The rain has been absolutely pissing down for about twelve hours straight, but I still went into the city to meet a couple ex-colleagues for a quiet drink and to talk some nonsense. Much of it centred around the impact of AI on the world, but we touched on many topics that have led us to where we are today. While there were many points of disagreement, one thing saw consensus:
Community is failing.
There are many reasons for it, and many factors that have influenced the degradation over the last seventy-odd years, but as I have harped on about before - the major factor is what we value, how we value it, and the endless quest for more profits. It effects everything, including the way we think about ourselves, and treat each other. Yet, most people don't tie it all together, which is a symptom of the problem itself, where rather than viewing the world as a complex interconnected ecosystem, we compartmentalise and simplify, focusing on one factor at a time, as if they exist in a vacuum.
When profits are the driving force for human activity, the wellbeing of humans is bound to suffer, because the push for profits will continually take more and more resources away from activities that benefit humans. And the business activity will keep increasing its efficiency, extracting more while giving back less. It is very predictable.
As is human nature.
Which is why we are so easily gamed. We have evolved over a couple million years to behave in certain ways, to react in certain ways, and to process in certain way - and the corporations have got increasingly better at building environments that target and commandeer our humanness. We think we know ourselves the best, but that in itself is a conditioned belief that gives us confidence, when we should instead be uncertain and cautious. We feel we know what is best for us, even though the results we are getting should be clear indicators that we are wrong.
I don't know if it is possible to turn the ship around, because so many think that nothing can be done, that the status quo as we know it is the only way things can be. That the environment is screwed whatever we do. That the rich have to get richer. That community and social failure is the way it has to be.
We are predictable.
We are evolved to be lazy in action and thought, and we are proving our nature. Instead of truly finding ways to make a positive difference in the world, we are accepting our fate, where war, violence and loneliness is the norm. Nothing can be done, because we have been chosen to believe that *nothing can be done. We keep letting it run its course, even though we know that the eventual outcome is going to be, and we know it is not what we want. We will keep on going to war, and keep on increasing human suffering and disconnection, for more profit for those who make the world a worse place.
What is wrong with us?
So many smart people, so many idiotic decisions.
Taraz
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