Decisions, Decisions
I’ve always been critical. I’ve always been indecisive. As I get older, my criticism intensifies while my indecisions multiply. The former perhaps because I’ve become a jaded world traveller. After more than half a century on the road, it often seems to me that it’s the same shit — mostly human — different place. The latter because I’m getting old and senile.
Leaving my criticisms aside for now, I’ll focus instead on the indecisions. Because there is one decision I increasingly feel I must make.
Whether to look to the future for hope, or to the past.
It is my belief that the wisdom of the Ancients — the Egyptians, the Mayans and others — far exceeds the general morass of ignorance permeating our times. They looked to the stars for guidance and peace of mind. We stare into smart phones.
The question now is whether to disconnect from the grid, or surrender to it more completely.
The meta-verse is bearing down upon us and, if we think humanity already resembles a colony of smart-phone zombies, we haven’t seen anything yet. If the tech gurus get their way, there won’t be a single waking moment when we are not monitored, nudged, manipulated or sold back to ourselves. The machine will know us better than we know ourselves.
It is my belief that most of humanity is utterly ill-prepared for what is coming. Collapsing ecosystems. Climate instability. AI disruption. Joblessness. Social fragmentation. A growing inability to think independently as behavioural algorithms slowly sap the will to make decisions for ourselves.
Personally, I think we may be fucked.
But the real decision I have to make is whether I truly want to believe that.
28 October 2021
I’ve always been critical. I’ve always been indecisive. As I get older, my criticism intensifies while my indecisions multiply. The former perhaps because I’ve become a jaded world traveller. After more than half a century on the road, it often seems to me that it’s the same shit — mostly human — different place. The latter because I’m getting old and senile.
Leaving my criticisms aside for now, I’ll focus instead on the indecisions. Because there is one decision I increasingly feel I must make.
Whether to look to the future for hope, or to the past.
It is my belief that the wisdom of the Ancients — the Egyptians, the Mayans and others — far exceeds the general morass of ignorance permeating our times. They looked to the stars for guidance and peace of mind. We stare into smart phones.
The question now is whether to disconnect from the grid, or surrender to it more completely.
The meta-verse is bearing down upon us and, if we think humanity already resembles a colony of smart-phone zombies, we haven’t seen anything yet. If the tech gurus get their way, there won’t be a single waking moment when we are not monitored, nudged, manipulated or sold back to ourselves. The machine will know us better than we know ourselves.
It is my belief that most of humanity is utterly ill-prepared for what is coming. Collapsing ecosystems. Climate instability. AI disruption. Joblessness. Social fragmentation. A growing inability to think independently as behavioural algorithms slowly sap the will to make decisions for ourselves.
Personally, I think we may be fucked.
But the real decision I have to make is whether I truly want to believe that.
28 October 2021
