Kvakes

A reflection on how we optimized away what truly matters

I think you're right on most accounts. What do we do?

A lot of old wisdom seems to be coming back. It's as funny as it's sad that we have to wait for "scientists" to confirm to us that fasting, extreme hot/cold, are evidently good to us. Also I've recently seen an ad for a company that builds houses out of carbon-negative materials (wood!).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcXMhwF4EtQ

Absolutely, 100%. Not all tech is the same. A chair is a form of technology, but it doesn't try to make you sit all the time. Although some technologies (like books) are replaced with e-readers through which we handle over a certain degree of freedom to whomever the platform we use belongs to.

There is a great book called The Dawn of Everything (Graeber and Wengrow) that talks about how cultures like that existed, and we (the Western civilization) decimated them.

I wouldn't say we "like" to do it, but in a certain sense it's an existential necessity to do so.

It's a personal essay about how not all—probably most—technology is destined to liberate us.

Wow!