Entry 1. 2-22-23
On exploration of the unknown.
As I get older I feel more and more often that there are two very different mindsets in the world. Well perhaps many more than two, but these two juxtaposed ways of thinking seem both very potent in showing values one holds how they shape the mind of the person.
The difference in thinking I am referencing is best illustrated with a question asked, and the two ways in which it is answered and why. This question is:
When faced with the Abyss of all unknown knowledge, fear, epiphany, and madness what should one do?
This is the knife edge where people choose a side.
Some glimpse the abyss and seeing the slight hint of the unfathomable look away and if possible never look again. The abyss is not good or bad. It’s not out to get you. It’s just a thing, a not well understood thing. It’s all unknown and the consequences are equally unknown. Fear is what rules this choice. Not fear of a thing but a fear of what a thing COULD mean, or might mean, or could or might do. Worst of all it’s a fear that if this unknown becomes understood what could it mean about everything they had believed up until that point? Could this knowledge change them? Could it invalidate their illusions?
Good questions to be sure. Most religious people are in this group. Conservative is the term I use. It’s a need to keep one's world small in order to feel secure in it. As if the whole of reality is best left to the Cliff’s Notes. Deeper exploration or understanding could threaten carefully constructed illusions that they need to function. It’s a very real threat for anyone. No one wants to find out they were wrong. Our brains are inherently biased in this manner. We are preprogrammed by nature to constantly seek to confirm what we already think even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. This is why the abyss is such a threat, and induces such fear.
On the other hand we have the people that catch a glimpse of the abyss and see hope. These kind will stare deep into the abyss, and yes it will stare back into them as well, and as it does it transforms the whole of their world. Both are transformed by it. The person finds terrifying and beautiful things there and are changed by these things. The abyss is changed in that it is a tiny bit less frighting for EVERYONE after this interaction. Every explorer that accepts the abyss and masters their fear makes it a little bit easier for the next until after a long enough time the abyss is no longer an abyss at all but as just life, not as it was but as it has become. The once unfathomable has been transformed into understanding of something new.
Now most of that probably sounds alot like things you've heard before. A big existential generality with nothing but existential consequences. Unfortunately the consequences of these choices are very real and their impacts are greatly magnified by a capitalist, or religious culture. This is seemingly due to self interest mixing with a picture of reality in subtle unnoticed ways that are promoted inherently by these systems in order for the delusions of which they are constructed remain intact. Capitalism, and religion are not the only systems like this and many are strictly personal and seemingly have no effect on a cultural or statistical scale, although emergent unknown effects are almost certainly a result. These effects change the whole of our societies and how we define the world.
For example, a monetary system cannot function if suddenly we all realize that money is just paper with symbols on it. The illusion of value allows the system to function. Our beliefs and confidence in the hundred dollar bill makes it worth the hundred dollars. However in a very real way the truth is a one hundred dollar bill is a small piece of cloth. Cloth with layers of complex ideas and beliefs that alter its value to only the believer. Some other group without the knowledge of these beliefs simply sees the cloth.
How about a less charged example, as people tend to get itchy talking about money. A thought experiment about a universal replicator.
Let us propose that in a lab deep underneath MIT a man named Tom Billings has invented an earth shattering device. He has made a perfect replicator. This device can take any object and make a perfect copy down to the molecule. It can literally copy anything. Tom quickly comes to the thought of ending world hunger, ending mass farming of cattle, giving free food and medicine to everyone. The machine can even replicate itself so everyone can have anything they want. He even makes a device that can recycle anything with the same technology eliminating all waste and need for waste management. Sounds like a dream. Sounds like the perfect solution to all the world's problems right?
So we have a device that can end all human suffering if used. So who likes it, and who doesn’t?
In fact I’ll take it further and say that soon after it’s invention the device is locked away like the Ark of the Covenant in Raiders. Never to be used or spoken of again.
So why would they do that? Why keep it from doing all of the things it could to help people?
Again we have the knife's edge.
One side says, “They shouldn't hide it. That's crazy! What the hell man? We could solve global warming, make cheap ev’s, and give free medicine to everyone at almost no cost. We could stop all hunger and have clothing and shelter and tools for everyone on earth. We could save millions of endangered species as we no longer have to farm or raise food. The land could be given back to the flora and fauna that once lived there with no downside for the people. We could keep all the fish and crab in the sea instead of dragging a mass extinction from off sea in giant nets. We say “Overfished” but we mean xenocide. How could anyone keep this from the world? Why would anyone want to?” These people looked into the abyss and saw hope. They are willing to transform everything in order to make it better. They know that this device has no middle ground. That let out into the world it changes everything, kept in it changes nothing. They are almost instantly for it, regardless of the potential societal and economic consequences.
On the other side they say, “It does what? Wait, wait, wait. If that’s true then why do we need factory workers? What about the jobs that will be killed off? What about my stock options? Will anything be of value in such a world? Sure we all get medicine, but what's the point if it’s not worth anything? What happens to Nike, or Apple, or GE, or any corporation? That will put whole industries to waste! It’s a disaster! What about the fact that I had to toil and scrap and beg to get all I have? Why should it be so easy for others when I had to suffer? Fish? Endangered? What about the farmer and his family? What about the honorable coal miner? No, this is a true threat to everything that makes us great. Strife and hardship shape a person in ways that can never be matched. It’s how we always did it and it shall never be changed. Give a man a fish and he will never learn to fish for himself. What kind of world would that even be?”
They are both correct in their own ways.
To me it’s an easy choice. The obviously good choice for the whole of earth and everyone on it, vs keeping everything stable as we destroy our environment and kill all our neighboring species, while forcing everyone to work for the benefit of a small minority. Seems obvious, but I am fully ok with tearing down these economic structures as I do not indulge in mixing my ego and worth with these systems. I do not value the work of a coal miner. I think it’s a tragedy that the poor guy has to do it in the first place. I am not worried about my stock portfolio. I don’t have one. If Nike goes under it’s no skin off my back as I never grew that skin to begin with.
To others it’s an equally obvious choice.The threats of what this could do to our “way of life”. The ways people and companies will be damaged or even god forbid destroyed. Why rock the boat? What would this mean for the Church? Can our culture survive this change? It’s just too ridiculous, you can't just end the way things are. You just can’t. I mean, it’s not possible. It would never work. How do you pay people? Why do they work? Where will they find a job? It’s too much. This is a technology that we just don't need. It will just make it easier to be lazy all day, so is that what you want? Lazy bums doing nothing all day?
Now my position on this kind of thing is always pretty similar. The reasons are optimistically idyllic, logical, and historical.
The optimist in me sees hope in complexity and both the known and as of yet unknown. I search for answers in even the muddiest of conceptual pools. I find the light in the dark places and study them for solutions and thoughts that others find uncomfortable. Most often I try to see the mud, the dark, and the confusion, as a potential for greater scope and understanding. If you do not fail you cannot succeed. So I fail to grasp it until I don’t and it’s scary but also wonderful.
My logical reason is simple. There's never a good reason to be ignorant of anything, and fear is not a valid reason. It is just a feeling not evidence. It is the excuse.
And lastly the historical reasons. Throughout all of human history we have watched breakthrough after breakthrough condemned or stifled by the interest of liars and those that indulge in self promoted ignorance over the needs and ideas of others. However we ALLWAYS ended up following the truth over the fiction. Sometimes it took a while but it always ended up on top.
We fought every economic or technological leap every step of the way. Long speeches about the evils of some new idea or invention are all over history and media. Be it the fear of Frankenstians monster, to how the water pump will destroy the slave trade. In the end the things that are real and the things that work will eventually win out over fear and illusion. It is simply a matter of time.
The printing press was an abyss for many.
The hard fought death of the geocentric model of the solar system was an abyss that caused the death of many at the hands of the ignorant and afraid.
The chain saw that was feared to destroy the humble logger and his ax, (Pual Bunyon)
The steam hammer that took old poor John Henry’s job.
The automobile that destroyed the horse breeding and stable businesses and way of life.
Really any of the “Evils of dark knowledge.” Like it even really meant anything.
In modern day we find all of these to be utter nonsense. Historically however people were murdered over this often, but even with the threat of death looming the truth found a way out. That which works will always win eventually. Believing a rock will roll up the hill gets hard after seeing it do the opposite enough times no matter how many people you burn alive to prove your point.
I see the past and in it the lesson that the unknown has been and probably always will be our greatest resource. It is by looking into the abyss that we have found an understanding of our universe and the truth of what we are in it. Is it spooky? Hell yeah.
I am afraid, but I choose to be on the side of the witches, the visionaries, and the truth seekers, over the witch burners, the flat earthers and the willfully ignorant.
Now, after all that, I ask you. In the age of Artificial intelligence where should I stand? Should I embrace what is obviously hugely powerful and transformative? Or should I fear that potential and it’s economic and societal consequences? I leave it up for debate as I must. There is no “Right” answer with a capital R, but there are many true ones. Whatever your position conservative or exploratory, I hope you find some of the true ones first, and then decide on what's Right.