What's with people thinking that the future is a passive progress bar?

[unogueen]

Imagine this. It's 2016, and an alarming number of contentious speakers are making the uni circuit to proclaim against 'safe spaces' and such. The media is busy lionizing white nerds in turtlenecks like they're Steve Jobs, and for all you know this is all a money hoax. For me, back in 2010 a psych prof of mine sounded the alarm that the consensus was changing. Certain sciences have taken to old and very dangerous ideals, and of course the public only sees the aftermath. There is a mountain of academia rot, under certain impunity. As much as it is comfortable to imagine, the social friction is not just the imagination of basement dwellers, but papers of research. Hillary Clinton once was paraphrased she would not dare a future where her grandchildren learned Mandarin.

[Uaarkson]

Sticky this thread 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

It's akin to the ludicrous notion that the "arc of history" inevitably bends towards "justice".

[Bloodporne]

I've never understood this idea myself whatsoever. Especially being German seemed to prove that shit doesn't just "get better" because humans magically learn and learn and learn. 

[CitizenVectron]

I think there's a credible argument that technological progress is passive and fairly continual...but only in the sense that people have an urge to try and improve things so they need to do less work. It's not the case that it will always improve, just that there is a drive to improve it. However, even if it always improves, that doesn't mean that quality of life does. I do believe that there is some level of technology that would allow happiness to increase exponentially (probably at the point where you can manipulate matter and energy itself, including your own structure of mind/thoughts), but until then we're just a bunch of fleshy animals playing with sticks. It's entirely possible that some peasant family in 14th-century France led a happier life than any of us on this board. Perhaps they experienced more "random" and earlier death in their lives, but they could have had a greater sense of fulfilment (which I think is more important than happiness).

 

 

[Guest]

Nothing is passive, even the status quo is fought for 

[stepee]

The future IS a passive progress bar as nothingness is greater than this dreary so called life and that is the end we all march towards, including the earth, the sun, and all the stars in the sky.

[CitizenVectron]

50 minutes ago, CitizenVectron said:

I think there's a credible argument that technological progress is passive and fairly continual...but only in the sense that people have an urge to try and improve things so they need to do less work. It's not the case that it will always improve, just that there is a drive to improve it. However, even if it always improves, that doesn't mean that quality of life does. I do believe that there is some level of technology that would allow happiness to increase exponentially (probably at the point where you can manipulate matter and energy itself, including your own structure of mind/thoughts), but until then we're just a bunch of fleshy animals playing with sticks. It's entirely possible that some peasant family in 14th-century France led a happier life than any of us on this board. Perhaps they experienced more "random" and earlier death in their lives, but they could have had a greater sense of fulfilment (which I think is more important than happiness).

 

 

 

Quoting myself to add: However, while fulfilment is imo one of the greatest feelings due to the way our brains are wired, I do not discount that a simple state of non-struggle is also good. Being able to be born, live a life with no violence or random disasters, and then die without any major challenge or accomplishment is a great thing, as existence goes, in an uncaring universe. If the majority of people could live such a life, then imo we have succeeded as a species. It's the whole "may you live in interesting times" thing. No one asks to be born, so if you can provide a safe existence then you are doing a good thing.

[Keyser_Soze]

The light of the past is the light which was. The wisdom of the past is the light of the past. The light of the future is the light which is to be. The wisdom of the future is the light of the future see.

[CitizenVectron]

I had a No Fear t-shirt when I was a kid in the early 90s that said "He who dies with the most toys, still dies" and I remember one of my mom's friends being very offended by it, the basic idea that I, as a child, was exposed to the concept of mortality and that accomplishments don't matter once you are gone. Very strange.

 

EDIT - Now I am listening to my favourite song that deals with death the and irrelevance of existence:

 

 

Quote

All that you said sinks to the grave
There is no meaning
I really do feel
It's better this way with no one around

And the days will run away before you know it
The lights will dim, the earth shakes, and the whole thing disappears
If you could live a million years in just a moment
Would it hit you even harder?

 

If it were 2004 I'd be updating my MSN tag to include the lyrics.

[unogueen]

4 hours ago, CitizenVectron said:

I think there's a credible argument that technological progress is passive and fairly continual...but only in the sense that people have an urge to try and improve things so they need to do less work. It's not the case that it will always improve, just that there is a drive to improve it. However, even if it always improves, that doesn't mean that quality of life does. I do believe that there is some level of technology that would allow happiness to increase exponentially (probably at the point where you can manipulate matter and energy itself, including your own structure of mind/thoughts), but until then we're just a bunch of fleshy animals playing with sticks. It's entirely possible that some peasant family in 14th-century France led a happier life than any of us on this board. Perhaps they experienced more "random" and earlier death in their lives, but they could have had a greater sense of fulfilment (which I think is more important than happiness).

 

 

There's been plenty of knowledge resets, through accident or plunder. People like to adhere to technology as agnostic, but there is a much wider criteria out there that divides the haves and the have-nots. If there is sure one thing I hate about material culture is 'creation' as capital. On one end you have the nyan cat idiot who thinks they deserve something from the public for a three frame gif, and on the other end are landlords and 'job creators' who brandish their ball and chain like it's manna. Both examples show the ridiculous superfluousness of society where there is a trade-off of true self-sufficiency to chase dominance and supremacy.