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Everything has always been "too complicated", it's the default state of the natural world. Just imagine the baffling profusion of problems that occur from ques
by Terr_ 6mo ago
Everything has always been "too complicated", it's the default state of the natural world.
Just imagine the baffling profusion of problems that occur from questions like "is that the same plant", or "is that berry safe to eat", or "which kind of sickness is everyone catching and which thing is going to help?" The complexity never went away, we simply made ways to manage it so that it's not seen as often.
So now we don't need divine the complex whims of the ocean god who destroyed the village"... but instead we get to think of the complexity of seismometers and rules about building near tsunami areas.
- _nxwj 6mo agoThe difference I'm trying to discuss is when humans started molding the world to our desires in the forms of agriculture, raising animals as resources, and interfering with ecological cycles. You are right, living in the natural world today would be impossible for most people, requiring generations of local knowledge spread across the community. I should have clarified my meaning of complexity as that which is purely human-made.
- _wire_ 6mo agoYes the world has always been utterly mysterious. What's cuckoo today is the world is made, and it's not just mysterious it's crazy. The european intellect is looking like a disease, an aberration, like a maladaptation that's chasing itself seeking a correction, except the rectification is just a recursive continuation of the disease. And there are very good reasons to anticipate that humanity may be exterminated by this pathology. Painful to find that your capacity to recognize the malaise is the cause of the malaise.
- KurSix 6mo agoMaybe the key difference is that natural complexity asks for adaptation, while human-made complexity often asks for submission
- balamatom 6mo agoDing ding ding we have a winner. Salivate!
- Terr_ 6mo agoYou mean like this? A: If you eat this plant before boiling it, it kills you. By boiling it first, I've submitted to natural complexity. B: If you touch this wire without turning off the power, it kills you. By turning it off first, I've adapted to artificial complexity. You're just picking between two near-synonyms based on how one sounds scarier.
- card_zero 6mo agoIs The Thinking Game, which sounds like a pile of poop, pivotal to your worries, or did you just mention it in passing?
- _nxwj 6mo agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d95J8yzvjbQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d95J8yzvjbQ
- II2II 6mo agoYet that human complexity was often created to help us deal with natural complexity. Nature is indifferent. One year may produce an overabundance that the hunter/gatherer may take advantage of, yet the next year may be opposite and people will die from famine. So we learned how to preserve food as best we could. Yet that would result in a growth of population, an over population based on the resources available, so we learned how to grow our own food and manage livestock in order to avoid famine. That encourages the development of settlements. With denser populations disease is able to thrive, and, with trade, it is able to spread. So we learned how to manage waste. Each new development brings new pitfalls since we are meddling with the balance of nature. Or perhaps it is better to say that things are being balanced in new ways, so we must learn how to adapt to that. (We are, after all, a part of nature.) Sometimes we adapt to those changes in balance in ignorant and extraordinarily damaging ways. I am not denying that. On the other hand, not trying would have hindered the development of intelligence -- or, perhaps, resulted in our extinction.
- bitwize 6mo agoMaybe natural complexity is not supposed to be something we deal with, just something we live with. Adapt ourselves to, move in harmony with, rather than trying to adapt nature to our whims. The trees and rocks and rivers really do have things to say to us; maybe our duty here is just to shut up and listen.
- Terr_ 6mo ago> Maybe natural complexity is not supposed to be something we deal with, just something we live with. Your ancestors did that, and invented unknowable gods and spirits to explain/blame everything on, so that people can give up trying to understand or manage the unmanageable.
- cityofdelusion 6mo agoEvery species molds the world to their desires -- we are just much better at it. Competition and being killed by another species is the only thing that keeps things in check, and even then, you get parts of nature that end up being shaped and dominated by one species (beavers, ants, some fungi/bacteria). The world used to be a molten blob, to eventually an ocean full of mostly one species, to now, and eventually, a dead husk.
- pibaker 6mo ago> humans started molding the world to our desires in the forms of agriculture, raising animals as resources, and interfering with ecological cycles What makes human unique in this respect compared to any other species that modify their environment? Is a patch of lichen not interfering with ecological cycles when it breaks down the rocks it lives on into soil?
- KurSix 6mo agoComplexity itself obviously isn't new, and in many cases we've replaced terrifying, opaque natural uncertainty with systems that are much better at keeping people alive. But I think there's still a difference between complexity that is encountered and complexity that is administered through
- j_maffe 6mo agoBut society and civilization systems are inherently unadministered. No single person has a top down engineered view or control of this system. Even kings and pharaohs didn't have as much control as people would think.
- greenchair 6mo agoThings are definitely getting more complicated over time if your eyes are open. Vibe coding the core systems that run our world will accelerate this.
- emsign 6mo agoWe used to have gods of several domains each for taking up the blame for specific and (back then) inexplainable events. It at least gave the people closure or blueprints for action in order to appease them. Doesn't matter if it really had an effect. But since naturalism whichbset out to explain phenomena with science and logic doesn't give the same kind of closure and it leaves many confused and overwhelmed. Nobody understands everything, nobody is an expert in everything.