No Human, No Cry

After chatting for a bit, I played three challenge rounds with @azircon, losing all three of them, but feeling better about it than when I lose most of my games when playing throughout the season. I feel better losing to a known human, than a suspected bot. And yes, I lost all three, but they were also in WILD format, and I don't have many suitable cards, since I am mostly playing in modern, unless brawling. This one was the closest, and I think I would have had it, if my fucking Blight dropped some poison earlier.

But yeah, it is far nicer playing against a human for me, rather than the army of automatons that are dominating ranked play and the many, many people using Battle Helpers to select cards for the Tournaments and Brawls. I know that people have all the reasons in the world to explain why they do it, but I still find it sad.

While I am talking about Splinterlands at the moment, it really is a symptom of the world at large, where people are disconnecting from each other, isolating themselves out of convenience, without recognizing the cost. While an individual feels they are winning daily, in the long-term, it is similar to social media, where the detrimental affects are far reaching and profound on the community. When people stop interacting with each other, they disengage from the community and become part of the machine, another cog spinning in the mechanism, but going nowhere.

Haven't we learned about this already?

It is an interesting thing to note that while people are still arguing for the convenience of work from home and quiet quitting, the data is showing that they are less happy, less productive and in the case of the quiet quitters, having existential crisis.

If you aren't putting effort into your job, what are you putting effort into?

And this is the question that they are asking themselves and finding that they don't have much meaning in their lives. So, they seek out and cling to engineered meaning, like social media drama and the many "movements" to support. They aren't religious, but they are organizing temporary religions that make them feel part of something, make them feel relevant.

But, they aren't relevant.

relevant (adj.)
"to the purpose, applicable, pertinent to the matter at hand," 1550s, from French relevant "depending upon," originally "helpful," from Medieval Latin relevantem (nominative relevans), from stem of Latin relevare "to lessen, lighten," hence "to help, assist; comfort, console"

"to help, assist; comfort, console"

They are human behaviors - not traits of robots.

Maybe through our chats @azircon can feel my frustrations with what is going on at the moment and reached out for a Challenge round, human to human to make me feel better in some way. Or perhaps, to help himself feel relevant by helping me. A little human connection.

More and more as we progress into Web 3, the importance of human communities is going to be the decider between what gets support, and what fails. There is going to be a growing number of technological ways to game the systems, but it will be proof of human that will have value. It will come down to the personalities of the community that will be the biggest draw. Experiences that ramp up into automation and away from interaction, are doomed to fail.

Most don't seem to see it yet, or fully grasp it yet it seems. Or of they do, they are looking short and trying to make the most gains they can, before it all comes crashing down - like pillaging and looting a burning city, rather than putting the fires out and making it a place to live, a home.

But again, this behavior is a symptom of the larger world and economy, one that divides, isolates and conquers for profit. Corporations don't care about community, because the owners do not live in the same communities as their customers. While they create social ghettos, they are gating themselves off from the masses.

Who cares what is happening outside of paradise?

If you are inside.

I am hoping, but don't have a lot of faith in the coming attempts to stop bots in Modern format, in the same way that I have little hope that people will change their behavior to do something less convenient. The incentives are too high, the immediate costs too low. But eventually, the costs will mount in the background and everyone suffers. That leads to more disengagement, more isolation, more fracturing of community.

The "Let's Netflix and Chill" generations, are having the least sex.

Relationships are too much effort.

I'll just buy a robot that is programmed to laugh at my jokes.

Then I won't have to learn to be funny.

_{Or be good in bed.}

And this is the interesting thing about culture now, where people are told not to compromise and not to settle, so they don't. But, these skills are required to interact with others and commit to them, and for them to commit to us - they are human behaviors that help us improve. Living in isolation, means we don't have to learn to live with others, we do not have to build a community at all.

Yet, because we are social animals that require the feeling, we can feign being part of a community, generate false meanings for ourselves that give us the the dopamine hit, but do nothing good. Like replacing sugar with aspartame provides sweetness, but probably causes cancer.

I think there is another growing divide forming. We have wealth gaps, education gaps, health gaps and social gaps that are built through the conditions of our economy and culture, but we are going to have fulfilment gaps, where there is going to be a small group of people who are content with their lives, and a growing number who are discontent.