I would say this is actually some pretty good advise.
In my situation, it’s not even that I think a plane will fall on me, it’s that they’re actively dumping barium nitrate shit -on- me, continually. I’m acutely aware of how technology can be harmful to us, and meditation is how I deal with that.
If you’re centered, (and thus naturally intelligent) you can handle anything.
It’s called hyperbole and it is clearly used satirically in lieu of your own tremendous ignorance of hypocrisy.
I can easily say that I love technology and gadgetry more than anyone else on this site. I do, but I critique it’s shortcomings all the time. I just posted one of my essays on technology in the Essays and Thesis forum. In fact, I am living with it’s downfall right now (My city is running out of water and the city’s infrastructure is crumbling beneath the enormous population like an earthquake). We live in a world that has reached maximum capacity with a direct correlation to the exponential growth of technology. On the other hand, we live in a world where our exponential growth in technology has allowed human beings to reach maximum capacity. The lot of us would not be alive today without it.
We could never sustain the quality and quantity of human beings without technology. It is ultimately our only acceptable future. I say that if you are really ignorant of such a visible fact, then please by all means, stop using our technology! This includes: internet, computers, microwaves, all food not found naturally in the wild, electricity, clean water, the very words that come out of your mouth. This is all technology and yes, you can live without all of it. Our ancestors did, and so can you. Let me know how that goes. Oh that’s right, you can’t talk because you’ve given up language. We are a species that lives as well as we do, b/c of the amazing feats of those that came before us. Appreciate it and get a job so you can be a part of this progress. Otherwise you are a lazy mooch that lives off of my hard work.
Ok. Then as you have just logically stated, you have not made your point. On the other hand, I have.
Why am I dyslexic? I didn’t pick up on the joke.
It is quite hyperbolic, but technology is a methodology and in order to suggest its failure, you must be aware of what you are implying. What “meta-point”? and what’s this “whole thing”? I hear someone complaining about the by-products of technology, who just as eagerly uses his computer and eats his food every day. If you are unhappy with the byproducts, take a look around you. Some of us have realized this a long time ago and have chosen to move to “higher ground”. It’s your choice, you have been empowered.
This has never been about where we’ve come from, but where we are headed and knowing when to stop. Clearly you’re the type who cant wait for virtual reality just to fuck a cyber girl, as cold and detached an action as that may be. I have an appreciation for tech achievements that make life a better place, but thats more about the past than it is about the future. The future is about control. Whether thats through gene manipulation or whatever. But who knows, maybe your hoping for some type of immortality because life is so great. Just think, you’d get to see every war faught forever, and every great invention used to annilate other humans. Now thats progress!
Sure language is a tool. A tool for deception. And that is what our history is founded on, slippery words. And speaking of language, did you know that nanoseconds are the language of the computer, that a nanosecond is a billionth of second which is faster than a finger snap, and these computers can make decisions below the level of human perception. Sure you know, you big tech savy survivor. But you dont worry about such implications because your brave new world is one you thrive in.
and one last thing, I am a mooch and a parasite and I dont care about that because I realize that all the hard work that makes you so honorable will amount to jack shit. Whatever you build or create, it will all fall apart. So keep up the work ethic, it really pays off when you die.
Again, what do I care? I will be dead. While I’m here I will be happy, you will not. Thank you for repeatedly reinstating and rewarding my beliefs. I sometimes get curiously nihilistic.
No problem. I am happy to hear an opinion. Do you care to comment on what I have backwards? Do you take offense on the perspective I take against kevconman?
I think it is quite obvious that driving on the highway is dangerous and I don’t believe that anybody of intelligence ignores this. We all see deadly accidents on the highway, how could we ignore it? What’s your point here? Do you think travel was any safer before cars and highways? Horses can knock riders off and break their necks, in earlier times long distance travel would even be more risky, starvation, predators, bandits, cold, storms, etc.
You try to make it sound like technology has made the world a dangerous place, take the historical perspective here. Fact of the matter is we live in one of the safest periods of human history and this is because of our technologies. Medicine keeps us alive longer than at any period in human history, agriculture provides a steady supply of food (yes I know there are people starving in the world, but this is not a problem caused by technology.) Back in the day simple diseases or injuries would kill you off, nowadays a quick visit to the hospitol will make you as good as new.
There are plenty of reasons to criticize our technologies, but the idea that technology makes the world more dangerous is just false.
This thread has made me realize what a lose-lose perspective i have.
Either I’m right about the negative aspects technology and nobody will listen or side with me, so that doom seems inevitable, because the masses will have it no other way.
Or I’m wrong, as you all keep telling me I am, and I’m walking around with beliefs based on stupid ideas. Where the fuck would I get these wrong ideas?
But when I try to decide which is which, I think of the threat of nuclear war, and wonder how you can tell me we are safer now, more than ever. A button push could cause extinction. Even if it doesn’t happen, knowlege of the threat is enough to do damage to the human psyche.
miracle medicine, you all preach. Its so predictable. Thats how all technologies are ushed in, with the hope of immortality.
What kind of perverted logic would cause you to want to live forever on this rock in the middle of nowhere, especially when war is a constant.
You bring up the threat of nuclear war, that’s a very good point and almost makes me want to change my argument. However even with that threat I would still argue we live in relatively safe times.
Nuclear war is a unique threat and the only time in history that we’ve had the capability to nearly destroy ourselves completely. This could have an effect on the human psyche as you pointed out, but only if you let it. Besides we lived through the cold war when the threat was much worse. Nowadays we just have to worry about some terrorist dropping a dirty bomb on a major city. (I really shouldn’t give you more things to worry about.)
I wasn’t preaching miracle medicine or immortality, I was just trying to point out the fact that technology saves lives to argue against your ideas.
The question you have to ask yourself is why you are so pessimistic? The problem is not the world as it is but the way you percieve it. Why are you so afraid of all these things, yet seem to think that life is not worth living. Why does nuclear war bother you when it seems you don’t even want to live, where’s the threat?
This life is short my man, don’t waste it worrying about shit that like that.
I dont know why I’m pessimistic. I’m trying to figure that out. The problem is not the world but the way I see it–I have trouble telling the two apart.
I am just browsing old conversations on here and came across this gem. Curious to here your perspective on this topic 9 years later… Yes, I am probably still an insensitive ass now as I was then, but I do take your anxiety to heart as I deal with similar anxiety on a daily basis. Have the dangers of technology remained a concern for you? I was just thinking of the relative dangers one would experience in pre-history vs today with modern medicine, etc. I still think I would take modern day problems like “mechanical vultures” than being hunted by lions. On the other hand, there is always that interesting thought about how life might be different if I had been born in the 1800’s and lived in the Wild West. Would the simple life have been better in its own right?
Sorry to get back to this late. It’s funny how perspective does change over time. I’ve adopted technologies like many people and can’t imagine life without them, depend on them. I realize people born into a world with virtual reality won’t gripe about the difference.
I do still love, however, thinking about the implications of tech. I just don’t worry as much about my reactionary non-action.
I completed a book that I posted here in the creative writing section called, Enter The Virtuplex Here. It deals with much of tech perspectives I’ve had over the course of those nine years, in entertainment form.
In truth, my initial fore-warnings started to soften after my first ipod fun. Silly, huh?
Yes, I could still rail against tech. And make an even better case these days. But those are all stories for AFTER the war. If we beat the machines.
Regarding the OP, I think you can be pessimistic about human affairs, but remain eternally optimistic.
Wow, what’s a topic!
Full agree with your fear.
I can’t believe there is no chance to move somewhere.
I don’t offer you buying a villa in safe Monaco but other part of the town OR the same place near the railway would solve the problem.
The lot of us would not be alive today without it.
