Early Retirement Extreme Forums

My fear is that this massive system with accelerating change and increasing complexity has too much momentum, and is too complicated to understand and predict for the purpose of course correction, placing us on a ride going off the rails that can't be changed. Unless anyone has ideas.

I agree. But I believe the world has always been so.

Nobody is in charge. Nobody has ever been in charge. Even the idea that anyone could be in charge seems ludicrous.

We don't control the economy. Or ecology. Or politics, or industry. The best we can do is to influence the edges of these things. And fight over which way to influence them.

At heart, we are all just advanced chimps telling stories about the world to make us feel better when the thunderstorms come. Stories that make us feel like we have some control over how the wind blows, when we shake the branches, and howl in harmony. We feel in control when we pick the leader of our choir. We feel in control, when we shake branches together.

But the storms don't notice our efforts, and the winds are unperturbed by our singing. The world keeps on spinning, unaffected by our stories.

Rereading that, it sounds pessimistic, but that's not how I feel.

There are things I do control. There are things I do influence. But my control and influence are difficult to project beyond my reach. So I worry about the things I can reach, and let the winds blow.

The bigger problems are all just other people doing their idea of the same control and influence dances, often with very different goals. It's just different choreography.

So my solution, is to watch the dance, and listen to the howling. But also know how little the wind cares.

x

I am curious as to how much greater the force of the uncontrollable is pushing down on humans compared to times in the past. In other words how much more of a burden to the present day individual is the complexity of its civilization compared to what humans endured in the past. Also what is it that I can not name that is this burden? A psychological one, a socioeconomic one, an agency one, some complex system?

Maybe the burden remains relatively constant.

Riggerjack wrote: ↑

Tue Jan 07, 2020 8:48 am

At heart, we are all just advanced chimps telling stories about the world to make us feel better when the thunderstorms come. Stories that make us feel like we have some control over how the wind blows, when we shake the branches, and howl in harmony. We feel in control when we pick the leader of our choir. We feel in control, when we shake branches together.

But the storms don't notice our efforts, and the winds are unperturbed by our singing. The world keeps on spinning, unaffected by our stories.

I agree. How does that attitude integrate with your Permanence Project?

x

@Riggerjack - You sound like a stoic.

Someone a while back here posted this excellent lecture on it, which I think is relevant to the OP. https://youtu.be/5897dMWJiSM

@ Ego

I don't believe today is any more complex than any time in the past. Rather, I think that the increased (nearly unfettered) access to information has made the simple narratives of the past more obviously incomplete. They were always incomplete, today that is merely more obvious.

So all this hand wringing seems odd. GTOO and ID mourn the loss of The Story. I don't believe there ever was such a thing. Merely a dominant narrative, and easier information suppression (back in the day, information suppression could be achieved by simple neglect.)

Back to the Permanence project, I don't think it's the right way, rather, just a different way. A path currently untraveled. If it goes anywhere, others will look off in the distance, and decide for themselves if they would rather be in that direction. I expect there is a deep crevasse awaiting me, and that's why nobody came back from this direction.

I'm not a leader. I'm a scout. I don't think anyone should follow, and certainly not everyone.

But if one is looking at the paths currently available, and sees disaster down each; then looks at the leaders, each promoting one of those paths, I don't understand why so few are scouting.

Project yourself into the future, and imagine how you will feel about today's "burden" -- it's likely that you will wax nostalgic for the relative simplicity of handheld computers and folding laptops in a time of brain-machine and conversational interfaces, surrounded by robot domestics who fill the gap left by dwindling birthrates

I guess my problem is that I can't see the future. I've run into this one before.

I am currently reading “The Spatial Web: How Web 3.0 Will Connect Humans, Machines and AI to Transform the World” by Rene and Mapes. They are recommending new protocols for a future in which three dimensional space will be assigned web addresses, perhaps down to the millimeter. Virtual spaces and objects will also have addresses and identities.

The most fascinating part of their vision was that they relate it to how human consciousness develops from spatial sensory awareness to linguistic and abstract expression. This process will transcend the abstract symbolic by reintegrating the spatial.

Riggerjack wrote: ↑

Tue Jan 07, 2020 4:33 pm

I don't understand why so few are scouting.

Cookie sales aren't for everyone.

Cookie sales aren't for everyone.

No, but the world is better, when each of us follows our talents, and develop our strengths.

True. And its hard to turn down a box of Do-Si-Do's (R) even for something as illogical as a permanence project within an accidental universe.

x

I think ENTPs are more into novelty-seeking combined with accurate model creation as opposed to Ultimate Truth. The "sugar" I am looking for is nuggets of knowledge that suddenly expand the boundaries of the map or sprinkle fresh tokens all over the landscape. For instance, it is possible that my discovery that Lamb's Quarters is quite tasty and easily foraged in my region was my most exciting moment of 2019. I like learning about new-new stuff at the bleeding edge, but "new to me" is just as interesting and usually easier (cheaper) to obtain. It might be that case that "J" types are bringing their desire for Order* towards desire for Ultimate Truth, whereas "P" types are more comfortable or happy within Chaos, because Chaos is always bubbling up a new stew.


*The desire for Order is also closely related to the Thrill of the Kill.

@ halfcent.

Maybe.

Years ago, I think it was Dragline who compared the social changes following the invention of the printing press (religious beliefs fragmenting, decades of constant war, social upheaval) to the social changes brought on by the internet. At the time, I didn't agree, but I'm coming around.

Oddly, the scribes at the time, had the same self serving, "sacred duties and rights" attitude we hear today from those whose privileges are threatened by change in tech and dilution of status.

When I first started to get anxious about the youngsters today, and their righteousness untempered by respect for individuality or freedom, I started looking at the American civil war to see what it really takes to get something like that started. At the time, I was comforted by how different the world was from that time.

Now, not so much.

I still don't think the world is any more complex. But if one buys into a predominant narrative, it's harder to not see the contradictions, I expect. I think that would have to be unnerving.

Opinions now that covid is here?

The internet allows me know know the immediate, unfiltered thoughts of both the expert and the idiot from halfway around the world. How is that driving change?

Does it drive change or merely amplify volatility?

If, 50 years ago, Walter Cronkite came on the news and told Americans to self isolate, people would've taken it seriously. Now it's all just noise. The change is polarization of views, humans need to limit choices (paradox of choice), so they self limit when there's TMI. Up or down, left or right. Seek confirmation bias of the option that best fits into world view.

This can be used to one's advantage by focusing on simple, single message communication. People will gravitate towards it.

110 weeks of job growth ending with full employment

2 weeks later, 10 million unemployment claims and 30% unemployed