I mean, Mesopotamian scriptures likely didn’t foresee having a bunch of dumb fucks around who can be easily manipulated by the gas and oil lobby, and that shit will actually end humanity.
Comment on People Are Losing Loved Ones to AI-Fueled Spiritual Fantasies
Allero@lemmy.today 1 month agoI’d argue this has been this way since the dawn of time.
Maybe the technology has just highlighted it for some of us, but I do not believe we have more dumbheads than a year, or 10 years, or 100 years prior.
Think of the “end of history” and how it was prophecized millennia ago.
kameecoding@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Allero@lemmy.today 1 month ago
People were always manipulated. I mean, they were indoctrinated with divine power of rulers, how much worse can it get? It’s just that now it tries to be a bit more stealthy.
vala@lemmy.world 1 month ago
In the past our eggs were not all in one basket.
In the past it wasn’t possible to fuck up so hard you destroy all of humanity. That’s a new one.
MangoCats@feddit.it 1 month ago
It’s just that now it tries to be a bit more stealthy.
With regard to what has been happening the past 100 days in the United States, it’s not even trying to be stealthy one little bit. If anything, it’s dropping massive hints of the objectionable things it’s planning for the near future.
There are still existential threats: thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/
The difference with a population of 8 billion is that we as individuals are less empowered to do anything significant about them than ever.
kameecoding@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Well, it doesn’t have to get worse, AFAIK we are still headed towards human extinction due to Climate Change
Allero@lemmy.today 1 month ago
Honestly, the “human extinction” level of climate change is very far away. Currently, we’re preventing the “sunken cities, economic crisis and famine in poor regions” kind of change, it’s just that “we’re all gonna die” sounds flashier.
MangoCats@feddit.it 1 month ago
I’m reading hopeful signs from China that they are actually making positive progress toward sustainability. Not that other big players are keeping up with them, but still how 1 billion people choose to live does make a difference.
MangoCats@feddit.it 1 month ago
There have been a couple of big discontinuities in the last 4500 years, and the next big discontinuity has the distinction of being the first in which mankind has the capacity to cause a mass extinction event.
Life will carry on, some humans will likely survive, but in what kind of state? For how long before they reach the technological level of being able to leave the planet again?
wwb4itcgas@lemm.ee 1 month ago
Almost certainly not, no. Evolution may work faster than once thought, but not that fast. The problem is that societal, and in particular, technological development is now vastly outstripping our ability to adapt. It’s not that people are getting dumber per se - it’s that they’re having to deal with vastly more stuff. All. The. Time. For example, consider the world as it was a scant century ago - virtually nothing in evolutionary terms. A person did not have to cope with what was going on on the other side of the planet, and probably wouldn’t even know for months if ever. Now? If an earthquake hits Paraguay, you’ll be aware in minutes.
And you’ll be expected to care.
MangoCats@feddit.it 1 month ago
1925: global financial collapse is just about to happen, many people are enjoying the ride as the wave just started to break, following that war to end all wars that did reach across the Atlantic Ocean…
Yes, it is accelerating. Alvin Toffler wrote Future Shock 45 years ago, already overwhelmed by accelerating change, and it has continued to accelerate since then. But these are not entirely new problems, either.
Allero@lemmy.today 1 month ago
Yes, my apologies I edited it so drastically to better get my point across.
Sure, we get more information. But we also learn to filter it, to adapt to it, and eventually - to disregard things we have little control over, while finding what we can do to make it better.