Yeah, couple times, but not for years now. Fetishizing pre-industrial times sounds nice if you aren’t one of the many people who would have died or lived with an untreated illness or condition your whole life. You should look into what they did to that man in college. Then find someone more stable making similar points and saying similar things. Industrial skepticism isn’t unique to Ted Kaczynski. The truama and subsequent mental illness that pervade his theory and philosophy is.
Sure, the guy was a murderer and somewhat nuts, but this quote of his always rang true with me. This is, in a nutshell, the future: “But I am suggesting neither that the human race would voluntarily turn power over to the machines nor that the machines would willfully seize power. What I do suggest is that the human race might easily permit itself to drift into a position of such dependence on the machines that it would have no practical choice but to accept all of the machines’ decisions. Eventually a stage may be reached at which the decisions necessary to keep the system running will be so complex that human beings will be incapable of making them intelligently. At that stage the machines will be in effective control. People won’t be able to just turn the machines off, because they will be so dependent on them that turning them off would amount to suicide.”
I remember watching the Netflix series about him. I was shocked because I actually agreed with a lot of what he had to say about the society we’re living in right now. We’re at the brink of AI being a force that is no longer controllable. We’re seeing deepfakes and other shit that will ruin peoples life. And we’re moving towards a society where everything can be replaced with code.
I myself have grown up to these changes and it’s insane how much our world has changed over the last 30 years. It’s shocking.
I think the next hundred years will bring more changes to humanity than the last 10,000 years have. We have devised methods to gaslight ourselves; we’re moving into a world where the concept of truth is malleable and unknowable. The machines will get smarter, the rich will get richer. I’ll be 66 years old in about a month. I have many more yesterdays than tomorrows. I’m not looking forward to leaving this world, but I’m not particularly interested in being a participant in what comes next.
That 1909 story came up with the -same- conclusion … complete dependence (with the machine enforcing it). Except, in the story, the Repair machine is malfunctioning.
Speaking of which - the other day I found this video, which might be useful to both those who’ve read it (or don’t have the time). Besides an analysis, it includes some fine SF artwork.
im an alcoholic. one day, after a long trip down a dark and broken road, i decided to stop.
i used to drink in the evening when i was bored. nowadays, after dinner, in the evening, i take long walks. they’re typically 6 miles and last two hours.
you’ll stop if you really want to. getting the help of a professional or support group helps lots of people. good luck
Reminds me of one video. I recall his friends made a prank. The dude woke up from drinking too much in a hospital room where the nurse said that the had been comatose for many years.
To be clear, this wasn’t the case - it was just a prank.
…but I bet experiencing that would put some people to think.
Is there anything about your question that is specific to Lemmy? If you’re just asking in general then I think it’s been answered long ago and a web search would give you more than enough information.
From one of Patton Oswald’s stand up specials, he shares his late wife’s mantra, as a devout atheist: “It’s chaos. Be kind.” Nothing means anything, nothing happens for a reason, things just happen, they only have the meaning we bring to them, be kind.
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