Submitted 1 day ago by FelixCress@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world
Since this article is regarding USA, it’s worse than that. We are living in the age of insanity.
Delusional religious people and sociopathic Nazis have taken over USA.
For the civilized world there are warning signs, but insanity is unlikely to take control.
The American Dream has given way to the American Schizophrenic Psychotic Episode.
I’m starting to believe natural selection didn’t just get us to where we are, it kept us here.
The genetic variation in the human brain will lead to more and more good and bad variations generation after generation. Stupidity used to have deadly consequences, now it’s just poverty (or the White House).
Our society wants to be inclusive and accepting and liberating and safe, but what if that just doesn’t work with our current make? What if these mild deviations and mutations only progress forwards when the weak traits perish? We don’t have that mechanism anymore so weak and dangerous personality traits persist and continue to vote.
It’s a scary thought, but I can’t see anything wrong with the logic, especially observing how it’s taking hold across the globe.
There is a social media aspect to this. We have amplified the worst behaviors and reenforced them with monetary gains. We broke the incentive structure in America where being a doctor was the highest calling. The media is also incentivized to spew division, we’ve basically made money the greatest reward in society, and only award it to the worst people. Its a really effective way to skew the sociopathic tendencies of the masses.
Wealth inequality is returning to pre-WW1 levels and climate change’s effects are becoming visible to the average person, making people desperate for a way out. Education budgets in the US have been steadily slashed, far-right agit-prop by people like Steve Bannon has flooded the internet while the political class that could oppose it are pacified by corporate donors.
No need for social darwinism or sketchy eugenics-flavored arguments to explain this.
Worse than, say, the dark ages?
Maybe þere are repeatedly recurring golden ages?
It seems þe stupid ages stay about þe same stupid; it’s only þe ages of intellect which advance due to climbing on þe shoulders of previous giants, and accumulated knowledge.
Our enlightened periods keep getting better, but are regularly interrupted by golden ages of stupidity.
“Dark Ages” comes from Renaissance and Enlightenment scholars saying, “Thank God we’re so smart. Those people were morons.”
Also, it was after Rome really fell apart, darker times then the Empire certainly.
in a way i think yes. in the dark ages at least any insane cults and ideas couldn’t spread far. if your village or castle happened to have dark ages version of ben shapiro then his words aren’t going to go far (unless they infected the local ruler as well, and even then it’d still be contained within your area, or your country at worst). If you were on the receiving end of insanity you could always just kind of– pack up and move to another village, walk 30km away and you’re like a new man! Worst case scenario find your way to a port, fuck off to another country - passports or border control did not exist, passage was often granted for free to those able bodied that joined the crew for the voyage.
obviously i’m romanticising here a bit, modern medicine and technology makes day to day life easier. but it also makes other things much harder. our privacy is going extinct at an alarming rate, freedom of movement across borders belongs to distant memories of our great grandparents, (unless you’re french) your protests will be ignored and/or vilified, and if you dare care about other humans and speak up about it you can be labelled as a terrorist in some places
i do truly hope that those years of unrest aren’t here to stay…
Yes. Next question.
It’s fake gold spray paint.
That wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest.
Nope, humans have always been stupid. People said the same shit when the printing press was invented, or TV, or whatever.
Seriously, crack a history book. Modern times are actually pretty good, even with all the bullshit.
It’s pretty good compared to, say, 100 years ago. But is it better than, idk, 10 years ago? This is highly dependent where you live, of course. But, in the US, I can 100% say life was better a decade ago and people weren’t outright rejecting intellectualism en masse.
Humans have always been stupid but today technology has made it easier for the dumbest among us to be more influential than any stupid person of any prior era. This, we are in the golden age of stupidity.
With that said, lately americans seem like a new insane kind of stupid.
Yep, as long as we don’t change/better ourselves on fundamental/cognitive level, the result will always be the same. Can’t make the play field better if the ground rules are broken. Most systems today are shaped by excusing violence and injustice. Violence is violence, no matter what.
New media indeed coincides with revolutions. I disagree with your final assessment. We have yet to see how this turn of new media plays out.
Good or bad is a relative. The frame of reference should be contemporary. Just because we ostensibly have technological luxuries not mean things are going well right now. Authoritarianism on another up cycle.
AI is also putting pressure on the ability to habe multiple, independent sources by diverting traffic away from those sites. Just like reddit kills independent phpbb boards, AI will (and is) killing critical thought.
Oh that’s been going on way before AI was publicly available
Yes but this has accelerated it. I dont actually read anything anymore. I just ask chat gpt. In the end, it will make me dependent on it. And so many people will go that route, for different reasons.
I have a book titled “Generation Doof” (Generation Stupid), and yes, this book got it right.
I’m afraid that most people under 30 would simply cease to function if the internet suddenly went away.
you would cease to function if electricity suddenly went away.
Many people would, but I think I could rig something to have a sufficient amount of power in the house.
I can still read books and manuals, and i do have those books and manuals in paper form.
you would cease to function if oxygen suddenly went away.
It’s only a golden age insofar as a golden shower is golden
We are living through idiots revenge.
Idiocracy was a documentary.
i mean there was the whole Dark Ages thing.
We’re well on our way to Dark Ages 2: Electric Q-galoo
Dark, because not much written history about it is available; not necessarily because Western society was especially stupid. Maybe it was, but we can’t know because how few records remain.
Also, add this:
old.lemmy.world/comment/20014496
I meant to say your first part there and forgot. :) So, THREE reasons the times were called thus.
That’s all mostly propaganda from the Renaissance and the nineteenth century.
Wouldn’t the golden age be the formation of religion?
Etterra@discuss.online 5 hours ago
Obviously.