Lmst

Crossposting this thread about #hope and #pessimism because the excerpts from Mara van der Lugt “Hopeful Pessimism” are gold https://bsky.app/profile/daeganmiller.bsky.social/post/3lrgscmuj3c2g #envhum #climate

This is about the Climate Emergency and it's effect on some people. But it applies to other things too.

https://open.substack.com/pub/billhulet/p/the-dao-and-pessimism-52a?r=4ot1q2&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

#Daoism #Taoism #ClimateEmergency #pessimism

https://open.substack.com/pub/billhulet/p/the-dao-and-pessimism-52a?r=4ot1q2&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

#Daoism #Taoism #Atheism #ClimateChange #pessimism

Background shows a timeline of major extinction events in the history of the earth.

"The Dao and Pessimism: Another recycled post from a previous blog"

BILLHULET.SUBSTACK.COM

Only in Finland 😅

#Finland #pessimism #remote #funny #puolanka

https://bbc.com/reel/video/p07srvm2/the-most-pessimistic-town-in-the-world

American Decel https://danieljeffries.substack.com/p/american-decel (a long rant with some good points) #AI #technology #science #pessimism #optimism

"Disneyland exists in order to hide that it is the real" country, all of "real" America that is Disneyland (a bit like prisons are there to hide that it is the social in its entirety, in its banal omnipresence, that is carceral). Disneyland is presented as imaginary in order to make us believe that the rest is real, whereas all of Los Angeles and the America that surrounds it
are no longer real, but belong to the hyperreal order and to the order of simulation."

#baudrillard #criticaltheory #pessimism #sociology #philosophy #culturaltheory #socialtheory

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwbEsdwhG3I

We live in a world that social media built https://www.strangeloopcanon.com/p/we-live-in-a-world-that-social-media (2023 article worth reading again) #AI #tech #pessimism #history

Then came Arab Spring, and tech was not only seen as good, but essential to the flourishing of democracy around the world!
An unalloyed good even though it seemed mostly pointless for the older generation.

Newspapers ran horrified headlines likening this to people being treated as literal lab rats.
We got comparisons to the Stanford Prison Experiment. Facebook apologised profusely, but the trust had sprung a leak.
And by 2016 we had Brexit, amplified by false messages that the political parties used to spread their preferred agenda. Facebook and social media were seen as complicit in allowing the lies on their platform to proliferate, even though those who fanned the flames were often elected officials or our
own friends and relatives.

And then we had Trump. And the same broke.
Whatever good will the tech industry had in the early 2010s, whatever utopian visions they had and benefits they brought, they all got tarred with a horrible brush. Social media was blamed for amplifying the lies from the commander in chief, for being too permissive in letting it go and not permissive enough in banning troll accounts. They could do no right.

Can you imagine how we'd react to anything new in such an environment? If someone came up with a new invention? Possibly become powerful enough to want to make us make it govern our lives?
As we see now, since we have a new worry, of Al as an existential threat. Much worse than social media, because it subsumes the worries about social media where it, the purported super-powerful Al, can confuse and rile up and misinform the public, and much worse than every other technology we have put together.

We live in a world that social media built https://www.strangeloopcanon.com/p/we-live-in-a-world-that-social-media (2023 article worth reading again) #AI #tech #pessimism #history

🔮 Iterative AI; the new shape of HR; optimism & future https://www.exponentialview.co/p/ev-524?triedRedirect=true#:~:text=The%20geographies%20of%20AI #AI #optimism #pessimism

The geographies of Al
According to an IPSOS survey last year, eight in ten Chinese citizens say they're hopeful about what Al will bring, while barely a third do in the United States. It's easy to imagine that having an enthusiastic citizenry is a tailwind to AI development.
% Nervous
80%
Anglosphere
70%
Ireland
Great Britain
United States •
• New galand
• ° Australia
Genada
60%
Asia
• Sweden
Switzerland
50%
• Belgium
• Chile
• • Nether a Spain
France
• Singapore
• South Africa • Türkiye • Thalland
• Global Country Averagea Malaysia
• Peru • Mexico
• Indonesia
• Brazil Colombia
40%
Europe
Germany • • • Agentina
Hungary
• South Korea l
• Poland
China
30%
• Japan
20%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
% Excited
The stark reality is that Al is clearly going to be the foundational 21st-century technology.
Being more nervous than excited about it surely just translates into a deep pessimism about the future. Not a good sign.

🔮 Iterative AI; the new shape of HR; optimism & future https://www.exponentialview.co/p/ev-524?triedRedirect=true#:~:text=The%20geographies%20of%20AI #AI #optimism #pessimism

7 Capital Sins correspond to shadow side of 7 Chakras: 1- #Acedia, 2- #Control/ #Addiction/ #Lust, 3- #Anger/ #Violence, 4- #Fear/ #Avarice/ #Resentment, 5- #Gluttony/ #Consumerism, 6- #Rationalism/ #Reductionism/ #Pessimism, 7- #Envy/ #Resentment #SinsOfSpirit #BlessingsOfFlesh
Image: Hieronymus Bosch, "The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last Things"
https://www.matthewfox.org/donation-store/sins-of-the-spirit-blessings-of-te-flesh-revised-edition-transforming-evil-in-soul-and-society

"Sweet, obstinate" - a poem on pessimism and abundance, from Athenalogia by C. A. Corbell

https://youtube.com/shorts/2nBXk0tIH0s

#poem #poetry #poet #poetryreading #dailypoem #pessimism #abundance #pnwpoetry

@mem_somerville The government has been ordered to move her to VT no later than 5/14. I won't believe they'll comply until after they actually comply. #pessimism