Anenome5 t1_ivmw8zl wrote on November 9, 2022 at 2:57 AM

Zero chance of a binary choice.

Think of genres of music. There used to be like one genre of music, classical / church music, then everyone loved the Beatles, then genre flowered into dozens of genres and no band could ever be as big and popular as the Beatles ever again due to tastes becoming highly varied and niche.

The future will be highly varied and niche. Maybe some will delve deeply into digital worlds, but it's not likely to be the masses, because the real world is too compelling. We may see more augmented reality than people trying to live entirely in a digital world. While others will begin exploring space, or this or that.

> I believe we will either revert to a neo-neolithic society and start all over from scratch

That's a silly idea.

Cr4zko t1_ivopexf wrote on November 9, 2022 at 2:32 PM

> There used to be like one genre of music, classical / church music, then everyone loved the Beatles

That's a gross misrepresentation of the history of music

Anenome5 t1_ivrwhlx wrote on November 10, 2022 at 3:47 AM

Well it was, but in service to my point that rock was pretty broad at one point, with the Beatles ungodly popular. But with the spread of genre no one can ever be that popular again.

What's important isn't the bastardized analogy but the point, that humanity will not follow just one or the other course, but dozens of them across many niches, and it's wrong to claim it will be one or the other, it will be both plus a couple dozen others.