Submitted by Gmroo t3_106khbl in philosophy
This really seems quite ridiculous and sensationalist to me. Major emotional emphasis is placed on the word “collapse.” The real problem is going to be what it has always been, lack of equality, justice, intelligence within the social order.
Did you actually read it and do you have an actual argument?
What you science fiction here already exists in reality through inequality. Well nourished and cared for minds are going to automatically have an advantage against materially deprived and disadvantaged minds. Your science fiction provides a narrative escape from reality, doesn’t deal with reality at all, doesn’t live in reality. Mass suffering is already taking place because of inequality and superstition.
I don't deny issues of inquality, but this is simply not the topic here. And you've brought no argument regarding the actual content of the post.
Let me simplify. The biggest problem we face is not from sensationalized computers but human psychology sabotaging our species, more specifically, individuals in power using weapons of mass destruction.
Did you read it though?
Just about to the end, it was really more than I could suffer. It’s very unserious, but the author is intelligent and has a good mind. He should try reading sociology.
İ think it's about how social structure changes over time that not only knowladge about it becomes history also "experience" related to it becomes invalid as well
You don't think a "collapse" of everything down into a problem with equality, justice and intelligence is a bit... limited? It seems like you would inevitably miss something and likely recreate the problem you were trying to address, simply because you have acted as if you have found the absolute truth which you almost certainly have not. I would agree those three things are important and have always been problems, but it seems to me that we don't have the required understanding to truly fix these issues in an adequate way.
If you have more expanded model than go ahead and propose it. Calling something “limited” on its face without even intimating at an improved model is vacuous.
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>The real problem is going to be what it has always been, lack of equality, justice, intelligence within the social order
A lack of a sense of community too.
Rampant individualism goes hand in hand with inequality, injustice, false consciousness, etc.
Spot on! Well said. Our lack of community is a crisis far larger than anything put forth in this essay.
You speak a Truth. Thank you
And what point did we ever achieve equality and justice?
It is non-falsifiable and intentionally ambiguous as to mean anything you want it to mean at any rhetorically advantageous juncture.
Human beings are not built to serve justice. Equality on the other hands....that would be really nice... But it requires justice.
What form would justice and equality take in a world where minds span the entire spectrum from lizard to chimp to human to superhuman, or where people can create an army of clones of themselves? Social theories formulated in the 19th century are not ready for this.
What dumb science fiction are you throwing around like reality? An army of clones? 😂dude you’ve watched way too many Disney movies. Our existential threat is the proliferation of weapons, specifically weapons of mass destruction, in the hands of immature and violent humans. There are very successful social systems in the world that eliminate human suffering and level out inequality; see Rutger Bregman, Utopia for Realists.
"Disregard dangers from technologies that do not yet exist" is a heuristic with a rather poor track record, when you consider the costs and benefits. In particular, anyone who followed it in 1930 would have told you that bombs strong enough to pose an existential risk to humanity are impossible. And indeed, at that time it wasn't obvious they aren't.
You can't be confident that the technologies of the following century won't redefine the meaning of being a person, and a century is not much by historical timescales. Even if there's only a 5% chance, it's something worth preparing for.
(The army of clones comes from Robin Hanson's Age of Em, by the way)
Sure, but you’re still engaged in science fiction as an escapism from the real world. The more important question you should be asking yourself is why your psychology is drawn to this? That’s all I have to say.
Why? Because I'm a progressive. I want to stay on the pulse of social progress, which means not waiting for society to force me to adapt. New society-shaping technologies will almost certainly appear and will force us to reexamine our values. Those who refuse to do so are doomed to become conservatives.
Science fiction (and fiction in general) has always been a useful tool for social progress. The hypothetical scenarios allow readers to stress-test their beliefs and moral instincts, and to resolve internal contradictions that familiar real world scenarios couldn't.
Dude, you tried to posit a clone army. 😂
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