6 ms·
I feel this, thank you. I've started reading again, because reddit/instagram/etc. has become kind of boring for me? Like, I still go on them to get an instant
by cyrialize 3y ago
I feel this, thank you.
I've started reading again, because reddit/instagram/etc. has become kind of boring for me? Like, I still go on them to get an instant dopamine hit from time to time, but like you said burying yourself in a textbook just feels so much more rewarding.
- xanderlewis 3y agoMaybe someone needs to start a small group of people who specifically want to do this — seek refuge from the chaotic and increasingly worrying world (in particular the threat of replacement by extremely general automated systems) by immersing themselves in learning, and sharing the results with others. I’m sure such groups already exist, but maybe not specifically with this goal in mind. Learning for its own sake really is the answer to lasting happiness… for some of us, anyway.
- chpmrc 3y agoI don't think it's too far fetched to hypothesize that the next major global conflict will be between accelerators (e/acc) and decelerators. I see a parallel with political/economic ideologies like capitalism and communism. One of them will eventually prevail (for most of the world) but it won't be clear which until it happens. Scary but also exciting times ahead!
- yyyk 3y agoI can't imagine any coherent 'deceleratorionist' political program. It will be all different flavors of acc.
- ethbr1 3y ago> seek refuge from the chaotic and increasingly worrying world (in particular the threat of replacement by extremely general automated systems) by immersing themselves in learning, and sharing the results with others. Since 529 CE! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benedictines https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benedictines
- xanderlewis 3y agoI skimmed the article and couldn’t see which part was particularly relevant. Can you point out the similarity? If you’re just talking about the idea of becoming a monk: yes, I very much like the idea of becoming a modern, digitally-enabled monk.
- phist_mcgee 3y agoI think his point is that people have felt like the world is going to shit for a very long time, it's just that with the presence of hindsight we can see that in the past everything worked out, but we can't see the future so our present is troubling. But none of these feelings are new, just different problems manifesting the same.
- Solvency 3y agoIs this a joke? Go outside. Go hiking. Make a garden. Visit Yosemite. Take up bouldering. Learn to surf. Cycle. Go camping. There's a world of living and massive communities but around real life. Explore what your body and mind can do together. Find kinship because it's out there in spades for people not obsessed with the automation of machined content.
- xanderlewis 3y agoWhat about it makes you think I’m joking?
- _njyk 3y agoSan Francisco, Zurich, etc are quite different from other places in the world. No mountains here + no garden for me, Yosemite is thousands of kilometers away. The sea has no waves. It's -5 degrees. Which is "fine", but it means that indoor activities are more prevalent, including computers. And I'm sure for some other people their options are way more restricted.
- mtlmtlmtlmtl 3y agoI've got about a million things I'd like to delve into if such a group existed(let's call it a realist monastery?) The key though is to avoid becoming a cult.
- xanderlewis 3y agoCults presumably need leaders, and there wouldn’t be one. It would be kind of like a church though. But we worship pure knowledge and learning.
- anigbrowl 3y agoWe could call it...a university.
- theendisney 3y agoSure but since we know everything we know will be wrong in 500-1000 years we might as well register it as a church complete with creation myths. :)
- xanderlewis 3y agoHey, Euclid's ideas from 2000+ years ago are still going strong. I doubt much of what we know today will turn out to be wrong. Maybe our abstractions will turn out to have been naive or suboptimal, but at least they're demonstrably predictive. They're not just quackery or mysticism.
- theendisney 3y agoThings dont have to be wrong to be considered wrong :)
- xanderlewis 3y agoWell… in subjects like mathematics they kind of do, don’t they? There’s not much room for opinion on what’s true and what isn’t. Of course, how something is done or the language used to describe it is always up for debate. You did say ‘wrong’, though, not ‘considered wrong’.
- samus 3y agoSuch groups are by definition reclusive, hard to find on social media, and might be a lot more fringe or "weird" than you'd prefer. For a while, subreddits were a bit like this.
- jprete 3y agoI've abandoned all online content sources except HN, Substack, and YouTube. The latter two are aggressively filtered and still feel like they're getting less interesting over time. HN isn't the best habit, either, but it's good to have at least one source of news.