In last night's WTF post, I asked for some insights into what people consider a "good person" and I think that the comments are worth a read, because there does tend to be a general sense of what that might be. That means despite all the differing opinions driven by culture, politics and whatever else that might influence, there is likely a base level where core attributes can be agreed upon.
If only we each lived to the base level at least.
Unfortunately, we don't.
This morning a friend of mine sent me a link from a post on X, which I thought I would share here as I think it is worth a read. The focus is on how technology has pushed women radically left in comparison to men, but I think it has more implications than that.
https://x.com/IterIntellectus/status/2012220254504530043
A lot of the topics (other than the percentage of women in universities as far as I remember) I have talked about many times earlier over the years, though my focused solely on women. Instead, I have talked about the breakdown of the family, the reduction in marriage and birth rates, and how decisions people make when they are young, are likely going to lead to regrets when older, like not having children. Again, it is not that everyone should want or have children, but I think a lot of people are making many of their decisions in order to meet their current beliefs, without considering how they are going to feel about it in the future.
My view on this is heavily skewed by my belief that humans have evolved to be social animals and therefore in order to be healthy, we need to be part of a healthy community, on both the giving and receiving end of value. We require real connection and relationships.
As said, the environment we have built as described in the linked article, has implications beyond the way people vote, because it also influences how we feel about everything that is important, and how we act across the spread of experience we encounter. So a radical shift made in he liberal or conservative directions, doesn't live in a vacuum, but is in a compounding system of millions of changes that all influence each other, in a diverse system where different groups of people are affected similarly, creating factions of a sort. These factions come together on singular topics when suited, but two people in one faction on one topic, might be on opposing sides in another topic. As I have said multiple times before, we have created a system that is continually adversarial.
But what people should realise, is that if the current model we have has led to women being pushed significantly left, then what other kinds of effects is it having on us? As I have mentioned many times earlier, I think that mental health issues will see a similar growth path when overlaid to social media and smartphone usage. And while the algorithms and content do drive the problem, the way the platforms fundamentally work is probably the core driver, as they have increasingly taken us out of reality and into a "pseudo-reality" that through conditioning, feels natural, even though it is like eating cardboard packaging with a picture of an orange on it in comparison to the reality of an orange.
And one of the the most common mental health problems it has created is the sense of entitlement from victimhood. Everyone has been conditioned to be a victim of circumstance and believe they can do nothing about it. And as a victim, it is up to others to cater for them, no mater how they behave - because they can't help their behaviour. And this is a mental health issue, because having a victim mentality will amplify all other issues, turning proverbial molehills into mountains.
In the article, there was another one of my covered topics mentioned, which is why I called this article Cost of Wrong. Because the problem is that so many people are subscribing to these various ideologies, influenced and conditioned, and making their real-world decisions that will affect their entire life and have large impacts and ramifications, and they will find out or feel that they were indeed wrong, that they have been lied to, duped, conned. But, by the time they do, it will be too late for them to course correct, so they double-down on it. Or even more insidious, is that they will double-down because they fear being wrong.
Especially publicly.
As the article states, the model is a consensus engine, and people don't want to break social consensus - because we are social animals, remember? And this also means that people rely on the numbers they are fed through the algorithms, the conversations they are fed, the views they are fed - and suddenly an individual's opinions, are the same as the group opinion. And this also means that people don't feel safe having their own opinion, if it diverges from others, because they have become accustomed to an environment that is openly hostile to disagreement.
I heard something I disagree with - Make me a safe zone!
So the system keeps on keeping on, because even though we now it is broken and causing our bad results, we keep on using it, feeding it, learning from it, because everyone else we know is doing the same. And because it is essentially on autopilot, driven to increasing efficiency by user desire for social engagement, and owner desire for increasing profits, we are heading deeper into the abyss, where at some point, humanity is unsalvageable.
Our species might survive, as less than a percent are possibly able to save themselves from total obliteration that they themselves played a firm hand in causing;
But humanity is dead.
I hope I am wrong.
But for me to be wrong, the masses need to change their behaviour and start taking active steps to make this world a better place, to improve society and communities for humans, and build technology that advances our wellbeing, whether it is profitable or not.
And as a Magic 8 ball has oft said....
"Don't count on it"
Taraz
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