[esseph]

> The thing is, the option you want is available today.

Disagree

Removing yourself from the computing environment does not remove the impact it has on the world and around you. That is the equivalent of sticking one's head in the sand.

[munksbeer]

The option is still available to you though. Sticking your head in the sand could be a great strategy if it improves your happiness and wellbeing.

[esseph]

> The option is still available to you though. Sticking your head in the sand could be a great strategy if it improves your happiness and wellbeing.

Right now I am picturing the dog drinking coffee in the burning room meme.

[munksbeer]

I really think this is extreme doomerism. Things are not that bad. And as I say, wouldn't you be happier if you lived in an environment where you were not impacted by all the stuff you dislike?

[coldtea]

>wouldn't you be happier if you lived in an environment where you were not impacted by all the stuff you dislike?

What I want is a better society (as I see it), not convenience for me personally.

Obviously to the degree I can distance myself from stuff I don't care for, I do it. But I don't want to larp in some like-minded commune while the world turns to shit, I want the world to not turn to shit.

[munksbeer]

> while the world turns to shit, I want the world to not turn to shit.

But a lot of people disagree with you and think it isn't turning to shit, and in fact for most people on the planet, life gets better every year.

I understand your issues are more local, but remember, actions always speak louder than words. People say they don't want certain things, but then they engage prolifically with those things.

All I'm saying really is, try to avoid making the mistake that your reality is *the* reality. You can control your reality, and in this world you (and others) seem to dislike so much, there are other ways of being.

[CRConrad]

> But a lot of people disagree with you and think it isn't turning to shit

They're wrong. Their little corner might not be, but the world as a whole is.

> and in fact for most people on the planet, life gets better every year.

Sure, if you're a subsistence farmer, five of whose nine kids would have died of starvation a few decades ago. Now it's only one out of six. And yes, that is even in part thanks to the agricultural apps on your smartphone.

But for the larger part of the world's population, who aren't subsistence farmers — they're beyond all that, and into the downside (and that's where the subsistence farmers are headed too, once they are no longer such): Materially safe and well-fed, but prisoners in a bunch of walled panopticon gardens.

> You can control your reality

What one can control is a little Potemkin village, which one will always know is not actually reality. Your avid proselytizing for that as a "solution" is you working, intentionally or (hopefully) unintentionally, on behalf of the techbroligarks who are busily acquiring the real world as their personal fiefdoms.

If you are (hopefully not!) doing this intentionally, one can only wonder: Are you a techbroligark? (If so, who are you — Zuck, Musk, Thiel...?) If not: Why on Earth would you want to lull people — why would you be propagandizing for people lulling themselves — into the bliss of ignorance; why would you want them to ignore the world actually going to shit by hiding in some little artificial enclave where they can pretend that it isn't?

And if you aren't doing it intentionally, you need to wake up to the fact that it is what you're doing... And stop doing it.

[coldtea]

>But a lot of people disagree with you and think it isn't turning to shit, and in fact for most people on the planet, life gets better every year.

That's so untrue in these here parts, it's laughable

[esseph]

"Just take soma" is what you are telling me right now.

Four things:

1. I am a parent. Ignoring like the world doesn't exist is not an option.

> wouldn't you be happier if you lived in an environment where you were not impacted by all the stuff you dislike?

2. That would not be possible.

3. If you have the capability to do something, some believe you have an obligation to. Actively working to not make a shit world requires a deep awareness and understanding that leads to consistent action.

4. Trying to isolate yourself like in the face of so much suffering, including those around you, seems like the most selfish thing I can imagine. Could never be me.

> Things are not that bad.

For YOU maybe, for fucks sake.

[munksbeer]

> For YOU maybe, for fucks sake.

And many, many others.

Don't project your reality on everyone else.

[CRConrad]

Don't project your Potemkin village as "reality".

[esseph]

I choose not to ignore the suffering of others.

Only through awareness and understanding of it can I work to reduce it.