Instead, be the change you want to see.
https://www.themarginalian.org/2017/03/17/diseases-of-the-wi...
> The situation is far more serious: question everything.
Someone who thrived at life or work to a satisfying enough point will always tell you something
- nihilistic like "it does not matter",
- or reaffirming like "that's a lot of stuff to write about, no matter how many people write about it"
- or "that's a lot of stuff to deal with, are you in a state to work any of these inquiries problems?".
- or they tell you all the above combined in the form of "that's where we are and there's reasons why and how we got here. Where do you wanna go?".
In either case you are left with sticking to the prescribed reality or you say fuck it and go down any of the spiritual and or occultist rabbit holes. There's enough narratives for billions of lifetimes.
When it comes to our online experience, the main questions are: how big or small is your network and how deep or shallow are the connections.
Whether something is real is easier assessed in cooperation; as is whether and how something useless can be turned into something useful. But it all works solo just as much, except in cases where doubt is warranted, which is when more heads traverse more data, connections and patterns in less time.
We found our inquiries entirely on our backgrounds and the motivations of our psychosocial (low base death growl in the back of my head intensifies) environment, which is, by definition, almost always, perfectly average. They don't take any of the things you mentioned serious because they haven't been negatively affected by any of it for at least one and half generations.
60 - 70 %, maybe more, of the population live by the narrative created by swarm intelligence and the gratefulness of having a comfy enough place, spot, role in that swarm. They will, passively or actively, support those who convince them of what is necessary to keep that place, spot, role comfy enough. In the end, these people and that process alone, is responsible for the current state of civilization.
Too limiting. Make one's assessment to the best of their ability and satisfaction, which is all one can do, and then act out that reality for better or worse. Learn academically or via hard knocks self deception, or never learn and experience a life an anguish. Which is all anyone and everyone does anyway.
...if we don't pick a path of resistance against the questionable parts of the nature of our reality, then we end up cramming ourselves into tiny boxes traveling on conveyor belts from station to station. We acquire, assimilate, adapt, we learn, but only theory and results of pseudo-theoretical practice, which is war games acted out in controlled "public environments", really. We never get results in the actual, "wild" field. We end up doing stuff as a result and to satisfy the demand of long chains of questionable command and long chains of questionable past decisions, only to affirm and confirm the former and latter, not the stuff or the reality of and in the field.
Based on your bio, I'd be genuinely interested to know if you have thoughts on a very related question that I've been struggling with lately:
If we can create things that people believe reflect reality (news, literature, video games, ...), or further create fake things that people believe are completely real (voice clones, deep fakes, AI video, ...), what evidence (or other factor) is sufficient for someone with this questioning mindset to stop questioning and start acting?
On the other hand, so much about this article (and just about every other that makes similar appeals) presupposes a shared understanding or appreciation of high Western culture and philosophy to the point that it becomes unintelligible.
1. That you should have a television in your home. I'm not some kind of hipster, but it is just completely crazy when you think about it. How come that for decades it has been the norm that people - families - have a machine in their middle of their house which spews out the lowest form of government propaganda, mixed with the most obnoxious advertisements, mixed with abhorrent degeneracy of violence, damaging sexuality and humiliation of people. And this machine has been worshipped much higher than any God by the generations which are now old people. Who then complain about the behaviour of younger generations, which have been raised to behave like that by their "God" the TV.
In a sane world, a person who put a television in their family house would be shunned as a freak by his or her community, loose their job, and be forced to move. But now it's been the norm - for decades.
2. That you're supposed to document everything you do and post it to Instagram. This is a recent insanity, but it's become a mind virus to most people and they are no longer capable of enjoying anything in life for what it is. Rather the purpose of uploading to Instagram takes priority. For what? Instagram pays zero for people to upload their photos and videos. Can't you tell your friends later what you did and show them the photos? I get the appeal, but does it have to be all the time for the rest of your life?
I used to manage but the covid period broke all my safeguards and I now often ask myself not 'what is this', but 'who am i ?'
Who am I when i've spent 2 hours scrolling a video feed mindlessly, read tens of pointless comments from people that have no existence whatsoever from my perspective ?
I often look at people's phones in the metro, most of them are using tiktok or something similar, observing how braindead is the content on other people's feed really is a wake-up call for me to act on what I must call a crippling addiction
roenxi•5mo ago
It is pretty obvious every time any country has an election or any policy debate comes up that the priorities of the sort of people who write or comment on the internet represent the median view more by accident than intent when it does happen. They're typically very isolated voices.
cal_dent•5mo ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/9rvroo/most...
beacon473•5mo ago
gyomu•5mo ago
No crazies = no Newton, no Dirac, no Marx, no Descartes, no Curie, etc etc etc.
jerlam•5mo ago
CommenterPerson•5mo ago
somedude895•5mo ago
gyomu•5mo ago
My thoughts exactly when “highbrow” outlets like the NYT started making headlines out of every silly thing Trump said in 2015/2016. All those media sources who professed to be against what he stood for didn’t realize that the words were meaningless, and merely by reporting on his inanities, they were implicitly endorsing exactly what he stood for.