Big problem with "touch grass" as an appeal to normal people is that most normal people aren't touching grass. Generations of iPad kids growing up on the Internet, the world's biggest shopping mall filled with all the creeps of the world. People spend too much of their lives on their phones.
I go outside every day I'm home, with my son. Sometimes we go outside multiple times a day. The sidewalks are empty. The parks, it's rare to see someone at the parks and even then it's like one person, not usually a group. The world is a ghost town. It feels to me like the fact of ghost towns outside is a shocking revelation. We all assume someone else is still outside, even as many of us are not.
Where is everyone? Well that's the problem, isn't it? They're online, they're on their phones, they're watching TV. They're physically protected and psychically & psychologically under constant abuse and assault.
The first technology to threaten society is thought to have been the coin. This occurred overwhelmingly long ago, and by trading coins instead of favors, individuals didn't need to have as close relationships between each other, but cities could grow larger. The breakthrough technology that helped people deal with this was organized religion, which brought people together and pushed a common set of values despite money breaking apart interpersonal connections.
It's likely that soon we'll see the development of something to help resolve the problems brought about by the social problems caused by The Internet. Now it might not be something as powerful as organized religion, but perhaps we'll have to collectively learn how to step away from the screens and start going outside again?
I expect it'll have to be a cultural technology, not a digital technology.
I go outside every day I'm home, with my son. Sometimes we go outside multiple times a day. The sidewalks are empty. The parks, it's rare to see someone at the parks and even then it's like one person, not usually a group. The world is a ghost town. It feels to me like the fact of ghost towns outside is a shocking revelation. We all assume someone else is still outside, even as many of us are not.
Where is everyone? Well that's the problem, isn't it? They're online, they're on their phones, they're watching TV. They're physically protected and psychically & psychologically under constant abuse and assault.
The first technology to threaten society is thought to have been the coin. This occurred overwhelmingly long ago, and by trading coins instead of favors, individuals didn't need to have as close relationships between each other, but cities could grow larger. The breakthrough technology that helped people deal with this was organized religion, which brought people together and pushed a common set of values despite money breaking apart interpersonal connections.
It's likely that soon we'll see the development of something to help resolve the problems brought about by the social problems caused by The Internet. Now it might not be something as powerful as organized religion, but perhaps we'll have to collectively learn how to step away from the screens and start going outside again?
I expect it'll have to be a cultural technology, not a digital technology.
That's kind of a neat idea.
I wouldn't be surprised if it happens in the next 50 years. The Internet is a luxury that can only exist in an era of world peace, which I think we can all see is fracturing.
I wouldn't be surprised if it happens in the next 50 years. The Internet is a luxury that can only exist in an era of world peace, which I think we can all see is fracturing.
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Prior to the current era, the health of the community was considered part of the health of the individual.
Some things we look back on that don't make sense are actually community reactions to things. Witch burnings were for example a sort of social immune response to individuals stirring up discord in the community, and in England relatively recently, being a Karen was an offense punishable by law.
Confucianism is essentially making this idea of community harmony God to be worshipped (though that brings with it a whole new set of issues, including corruption and practical conservatism)
An unhealthy community breeds unhealthy individuals, and when both are combined you end up with a community that can't deal with the world.
Maybe it doesn't matter individually, but it matters a lot to a community, and to a region made up of those communities, and a country made up of those regions, and a civilization made up of those countries, because we've got a civilization that's falling apart despite a long period of (admittedly shrinking) economic expansion and a long period of world peace. Imagine what would happen if we actually saw some serious external threats?
Besides the whole in concept, in practice we know about things like social contagion which see bad behaviors spreading beyond just the individuals to others.
Some things we look back on that don't make sense are actually community reactions to things. Witch burnings were for example a sort of social immune response to individuals stirring up discord in the community, and in England relatively recently, being a Karen was an offense punishable by law.
Confucianism is essentially making this idea of community harmony God to be worshipped (though that brings with it a whole new set of issues, including corruption and practical conservatism)
An unhealthy community breeds unhealthy individuals, and when both are combined you end up with a community that can't deal with the world.
Maybe it doesn't matter individually, but it matters a lot to a community, and to a region made up of those communities, and a country made up of those regions, and a civilization made up of those countries, because we've got a civilization that's falling apart despite a long period of (admittedly shrinking) economic expansion and a long period of world peace. Imagine what would happen if we actually saw some serious external threats?
Besides the whole in concept, in practice we know about things like social contagion which see bad behaviors spreading beyond just the individuals to others.