ambientenv

A somewhat related discussion on this topic [1].

[1] https://thehonestsorcerer.substack.com/p/the-oil-price-myste...

See also "Taiwan, Nuclear War, and Global Economic Collapse" [1] for some additional perspective.

[1] https://collapse2050.substack.com/p/taiwan-nuclear-war-and-g...

Nate Hagens [1] often talks about a wider-boundary view and nth-order effects. I find it both informative and enlightening as well as thought-provoking.

[1] https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/frankly-original/141-...

I find these discussions both entertaining and annoying. We humans unquestionably expect to be able to bend the world to our will, even when the “world” is defined by some arbitrary set of rules put forth by some faction whose intent is solely to serve their own purposes, desires, and needs, independent of a shared reality. Legumes, among other things, make you fart. Get over it.

And this is the predicament that people seem to either not understand or completely (wilfully?) ignore. As is said, problems have solutions; predicaments have outcomes. I think this [0] is worth a read (among many other similar analyses)

[0] https://thehonestsorcerer.substack.com/p/the-tale-of-two-ene...

I just can't get that exuberant when I also read things like this [1].

[1] https://thehonestsorcerer.substack.com/p/the-tale-of-two-ene...

Some interesting, recent discussion: "Interview at the Technical University of Munich: Not only are forests more complex than is commonly realized, they also do more." [1]

[1] https://bioticregulation.substack.com/p/in-focus-green-ocean...

I think there may be some credence to the Dark Triad[0] theory as well.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_triad

Personally, I don't think the capitalist-driven agenda anywhere in the world gives a flying fricative about the health of anyone, only the health of the profit motive and it's benefits to shareholders. Food and healthcare is but one more example. Love or hate the JRE, I think this episode [1] provides much food (pun intended) for thought. The common person simply does not matter other than as a(n) (addicted) consumer.

[1] https://youtu.be/G0lTyhvOeJs?feature=shared

What if we don't spend the effort, time, and money to 'decode' birdsong? What if we don't feel the need to uncover such, to reinforce the human exceptionalism? What if it really wasn't meant for us to know? What if we simply just relaxed and immersed ourselves in the beauty of birdsong? Would we be somehow deprived?

The word, "progress" carries a lot of weight here. How do you define it?

I have been working my way through this paper, [1], and it has plenty of good food for thought around this.

[1] https://consilienceproject.org/development-in-progress/

This. "My kids light up the most when I am fully engaged with them, fully present, entertaining their ideas, and asking questions."

Things a screen and all the gadgets and fancy engineering in the world can never replace.

There's some further thought-provoking discussion in a recent conversation with Daniel Scmachtenberger [1] talking about what you suggest.

[1] Moving from Naive to Authentic Progress: A Vision for Betterment - https://youtu.be/tmusbHBKW84

And who manufacture[d,s] that desire?

Canada, like most other global north countries (regions), cannot maintain its economy - at least in the expected way, that is of ever-increasing GDP as has been the trend for the last 75+ years - based upon birth rate alone. We are below the replacement rate. Demographics, another aspect of the so-called poly crisis whereby we see and interact with the world through the lens of the left-brain hemisphere, isolated and reductionist, rather than a necessary and more holistic "big picture" global view.

For an interesting and relatively plain language view:

https://www.ecosophia.net/an-unfamiliar-world/

'nuff said:

"This is about the things you do, the products of your creativity, your expressions of joy and anger and pain and love and beauty. It’s about a company who used to claim to support writers and other creators deciding that all you do, all the things you care enough to express in whatever imperfect, broken, dumb way are up for grabs to feed to a machine whose expressed purpose is to replace you, to drown your work in the digital equivalent to toxic waste. And very obviously Automattic knew it was shady. Because they worked on this completely in secret: They could have introduced an opt-in system for third party data use beforehand. Communicated things honestly, going into an exchange with their users before accepting checks from Microsoft/OpenAI and others. But they didn’t. Because they didn’t think that the writers and artists that made WordPress and Automattic what they are and their work are deserving of respect."

Because it's all about, and only about, you. Yes?

This feels true to me. So my question is - and I don't know the answer yet, though I continue to seek such - when do we, as a humanity, break this cycle? When, and how, do we override the greed impulse, the impulse for power and control and domination of others? When do we begin to leverage a superior cognitive capacity enough to gain true enlightenment and break free from the bonds of behaviour which, while necessary as we evolved, is no longer required, and replace it with an egalitarian perspective and an accompanying stewardship model of life on earth?

So, the technocracy can use its billions (trillions?) of dollars (in aggregate) of influence to continue to perpetuate technology which buries us in distraction and dopamine hits and furthers the capitalist agenda, yet we are unable to amass the same kind of support and influence to tackle the existential problems with which we are confronted globally. Speaks volumes on the state of our humanity. Why do we let these people continue to drive the bus when it is not in our collective, long-term interest?

This is wonderful! I had no idea the museum, nor the Telecommunications History Group, existed. Having worked in Bell Canada for many years I had the pleasure of working on many kinds of switches including DMS-10s and also DMS-100, DMS-200/250, Step-by-step, crossbar, SP1 and PBXs including 701, SL1 etc (not to mention 1A and 6A key systems, Dataroute, T-carrier and many other analog and digital systems). Interesting side note. If, as a telecom technician, you were weened on mechanical switch systems like step-by-step, you really understood call processing at a level that carried well through to hybrid and all digital systems whereas techs who entered the scene at the digital stage didn't have the same (or so it seemed) level of understanding which made a big difference in troubleshooting CO problems.

I don't know. We seem to get down right giddy, wallowing in our cleverness to create solutions to problems we, ourselves, have created, without addressing the root cause or making any changes which will negate the need for our so-called solution. Imagine a world where we don't have to be this cleaver to thrive and live healthy and fruitful lives.

Wow. Spoken like someone who hopes (believes they deserve to) profit from the evolving technology, who views anyone not like them with bemusement and detached curiosity or, more likely, derision. Why do we - humans - feel it is so damn well appropriate to outsource our responsibilities and accountabilities as humans and integral members off an ecology to technology and, in doing so, forego a necessary immersion into and deep reverence for the world, substituting instead a tech-derived and mediated superficiality, detaching ourselves from our biology mostly for the sake of self-gratification and self-grandeur? The bigger question is, what values do we - the collective we - attribute to a world and a life to be saved and will our AI adhere to such values?

Wonderful! Had similar experiences, too. My dad and I built the AR1500 receiver together on top of the ping pong table in the basement. My first "transistor radio" as a kid was also a Heathkit. I can recall test equipment like a VTVM and other stuff which we also built together. It was a great introduction to electronics and radio with lifelong benefits.

When you step back and look objectively and in an unbiased manner, you see that we (humans) are a species of dominance rather than collaborative partnership. It is a world where individuals must earn the privilege of survival, and by earn I don't mean only in a monetary sense but also a gatekeeper sense. Life is not of precious value; power and control are. This, and the commodification of labour, land, and money are bringing about the disintegration of capitalism with nothing on the horizon to replace it other than anarchy. Welcome to the interregnum.

"is not providing value to society" ... are we talking only the core values today of profit and growth?

My suspicion is that his talent lies in financial engineering - though, perhaps, not in the formal definition - i.e. creating enough of a reality distortion field to attract and leverage other peoples money. I continue to question his values, morals and ethics (and sometimes maturity).

We somehow have this belief that the "market" is some immutable law of nature like say, gravity. The "market" is based on behaviour, albeit behaviour that is heavily manipulated and controlled (somewhat invisibly - complicity or otherwise - to, seemingly, most people). We acquiesce and, when life is good for us, ignore the fact that we have to the power to change our behaviour and our beliefs and values and, thus, the market. But that will take hard work over time and much sacrifice. And so it goes ...

Exactly. Democracies, it turns out, are actually very difficult to fully implement for a plethora of reasons. We, for the most part in the "west" live in a technocracy to which governing bodies are subservient and acquiescent. My personal desire is that as our current world continues to unravel, enough people wake up to this fact and say, "no more". That would be a grand step towards a better democracy.

I think the substack article linked here [0] is pretty good at addressing what you need to know.

It used to be that money - capital - was used for value creation like a better product or service or some public good in the commons. Now the most crucial use of capital is to generate (further) wealth for those already wealthy. And since "conventional wisdom" of the economics kind blames higher wages as an impetus for inflation, "hurting" those wage earners is the key via higher rates to reign in said inflation. But real wages are and have been falling. Thus, because the economy is biased towards enabling and sustaining the making of money with money, in other words continuing to generate and increase wealth for the wealthy at the expense of others, the system will continue to reward the needs and wants of the wealthy.

Just my take on things. I'm learning as we go.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35260210

"You can pollinate crops using bees kept in captivity. Many crops are pollinated this way." ... as much as I may appreciate the sentiment, it seems to me that we - the global we - have become adept at finding band-aid solutions (especially when it involves technology) to symptoms but rarely address and attempt to fix the actual causal factors, i.e. the problem. I would hazard to guess this is for primarily two reasons. First and foremost, it requires grass roots and pervasive change - change in values, behaviours, beliefs - and change is often difficult. Second, there appears to exist a pervasive view that sees us humans as outside of nature rather than an integral and dependent part of the whole.