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.
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.
I tend to agree with you. Sometimes it should be perfectly obvious a way to make things better, but everyone is so busy fighting to keep a KPI in the green they aren't allowed to walk three feet to go look at the thing.
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.
Holy shit, two samson tracks? My cup runneth over.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGp_U6kz7i8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tc1c_WSzk9E
That second one is probably about getting roped in with the other "conservative rappers".
Honestly, I think there's some insightful stuff there. Just because you share values with other people doesn't mean they're good at their craft, and doesn't mean you want to be associated with them.
It's something we're seeing a lot right now, "conservative media" in general isn't any better than "liberal media" -- what you really want is "good media". I've seen the conservative reviews of conservative media for example coming out on Daily Wire+, and it's not actually any good.
I know lots of people like him, but people compare Samson to Tom McDonald, and I feel like it's comparing Eminem to Vanilla Ice. The latter might be saying shit I agree with but he's not a great rapper, he's just an ok one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGp_U6kz7i8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tc1c_WSzk9E
That second one is probably about getting roped in with the other "conservative rappers".
Honestly, I think there's some insightful stuff there. Just because you share values with other people doesn't mean they're good at their craft, and doesn't mean you want to be associated with them.
It's something we're seeing a lot right now, "conservative media" in general isn't any better than "liberal media" -- what you really want is "good media". I've seen the conservative reviews of conservative media for example coming out on Daily Wire+, and it's not actually any good.
I know lots of people like him, but people compare Samson to Tom McDonald, and I feel like it's comparing Eminem to Vanilla Ice. The latter might be saying shit I agree with but he's not a great rapper, he's just an ok one.
A lot of dark modes are just grey mode which represent the unlimited ennui of living in a post-modern post-industrial society where you're expected to find meaning in life not through nature or god or family but through mild contributions to a service.economy making sure food and other goods premanufactured in a foreign country are adequately prepared for sale... So I'll just go with light mode in those cases. Black or bust.
Not enough.
(And I do want to make sure I say: Lots of game magazines used to be awesome! The industry degenerated!)
(And I do want to make sure I say: Lots of game magazines used to be awesome! The industry degenerated!)
Pretty much everything since PayPal has been a vanity project. What's so bad about advancing science and engineering on electric cars, space ships, and robotics?
Honestly if I was an idle billionaire I'd do a lot of those things. I might even buy Twitter to piss people off.
Honestly if I was an idle billionaire I'd do a lot of those things. I might even buy Twitter to piss people off.
One of the most important things is "reduce reuse recycle" is in that order because the earlier choice is always the more desirable one for the environment.
It wasn't until I started drinking from a water bottle using tap water that I came to understand just how much waste prepared drinks create by contrast.
It wasn't until I started drinking from a water bottle using tap water that I came to understand just how much waste prepared drinks create by contrast.
Up here in Canada former prime minister Jean Chretien (liberal party guy but he balanced budgets so I generally liked him) gave a speech supporting Trudeau going "Canada is not broken!" Even though it's clearly broken.
I feel like these old guard party guys need what they're saying to be true because if the current leader is totally incompetent it directly reflects on them as members of the same party, on top of what you're saying which I fully agree with as well.
I feel like these old guard party guys need what they're saying to be true because if the current leader is totally incompetent it directly reflects on them as members of the same party, on top of what you're saying which I fully agree with as well.
THE NEW GATE anime started off with an interesting premise of a main character who was the victor of an AI deathgame coming back to the world of the deathgame after 500 years had passed. It's on I think the final episode this week, and it really ended up disappointing. I'm gonna finish the last episode, but it won't be getting a season 2, there's no way (and I won't watch it if there is)
In a lot of ways I think Americans need to learn more history than just World War 2.
The current situation has many historical parallels that are more interesting than just Hitler Hitler Hitler.
I think there's a lot of things besides World War 2 that help us understand the current moment in time.
One example is about 80 years before the end of the Roman Republic. Tiberius Gracchus was a member of the Populares faction, populists in opposition to the aristocracy, the Optimates faction. Gracchus' populist reforms caused increasing tension in the senate. In 133 BCE, he was assassinated, and it would go down in history as one of the first assassinations in a practice that would become increasingly common in the republic. 84 years later Julius Caesar would cross the Rubicon River, a moment indicating the end of the Roman Republic. In this context, consider the venom with which the word "populist" is thrown around as a pejorative term, and the unprecedented actions taken against the candidate who is running for president under that banner presently.
Another example is the time right before the beginning of the French revolution. King Louis was printing money at a rapid rate, and it was creating a huge bubble for those within the fold of the government, but mass harm for those who were not. It was a time of extreme inequality, and many people were rushing into the capitol to try to get in on the gravy train causing overcrowding among the have-nots. Contrasts between the American revolution and the French revolution are quite important, given that the former led to a world superpower, and the latter led to an unstable nation that is today on I think it's fifth republic.
Yet another example is the Spanish empire during the exploitation of the new world. Spain treated South America like a true colonial holding -- unlike the United States where colonies became places people lived and built their lives, South America was a place primarily centered around exploitation of the local populations and natural resources. One result of this was a massive influx of silver to the Spanish government, which minted more coins and released them into circulation, causing high inflation because there was more money chasing the same amount of goods. Ultimately, this was one of the factors that brought one of the two most powerful empires on the planet into becoming a relative backwater.
Of course there's more things to learn from regions other than Europe. The Song dynasty in 9th century China and the Brahmins in India around the same time both had regimes that were more interested in writing poetry about how bad the invaders were or building more temples, respectively, leading to both countries losing considerable territory during this period.
Wang Mang in China around the 1st century became emperor through virtue signaling about Confucianism, and his incompetent rule based on an ideology that had massive holes led to tens of millions of deaths in a world that only had a couple hundred million humans.
In spite of the progressive paintjob on the modern bureaucracy, we have millennia of history from Imperial China about the risks of bureaucracy, including deep conservatism. The English reached china trying to trade clockwork that was centuries ahead of anything the Chinese had made, as well as guns and other technologies. They were turned back, a situation that ultimately led to the century of humiliation and the end of Imperial China.
The Islamic world has a few cautionary tales. The Islamic golden age saw the Muslim world as the center of the world in terms of much science and technology, as you can see from our use of algebra and the name of chemistry derived from alchemy, and our use of a numbering system out of the Islamic world. All of it came crashing down due to various factors leading to the Islamic world that once thought it would take over the world becoming a playground for other empires.
In the Mediterranean and the modern middle east, the bronze age collapse showed us most of the civilizations of the era being destroyed. Only a few civilizations remained, and some such as the Minoans were erased so thoroughly that we didn't even know they were real until shockingly recently in history when someone decided to look up the locations mentioned in Greek myth.
Around the same time period, the Harapan civilization, also called the Indus valley civilization in India tells us the entire self-contained story of a massive civilization that was born, rose, survived for ages, then declined and totally disappeared.
So to focus solely on one tiny piece of history is to really make a huge mistake. We have more than one case study, more than one lens to look at the world through, and not all of these lenses reveal the same story. Sometimes they reveal quite different stories.
The current situation has many historical parallels that are more interesting than just Hitler Hitler Hitler.
I think there's a lot of things besides World War 2 that help us understand the current moment in time.
One example is about 80 years before the end of the Roman Republic. Tiberius Gracchus was a member of the Populares faction, populists in opposition to the aristocracy, the Optimates faction. Gracchus' populist reforms caused increasing tension in the senate. In 133 BCE, he was assassinated, and it would go down in history as one of the first assassinations in a practice that would become increasingly common in the republic. 84 years later Julius Caesar would cross the Rubicon River, a moment indicating the end of the Roman Republic. In this context, consider the venom with which the word "populist" is thrown around as a pejorative term, and the unprecedented actions taken against the candidate who is running for president under that banner presently.
Another example is the time right before the beginning of the French revolution. King Louis was printing money at a rapid rate, and it was creating a huge bubble for those within the fold of the government, but mass harm for those who were not. It was a time of extreme inequality, and many people were rushing into the capitol to try to get in on the gravy train causing overcrowding among the have-nots. Contrasts between the American revolution and the French revolution are quite important, given that the former led to a world superpower, and the latter led to an unstable nation that is today on I think it's fifth republic.
Yet another example is the Spanish empire during the exploitation of the new world. Spain treated South America like a true colonial holding -- unlike the United States where colonies became places people lived and built their lives, South America was a place primarily centered around exploitation of the local populations and natural resources. One result of this was a massive influx of silver to the Spanish government, which minted more coins and released them into circulation, causing high inflation because there was more money chasing the same amount of goods. Ultimately, this was one of the factors that brought one of the two most powerful empires on the planet into becoming a relative backwater.
Of course there's more things to learn from regions other than Europe. The Song dynasty in 9th century China and the Brahmins in India around the same time both had regimes that were more interested in writing poetry about how bad the invaders were or building more temples, respectively, leading to both countries losing considerable territory during this period.
Wang Mang in China around the 1st century became emperor through virtue signaling about Confucianism, and his incompetent rule based on an ideology that had massive holes led to tens of millions of deaths in a world that only had a couple hundred million humans.
In spite of the progressive paintjob on the modern bureaucracy, we have millennia of history from Imperial China about the risks of bureaucracy, including deep conservatism. The English reached china trying to trade clockwork that was centuries ahead of anything the Chinese had made, as well as guns and other technologies. They were turned back, a situation that ultimately led to the century of humiliation and the end of Imperial China.
The Islamic world has a few cautionary tales. The Islamic golden age saw the Muslim world as the center of the world in terms of much science and technology, as you can see from our use of algebra and the name of chemistry derived from alchemy, and our use of a numbering system out of the Islamic world. All of it came crashing down due to various factors leading to the Islamic world that once thought it would take over the world becoming a playground for other empires.
In the Mediterranean and the modern middle east, the bronze age collapse showed us most of the civilizations of the era being destroyed. Only a few civilizations remained, and some such as the Minoans were erased so thoroughly that we didn't even know they were real until shockingly recently in history when someone decided to look up the locations mentioned in Greek myth.
Around the same time period, the Harapan civilization, also called the Indus valley civilization in India tells us the entire self-contained story of a massive civilization that was born, rose, survived for ages, then declined and totally disappeared.
So to focus solely on one tiny piece of history is to really make a huge mistake. We have more than one case study, more than one lens to look at the world through, and not all of these lenses reveal the same story. Sometimes they reveal quite different stories.