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by mortb 840 days ago
These days noone seems to have peace to the world as a dream and driving force. I grew up in the spirit that we should try to achieve peace everywhere. Nowadays when people think about war they think about cool technology, who wins all the resources and they think earning money selling weapons. If WW3 really gets off I feel pretty sure it's going to end in science fiction with AI, robots and lasers, it's no longer just stories. Perhaps we will all end up in a Skynet/Terminator scenario? When the technology is there, who will end up controlling it - big tech or the technology itself? I stopped caring about making innovations a couple of years ago - noone is ever trying to mitigate the doomsday. We're not this dumb, we could use our innovations to do some real good.

The number of comments on this post is quite telling.

Hope to see ya all in another future, not the one we're heading for. I just wish people did care.

3 comments

Somehow peace became uncool or like last last generations style. Hopefully it’s coming back in fashion.
We've been made accustomed to fast feedback. Technology moves rapidly and therefore gives us quick feedback (dopamine). Peace processes move slowly and therefore gives less dopamine for those involved. Now, what would the junkie in you choose to pursue?
I know what you mean, but the problem is that people make these critical decisions based on fashion. IME, in my anecodotal and subjective observations, that's what drives most of them and it's maddening. More specifically, they seem to shop between different 'brands', like consumers (perhaps a product of conditioning), and then like loyal consumers they support whatever the brand sells.

It's like making food and shelter into fashion - are you going to stop eating this year? What's the brand selling? Starvation?

After 9/11 when we started bombing a random unrelated country we killed that.
> We're not this dumb...

Counterexample: the last pandemic

Depending on angle we could see different dumb things in the pandemic. I'm not sure which specific dumb thing you're referring to.

Intelligence is, as I see it, distributed both in space and time. What is stupid in a local time/place context may turn out to be part of a process that ends up creating something great. Of course it could also be the other way around.