What is tragic is that digital life should be very much part of the awe of the living experience.
We are extremely lucky to live in this new period where communication and information processing have undergone exponential evolution.
The issue is that this enormous potential of augmenting our existence is held hostage by the same forces that have suppressed the opportunity for generations upon generations of earlier "non-tech-vexed" humans.
What is tragic is that digital life should be very much part of the awe of the living experience.
Yeah, part of me dies at least a little when someone on HN who probably didn't know what a Markov model was last week rambles on about how "that's all a transformer really is."
People have no idea what's coming, how big a deal it will be, and (worst of all) how overdue it is.
I've come to the conclusion that this sort of screed is written by the particular type of person that cannot make meaningful connections online.
Rather than agreeing with them that in-person relationships are somehow more meaningful, we should explain to them that their inability to form meaningful connections online is a disability, and they are missing out on an aspect of life that the rest of us enjoy.
Without tools like tracking apps, Strava, and Google Maps/Earth (plus the rabbit holes they lead to), I would explore less of my surroundings. Digital technology enhances outdoor experiences.
The truth is probably that one’s capacity for awe is like one’s capacity for joy: it is within oneself and exogenous factors produce only momentary impulses that alter things only temporarily, after which they decay.
and mostly willfully ignorant of the importance of compassion, both personally and societally, for our world to enjoy a more successful trajectory than we are currently on
I thought the essay had some good points. Its too bad people are wrapped up in there own way of thinking about the world that they cant see the value and questioning the things we value.
We are the information processors of the universe and have special abilities with respect to understanding the truth of a given situation. Those abilities, however, do have a development curve that is aligned with how we have chosen to morally develop ourself. Moral development is optional -- obviously -- thus most of our fellows do not have the ability to just "know".
The prerequisite for gaining access to such direct knowledge is to first learn how to say, "I don't know." Humility is an essential, albeit fairly rare, life skill, and is related to a person's truthfulness.
Most people say, for example, that their not having a specific ability means that no one has that ability. Humility is also the key to understanding the Dunning-Kruger result, but few grok that depth of meaning from that seminal study.
An example of neuroscience's lack of understanding is Stanford's mostly-brilliant Dr. Robert Sapolsky, who is a leading expert on the neuroscience of stress, yet claims that we don't have free will. That's just silly, but I will always relay his teachings (from his Human Behavioral Biology course) about trans folks having areas of their brain with the opposite structures to their genitals' gender. Those sexually dimorphic areas of the brain could very much lead them to "feel" different to their genitals' gender. [Side note: Suzie (Eddie) Izzard is one of my top 5 brilliant comedians.]
Please note, also, that we are fully free to choose to believe what we want to consider true. That's why there are both flat-Earthers and telescopic pictures showing rotating planets, in the same universe.
I'm sure people said the same about literature back when mass market novels became a thing. Or TV for that matter. Just a little further down the rabbit hole.
We are extremely lucky to live in this new period where communication and information processing have undergone exponential evolution.
The issue is that this enormous potential of augmenting our existence is held hostage by the same forces that have suppressed the opportunity for generations upon generations of earlier "non-tech-vexed" humans.