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RE: Do You Feel Exponential Change Coming?
Youre already controlled by forces you didn't create - did you choose to be born? Did you choose to speak English? Did you choose to be an American or whatever? Are you going to choose when you'll die? Let's not pretend we're in control. Watching YouTube at 2x speed isnt going to sort your life out when the nukes start launching or the stop the cancer from growing.
If you're talking about materialistic determinism, check out my thoughts on that.
As for whether or not education will sort out your life and/or prevent nukes and/or prevent cancer, I absolutely think it will. As deterministic systems, the inputs we consume change our outputs. There is no other approach to change. You can hang out in the malthusian theory camp if you want, but that approach hasn't survived well through history.
We won't survive well through history. We're a species that is so close to destroying itself in so many ways that not even the mighty youtube on 2x speed can stop us. (Not to mention the countless number of other species we've already destroyed). And my questions were rhetorical - you have / had no choice whatsoever (unless you kill yourself). And cancer cant be cured, we are cancer, its in the dna. Even if we cured cancer with magic people would only live 4 years longer on average and then die of something else. Lastly; if by some fluke we avoid a man made Apocalypse - we're all dead in the long run, there's no escaping from individual annihilation.
I just don't like being sold existence. It isn't that great - look up the Pollyanna principle.
I've written about my ideas for improving the world here.
I think your pessimism isn't rational, and I'd cite books like Rational Optimism, The Origins of Virtue, and The Better Angels of Our Nature as support for my position.
If you're going to argue statistics like this are not accurate then we're probably already using a different method of epistemology and may not be able to come to an agreement on how we even measure what is knowledge over opinion, let alone how to increase well-being or what a framework of morality should be.
I'm going to let you into a secret - I'm not giving you an opinion when I say we are all going to die, its not pessimistic. It's a fact that the worst thing that could ever happen to you and everyone you know will. As a fact. No chart, no book, no philosophy can change this. So be as optimistic as you like, but its horribly misplaced against the crushing forces of nature.
Frankly I think its indecent to deny the suffering in the world because then we bring people into it with an optimism bias. They had no say and we can't guarantee their safety from harm. People suffer unspeakably all the time and, at the ends of our lives we probably will too. The people I've know that have died didn't seem to enjoy it much.
Thanks for talking to me - much appreciated.
Both my parents died, so i'm no stranger to it or suffering in the world. It's that suffering which drives me to want to improve the world so much and be optimistic about what can make things better. Though I do have high hopes for transhumanism and life-extension breakthroughs (some believe those who are under 60 today could potentially live 1,000 years if current trends continue, read some Ray Kurzweil or Aubrey de Grey), I of course will not deny that as far as we know today, everyone will die and people will suffer. Okay. So? Is that the whole story? Don't we have steps we can (and, I'd argue, should) take today to limit suffering and extend joyful life?
I like thinking long term which is why things like the Long Now Foundation are so interesting to me. Yes, we may die, even die as a species, but some future version of us (if we make good decisions today) could explore the universe. Assuming we don't kill ourselves and the planet we have first.
I'm not denying suffering. It's funny because some people have given Marshall Rosenberg (inventor of NVC) that same criticism and yet he developed it within terrible human suffering. Suffering exists, sure. If we claim to be moral beings, I think we should work to minimize it and increase well-being.
"everyone will die and people will suffer. Okay. So? Is that the whole story?" pretty much yeah - You like the long term stuff, there it is.