  Pursuit of anything is a pain for the pursuiter, I mean otherwise he might be just calm.
nathan_compton 4y ago
"Nature is fine as it is. We are fine as we are." I used to feel this way sometimes, but now I see this as a facile capitulation to the complexity of life. I have a kid. 100 years ago there would be a damn good chance they wouldn't make it to adulthood and now its a virtual certainty. I'm delighted about that. It is funny that we are all using the garden as a metaphor here. A garden isn't natural. It is a technological artifact. A subjugation of nature as surely as a parking lot (though assuredly more subtle). We have the power to act in the world. Nature has produced in us a profound power to act. We can't pretend it doesn't exist.
- pelasaco 4y ago
  > I have a kid. 100 years ago there would be a damn good chance they wouldn't make it to adulthood and now its a virtual certainty. I'm delighted about that. Unless some nihilism crazy person, full of cocain, decides that the school and the kids there are responsible for his or her problems. The self-critics exercised in the west is destroying it's civilization. Last week was in US, yesterday in Brazil. Berlin, almost every day.
  - yamtaddle 4y ago
    The odds of this remain effectively nil. The numbers are readily available. Cars, ODs, and suicide are much bigger concerns for those with kids. Or should be. Any one of those dwarfs the risk of death or injury in a school shooting, which is so far down the list that it's in the company of a ton of things that nobody ever gives a thought. Separately, school shootings are a national disgrace and shouldn't happen, certainly not at anything like the rate they do, but they're not actually a risk worth worrying about on an individual level.
    - pelasaco 4y ago
      > Cars, ODs, and suicide are much bigger concerns for those with kids. Well swimming pool, but thats are either accidents or personal tragedies. It always happened, it will always happens. > Separately, school shootings are a national disgrace and shouldn't happen school shooting or school Rampage is a world problem. Another countries with less guns, but still a world problem. > but they're not actually a risk worth worrying about on an individual level. Statistics are good for argumentation (50 million kids in the schools, just 2000 injured in shootings), but if you have kids in the elementary school, or school in general, you will worry on an individual level. Actually the pools supports that https://www.cbsnews.com/news/gun-violence-schools-parents-children-opinion-poll-2022-06-05/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/gun-violence-schools-parents-ch...
FredPret 4y ago
Here’s the thing. Homo Sapiens’ ancestors used technology, including tools. We evolved into, and in the context of, a technological environment.
- 4dayworkweek4u 4y ago
  Yes... but it happened slowly! Now there is a ground breaking tech break through every 5 minutes -- that forever changes life as we know it. What about the unintended consequences? (Planes can help move people/resources around -- also pandemics!) How long before AI will be editing our genes...?
randomopining 4y ago
Evolutionary pressure in the form of intra-human competition. Look at CCP China vs the US. China is going to add like 80% of new coal-powered power plants. All so they can get cheap energy to get ahead of the US/West. The US has done the same thing. Businesses are run by people who want to earn money to get ahead of others. Yeah some business are legit creating new things, but many are just making people want to buy useless widgets or waste their time on an ad pipeline platform.
- moe091 4y ago
  The current stage of development of consciousness that the world is going through(and seemingly reaching the end of) is one of competition and individualism. There are good and bad aspects of this, as with all other stages of development, but the level selfishness that comes along with it and motivates individuals to destroy things in order to outdo each other isn't a universal thing, in the grand scheme of the development of human consciousness it's just one of many phases. That's the main reason why I think there's no legislating or protesting our way out of the big problems(though that doesn't mean those things are useless). The way only way out is through the development and maturation of humanity. Obviously you can't force that on people though, all you can do is focus on your own self-development and give others the respect and dignity required not to impede on their own self-development, regardless of how much you may disagree or dislike them
moe091 4y ago
People aren't going to like this, if most people did then the modern age wouldn't be what it is. I think it's important for people to see things from outside the bias of their current age, the "spirit of the times", before they can do anything other than perpetuate the existing modern biases and blindspots. Which isn't an easy thing to do, even if everyone learned the historical context of the world and learned about the changes in societies and personalities over time, it's very difficult not to view all that context through the filter of modern perspectives and miss the essence of it completely
codersfocus 4y ago
> We have gained little Every prayer of man has been answered by technology. We used to have deities for food, with starvation always looming over our heads. Now, peoples biggest problem is avoiding being fat. We used to have deities for fertility. IVF makes the miracle of a virgin birth from fantasy to reality. We used to pray to gods of war for the destruction of our enemies. Now, with atomic bombs, we are capable of destroying almost every living thing. Continue on, for every almost every deity in the Parthenon of ancient religions.
- 4dayworkweek4u 4y ago
  Tech in and of itself is neither good/bad... Lots of modern tech too quickly + humans = bad. Humans haven't evolved for all this tech and will keep taking it in stupid directions: (Grey dense mega-cities, junk food, junk entertainment/metaverse, sedentary isolated lifestyle, hedonism, addiction, drugs (1/4 US women on psych meds, antibiotics resistant super bugs), globalism (pandemics can spread in days to everywhere), p0rn/online dating, pollution, AI gene editing (where the AI takes over), mass techno AI surveillance state, brain chips, turning in to cyborgs, global financial crashes, etc). Compare that to living a simple life with friends/family in a tight knit rural community. Develop tech... but slowly....... Do we need 7G brain-chip internet in our cyborg bodies tomorrow?

by fogzen 4y ago

082349872349872 4y ago

For me, HN is a largely-textmode garden, without whose walls are a cacophony of autoplay shorts, and within whose walls I may hope to find conversation and the ingredients for an active life of the mind. (NB: dang serves as a bit of a fountain: hope springs eternal in his patient moderation, and we are grateful in return!)

Gordonjcp 4y ago
HN isn't great for conversations because if you post more than a couple of times in a thread you start getting "You're posting too fast" messages.
- eimrine 4y ago
  HN is maybe fits better for conversations between humans, it really sucks if you have to post one message per minute or faster.

csdvrx 4y ago

> We have alienated ourselves and our soul in the aimless pursuit of progress. Evidence required

moe091 4y ago
Gestures widely at the world
eimrine 4y ago
Pursuit of anything is a pain for the pursuiter, I mean otherwise he might be just calm.

nathan_compton 4y ago

"Nature is fine as it is. We are fine as we are." I used to feel this way sometimes, but now I see this as a facile capitulation to the complexity of life. I have a kid. 100 years ago there would be a damn good chance they wouldn't make it to adulthood and now its a virtual certainty. I'm delighted about that. It is funny that we are all using the garden as a metaphor here. A garden isn't natural. It is a technological artifact. A subjugation of nature as surely as a parking lot (though assuredly more subtle). We have the power to act in the world. Nature has produced in us a profound power to act. We can't pretend it doesn't exist.

pelasaco 4y ago
> I have a kid. 100 years ago there would be a damn good chance they wouldn't make it to adulthood and now its a virtual certainty. I'm delighted about that. Unless some nihilism crazy person, full of cocain, decides that the school and the kids there are responsible for his or her problems. The self-critics exercised in the west is destroying it's civilization. Last week was in US, yesterday in Brazil. Berlin, almost every day.
- yamtaddle 4y ago
  The odds of this remain effectively nil. The numbers are readily available. Cars, ODs, and suicide are much bigger concerns for those with kids. Or should be. Any one of those dwarfs the risk of death or injury in a school shooting, which is so far down the list that it's in the company of a ton of things that nobody ever gives a thought. Separately, school shootings are a national disgrace and shouldn't happen, certainly not at anything like the rate they do, but they're not actually a risk worth worrying about on an individual level.
  - pelasaco 4y ago
    > Cars, ODs, and suicide are much bigger concerns for those with kids. Well swimming pool, but thats are either accidents or personal tragedies. It always happened, it will always happens. > Separately, school shootings are a national disgrace and shouldn't happen school shooting or school Rampage is a world problem. Another countries with less guns, but still a world problem. > but they're not actually a risk worth worrying about on an individual level. Statistics are good for argumentation (50 million kids in the schools, just 2000 injured in shootings), but if you have kids in the elementary school, or school in general, you will worry on an individual level. Actually the pools supports that https://www.cbsnews.com/news/gun-violence-schools-parents-children-opinion-poll-2022-06-05/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/gun-violence-schools-parents-ch...

FredPret 4y ago

Here’s the thing. Homo Sapiens’ ancestors used technology, including tools. We evolved into, and in the context of, a technological environment.

4dayworkweek4u 4y ago
Yes... but it happened slowly! Now there is a ground breaking tech break through every 5 minutes -- that forever changes life as we know it. What about the unintended consequences? (Planes can help move people/resources around -- also pandemics!) How long before AI will be editing our genes...?

randomopining 4y ago

Evolutionary pressure in the form of intra-human competition. Look at CCP China vs the US. China is going to add like 80% of new coal-powered power plants. All so they can get cheap energy to get ahead of the US/West. The US has done the same thing. Businesses are run by people who want to earn money to get ahead of others. Yeah some business are legit creating new things, but many are just making people want to buy useless widgets or waste their time on an ad pipeline platform.

moe091 4y ago
The current stage of development of consciousness that the world is going through(and seemingly reaching the end of) is one of competition and individualism. There are good and bad aspects of this, as with all other stages of development, but the level selfishness that comes along with it and motivates individuals to destroy things in order to outdo each other isn't a universal thing, in the grand scheme of the development of human consciousness it's just one of many phases. That's the main reason why I think there's no legislating or protesting our way out of the big problems(though that doesn't mean those things are useless). The way only way out is through the development and maturation of humanity. Obviously you can't force that on people though, all you can do is focus on your own self-development and give others the respect and dignity required not to impede on their own self-development, regardless of how much you may disagree or dislike them

moe091 4y ago

People aren't going to like this, if most people did then the modern age wouldn't be what it is. I think it's important for people to see things from outside the bias of their current age, the "spirit of the times", before they can do anything other than perpetuate the existing modern biases and blindspots. Which isn't an easy thing to do, even if everyone learned the historical context of the world and learned about the changes in societies and personalities over time, it's very difficult not to view all that context through the filter of modern perspectives and miss the essence of it completely

codersfocus 4y ago

> We have gained little Every prayer of man has been answered by technology. We used to have deities for food, with starvation always looming over our heads. Now, peoples biggest problem is avoiding being fat. We used to have deities for fertility. IVF makes the miracle of a virgin birth from fantasy to reality. We used to pray to gods of war for the destruction of our enemies. Now, with atomic bombs, we are capable of destroying almost every living thing. Continue on, for every almost every deity in the Parthenon of ancient religions.

4dayworkweek4u 4y ago
Tech in and of itself is neither good/bad... Lots of modern tech too quickly + humans = bad. Humans haven't evolved for all this tech and will keep taking it in stupid directions: (Grey dense mega-cities, junk food, junk entertainment/metaverse, sedentary isolated lifestyle, hedonism, addiction, drugs (1/4 US women on psych meds, antibiotics resistant super bugs), globalism (pandemics can spread in days to everywhere), p0rn/online dating, pollution, AI gene editing (where the AI takes over), mass techno AI surveillance state, brain chips, turning in to cyborgs, global financial crashes, etc). Compare that to living a simple life with friends/family in a tight knit rural community. Develop tech... but slowly....... Do we need 7G brain-chip internet in our cyborg bodies tomorrow?