Thanks for writing this. I fully agree, by the way.
Anything like an utopia requires a form of stability. But we’re going to speed everything up, by a lot. Nothing can change and yet remain the same. And I think it’s silly to assume that optimization, or simply just improving things, can co-exist with things remaining as they are. We’re necessarily something intermediate, so speeding things up doesn’t seem like a good idea.
Furthermore, it seems that slowing down technological advancement is almost impossible, and that keeping people from making optimal choices for themselves is almost impossible (even if they know it’s harmful to the whole). And there’s two further dangers here, the first is technology completely removing our freedoms and privacy, and the second is technology being used to manipulate human behaviour, erasing our humanity. And this second point is almost guanteed, as human well-being is not possible in a world withour freedom, agency and privacy, these are core needs. So why not effectively turn the population into drones by modifying them? We’re already doing this with adderall and SSRIs, and since it makes people suffer less, most people suport it.
That first possibility, technology taking away our agency, freedoms, and privacy, is basically guaranteed as well. It has actually already happened, it will just get much worse. This is because technology makes it easier to cause damages, and while it also makes it easier to defend and prevent damages, there’s an inequality between the two growth rates.
All the increases in mental health issues is a direct consequence of the modern life, so it’s also extremely naive to assume that more technology and more “progress” is going to fix it. Why eliminate struggle? Even struggle is essential to life and well-being! Are intellectuals really so disconnected from reality that they don’t realize this?
Thanks for writing this. I fully agree, by the way.
Anything like an utopia requires a form of stability. But we’re going to speed everything up, by a lot. Nothing can change and yet remain the same. And I think it’s silly to assume that optimization, or simply just improving things, can co-exist with things remaining as they are. We’re necessarily something intermediate, so speeding things up doesn’t seem like a good idea.
Furthermore, it seems that slowing down technological advancement is almost impossible, and that keeping people from making optimal choices for themselves is almost impossible (even if they know it’s harmful to the whole). And there’s two further dangers here, the first is technology completely removing our freedoms and privacy, and the second is technology being used to manipulate human behaviour, erasing our humanity. And this second point is almost guanteed, as human well-being is not possible in a world withour freedom, agency and privacy, these are core needs. So why not effectively turn the population into drones by modifying them? We’re already doing this with adderall and SSRIs, and since it makes people suffer less, most people suport it.
That first possibility, technology taking away our agency, freedoms, and privacy, is basically guaranteed as well. It has actually already happened, it will just get much worse. This is because technology makes it easier to cause damages, and while it also makes it easier to defend and prevent damages, there’s an inequality between the two growth rates.
All the increases in mental health issues is a direct consequence of the modern life, so it’s also extremely naive to assume that more technology and more “progress” is going to fix it. Why eliminate struggle? Even struggle is essential to life and well-being! Are intellectuals really so disconnected from reality that they don’t realize this?