Any space to be human in all this?

Post Reply New Topic

I think one of the scariest things about hitting 40 (well, I'll be 41 in a month) and looking at the world around me is that it feels like there's no space to be 'human'.

What I mean by that - it's like we're watching the genetic apocalypse. It's a bit like everyone for a long time had personalities, interests, were developing some kind of depth for it's own benefit, and then the seals broke, the locusts came out of the earth, angel trumpets brayed, and all ran onto the fields of Har Megiddo for the final battle with either their money, real estate, designer clothing, or $100K plus car or it's the Instagram and Twitter, Gucci, one brand of high heals not the other, and it's an apocalypse where the 'elect' are 10-15% of men and some similar percentage of women. The men who are out at least have some peace because it's abundantly clear where they stand, for the women there's a never closing non-zero chance of landing a celebrity athlete, actor, rapper, or something along those lines and thus that peace never comes easy.

It's like watching human beings reduce to an inorganic substance, like iron filings or ferrofluid getting hit with a magnet. There's no way to be human, aside from in your own head or with a dwindling number of college friends, because there's no one to interact with who isn't hijacked on just about every level.

The thing that's abundantly clear, I knew this between five and ten years ago in developing ways but it's hyperabundant now, the idea that we're these little Greek philosophers looking for truth, reason, and to learn, grow, and become better people for it's own sake - that's what very late secular humanism bordering on Scientology sounds like. If we could just throw that pesky thing called a personality overboard and just let the genes do all the work we'd be in great shape.

I think the place where my head is still existentially ringing over all of this - as a guy it's not that your personality doesn't matter, it literally biologically can't matter - especially if you've come to merit beyond your genetic weight. Outside of a very narrow frame of reference it's just the 6 6's. On one hand I don't mind people optimizing, it's what Darwinian evolution would have us do, but I feel like I'm watching the world around me throw itself so hard at Darwinian evolution that it's like heroin addicts constantly looking for a fix and letting the drug void their internal content. It's one thing to say 'Okay, I'll be single', another to say 'Okay I'll be single AND be alone in any serious shot at self-betterment that isn't strictly in service of procreation'.

At this rate it's a bit like we're either set to a) head back to the trees and chew leaves for a simpler life or b) fill our heads with microchips and let the computer programs think for us. Whatever it is it's as if we can't expel our humanity fast enough. Maybe nothing that extreme but it's clear that our animal nature has been amped much higher over our broader capacities.

Is anyone else seeing this sort of thing or feeling it like that and, what's your take on orienting to it as a world to live in? I'm also guessing for me at least this is some combination of things - on one hand seeing a world that always to some degree was but with all the pleasant lies I was taught completely rolled back and possibly all of the Tristan Harris 'The Social Dilemma' kind of things that are happening with the social media platforms and dopamine hijack then coopting the rest of people's lives (along with capitalism coopting every inch it can).

I am not sure that I understand where you are at?

You mentioned Tristan Harris 'The Social Dilemma', so I looked up an interview. Apparently it is a film on Netflixs, sort of a documentary by a former Google design ethicist. I don't prescribe to Netflixs and haven't seen the film. But according to the interview:

The major point of the film is that a business model that is infused in the social communications infrastructure that 3 billion people live by, and are dependent on, is misaligned with the fabric of society and specifically poses a kind of existential threat to democracy and a functioning society. If we don’t have a common conversation or a capacity to trust and to have shared faith in the same information and to reach agreement, then nothing else works in a society.

While we’ve had polarized and hyperpartisan media on television and radio before. Social media has become the background upstream, a place that even television, radio, Fox News, MSNBC get their information on Twitter, et cetera. I think that this business model of doing whatever is best for engagement will always privilege giving each person their own reality.

The way that I interpret in the movie is that tech companies are using algorithms in order to inflame tensions so that we can spend more time on their platforms. Does that sum it up the right way?

Source: Harris Responds to Criticisms of the Film, Netflix’s Algorithm, and More

So based on that description, I can see that occurring and its tragic. But it is even worse because it is evolving into censorship akin to the book "1984". It is distorting free speech.

It almost seems to me that you are seeking THE MEANING OF LIFE.

I do not share your perception on life. Or maybe I do not share your mood. From an early age, I became a non-conformist. From my perception an Aspie can grow up to be a conformist mirroring the actions of others in society or they can become non-conformist and be set free. I chose the latter and am quite content with my life. There is a certain joy in owning yourself.

It's like watching people devolve into something equivalent to living bots, ie. a bit subhuman.

I'm not looking for the meaning of life (pretty sure I've got something equivalent to that) so much as other people who'd even care about such a question anymore let alone consider that such a question is even worth entertaining.


I think the thing that hits me, maybe more often than it should, is how unique I am - and I can't think of a single good reason why I'd be that way or really the reverse, how the rest of the world would be so far from me. It's knowing how little I have in common with most people, it was like that as a kid, but then as I got older and instead of constantly walking on my own heels to conform or at least not stray too far out of the center I started self actualizing, grew up, and found out that yes - I was freer - and my relationship to the world around me though got even colder. It's a bit like if you aren't evolving in the same direction as everyone else it's a bit like firing yourself out into space where no one can see you.

Of course you do what you have to do in order to make your life work, and to some degree if you're different deep down and constantly hobbling yourself to fit in then you'll do a C grade job of fitting in and a D grade or worse job of being you. The choice then is then whether to exchange that for an A or B grade at being you and a D or F grade at fitting in (meaning that even with good social skills, work ethic, assuming good care of your appearance even - raw neurological conformity is much more central). There's also that sense that the grass is hardly greener anywhere, even under those conditions.

I've also noticed that depth is gross, or at least it's seen as a compensation for some deep biological failure. That's also where I see humanity trying to vomit up as much of it's substance for the sake of mating like mosquitos (or at least nailing the same behavior on contraceptives) and trying to forget we ever took a shot at this Enlightenment thing - it's too hard and no one wants to do it anymore.

My mother, who in retrospect probably was an aspie, kept saying “The world is going to hell in a hand-basket.” Probably a quote from somewhere; she was well-read.

I am aware of the critical mass of sociological problems you reference, tech8. Are people no longer human is a theme well known in science fiction. It is easier to ponder the question if in the future.

Before we can ask if people are still human, we have to decide on what is human. And also consider the still millions of people who live without social media and designer clothes.

That's there, true. I think my read of things at the moment is a bit like this - social media connecting the world up also amplified the lines of tension in Darwinian game theory, thus social, economic, or any kind of arms race rather than being just a local phenomena can criss-cross the globe within a few weeks. It's a bit like those genetic algorithm amplifications are ripping the wheels off of culture.

It's like any other persistent arms race situation though - ie. you're allowed to do one thing and one thing only, ie. optimize in x direction, or you fail the given arms race. That ends up being a condition where there's no room for creativity, no room for nuance, no room for exploration, it's one-up-one-down/zero-sum at peak velocity.

I recall cberg explained this phenomena too.

Do you remember which thread? I should probably give it a read.

I've also seen Aaron Clarey (A--hole Consulting) touch on aspects of this but it's mostly been trying to cope with having a double or triple standard deviation high IQ and the alienation and frustration that comes with that. I'm nowhere close to triple 9's, if anything it's more like it's just enough to not get along with the mid-wits (people who might be one standard deviation up and work to convert every gram of it to social power).

My opinion: Most people are still "human." The problem lies in the fact that people tend to think about their own situations, rather than think abstractly about the broader world.

I don't feel there will be an "apocalypse of bots" anytime soon.

I've spent most of my life watching this, in one form or another. I've got so many different thoughts on this that it's hard to type out less than a book. I keep trying and failing to be at all concise, just so much I have inside me that I want to say here.
This process has been going on for a long time. It's gotten faster, gets faster every day it seems, instantaneous communication and near ubiquitous "connection" are the reasons, but it's communication and connection that just seems to bring humans farther apart and focuses on differences instead of similarity. Our best quality as humans, the ONE THING that has taken us from familial groups on the savanna to where we are now is our ability to work together for the common good, as well as the ability to plan for the future, but it seems that this is what is disappearing. If a person can't be the hero, most don't want to be involved these days. If it takes longer than one lifetime (and in many cases, if it takes ANY TIME AT ALL) no one cares, they don't see the benefit if they themselves can't have ALL the benefit (extra points if they can have it ALL and can also have it RIGHT NOW...)
And as I'm typing, I'm proofreading and it's all just... I can't express in words the depth that it reaches in my head. Plus, this is the Cliff's Notes of the Cliff's Notes. I wish I had the time (and possibly also the Executive Function) to really put my thoughts on this into words. I feel like I have an incredible book in here. Of course, no one would read it, and the ones who did probably wouldn't agree with me, lol...

It seems like Bret Weinstein has had some interesting things to say about the game theory of the situations, and in some sense on the economics Mark Blyth touches on how short-termism is something people fall into when the competition is so extreme that no long-term strategy wins because you get clipped on your way to implementing it (why people can't thread the two together though is beyond me). Also Daniel Schmachtenberger is great at discussing arms races, multipolar traps, and defection patterns. I was listening to David Fuller (Rebel Wisdom) beat up again on Brian Rose of London Real and he brought in Jordan Hall/Greenhall who got into the game theory of defection and how as a society grows it hits a point where niches for psychopathy start growing and the system starts dying fast when the broader public comes to the conclusion that it's in their best interest to defect - which then causes fractal defection, something akin to the chain of dominoes that knocks all or most other dominoes down.

On the more specifically social side arms races cause something almost like social electrocution. It's a bit like the humanity people do have they're not capable of exercising because the environment is too predatory. If you also feel like you're in a fight for survival with the people around you that never stops then you get - and say - uber-fake, and I've come to understand this kind of mendacity as what people do when they find themselves in a social sphere where it's a perpetual cold war and any sign of weakness or variance will get them clipped.

Jordan Hall/Greenhall seems to think that this is the death of 'Game A', ie. the system of rivalrous competition that started with the agricultural revolution and has been revised with every system collapse - to the extent that Game B, ie. something much more cooperative or infinite-sum might replace it would be great, the trick is just figuring out what that kind of collaboration looks like and how to start taking people who are falling off these crumbling structures and get them somewhere they'd rather be than staring down something like civil war or whatever the base of this sort of collapse with no alternative but wreckage looks like.

To be fair I think this is a more extreme generational effect. I haven't seen it as much with older millennials or young gen x but I've seen it a lot with later millennials, gen z, etc.. It's a hollowing out.

Don't you think things have always been this way, but now it's amplified by social media?
Science fiction has been around arguably for a few hundred years and has dealt with this theme repeatedly.
Human beings have done a lot during history to impress upon other people, either for social status or for sexual selection. This is not a recent phenomenon, and I don't believe it's getting any worse than it was. If anything, it hasn't changed. It's just that you're able to actually see it happening around you more now with social media.

I'm sure the basic behavior is perennial. I'm just questioning whether the competition caused people to be as squashed or stunted in other areas as it seems to now.

I prefer to think with concrete examples, take for example the birthday greetings, a decade or so ago birthday greetings had much more meaning; you would receive it only from few family members and few friends. Those friends would make the effort to send an email or even to arrange a small party/outing for you. Do most people still do that these days? (pandemic aside; the thing seems had disappeared in most cultures long before); now all you receive is birthday greetings on your facebook wall (who are notified by facebook) and most of these people never talk to you round the year.....yes, like ad bots.

There's some few cultures who still preserve the old birthday traditions - the Filipino culture for instance; but in mine it's totally replaced by FB.

Or it's maybe me not having friends with free time anymore (all got married) lol; but I noticed this change in others too even in workspaces, so probably not just me.

Yeah, it's a bit like FB, Twitter, etc. gutted social interaction. Rather than actually getting out with people you get something like a saccharine substitute.

I wonder what it says when aspies / auties are talking about it as well. Are NT's heading off to the other side of us now?

We are simply less affected by hive thinking.

Also it is a generational thing; the much younger ones won’t get what it is all about.