Cameron Armstrong pfp
Cameron Armstrong
@cameron
“The truth is that many of the qualities we admire in human beings can only function in opposition to some kind of disaster, pain, or difficulty; but the tendency of mechanical progress is to eliminate disaster, pain, and difficulty” —George “Fuck Technology” Orwell What’s your gut reaction?
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dusan pfp
dusan
@ds8
- yes, people are the best versions of themselves in these conditions - yes, the technology wants to eliminate them - but instead it causes a whole lot of side effects that promote them it's our sisyphean pursuit to solve problems and create more in the process
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huugo pfp
huugo
@huugo.eth
Whether right out wrong, I do think we define our lives by the challenges we’ve overcome. In that way, we will never be able to completely eradicate pain…that cynical tho. From the other end, even if mech progress (which I suppose is 40s lingo for tech) continues to eradicate pain, Zeno would say never completely
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Alditrus pfp
Alditrus
@alditrus
Fair assessment. We do have a tendency as humans to get rid of hardship as much as possible. In doing so however, we end up creating new hardships (fossil fuel energy -> climate change, social media -> polarization and coordination failure) so I feel like it balances itself out.
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Ben 🟪 pfp
Ben 🟪
@benersing
That's often the goal of mechanical progress, seldom the result. It just changes the nature of disaster, pain and difficulty.
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vaughn tan pfp
vaughn tan
@vt
i agree and continue to believe that discomfort and desperation can be productive (though usually only if designed mindfully) — so our inclination to always make things more comfortable, predictable, convenient is sort of stealthily self-defeating also: https://productivediscomfort.org/
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MOLO pfp
MOLO
@molo
counterexample would be honesty and self awareness, which technology doesn’t really impact and also is self-driven versus a reaction to something
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tldr (tim reilly) pfp
tldr (tim reilly)
@tldr
Right on the individual level Wrong on the societal level
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greys ↑ pfp
greys ↑
@les
huh?
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Connor McCormick ~ jtrending pfp
Connor McCormick ~ jtrending
@nor
I'd offer him the opportunity to voluntarily submit to torture so that he has the opportunity to admire himself more.
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m_j_r pfp
m_j_r
@m-j-r.eth
maybe in an uncontrolled environment, e.g. runaway consumerism. I'd like to think that art can be contrived into artificial conflict, and that exists at moments w/o conflict (e.g. cave painting a 🦣 hunt) best quality of humans is learning, which is amplified by & further compels tech progress.
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Jacob pfp
Jacob
@jrf
Hmm 🤔 You can never eliminate disaster, pain or difficulty, notwithstanding any mechanical progress... So human beings will always have the opportunity to develop and exhibit qualities we admire Mr Orwell had impressive theories of language, e.g. words with no meaning This seems sensationalized 🤷‍♂️
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CD 🎩 pfp
CD 🎩
@vagobond
My reaction is ‘DUNE’ and WALL-E
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Syed Shah🏴‍☠️🌊Farcon pfp
Syed Shah🏴‍☠️🌊Farcon
@syed
But then we can create art and play video games. And create imaginary conflict while in the real world were completely taken care. Then we can make this imaginary world more and more real. We could even delete our knowledge of anything outside this imaginary world to make it ultra special mega real. And…wait a minute
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kbc - q/dau pfp
kbc - q/dau
@kbc
Elenor Ostrom pointed out through her studies that it (tragedy of the commons) almost never happens, it’s a fantasy. She highlighted that humans are socially interdependent animals. Our evolved sense of justice and fairness is part of our need for each other. Ostrom explains that the... longcast.jam.so/jj21Uv
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Jon "JonnyRingo" Williams⚰️ pfp
Jon "JonnyRingo" Williams⚰️
@jonnyringo.eth
Personally I fully agree with this, however find it hard to apply to anyone but myself without recoil. I think a hard life makes for thick skin and adaptive thinking. And I always put myself under pressure when I need to perform cuz that's how I get peak performance.
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Est3la pfp
Est3la
@wayseeker
I don’t think pain always brings the best out of people, especially at an individual level, but disaster and difficulty most of the time bring resiliency. The qualities I thought of when reading this were definitely on the soft side: compassion, resilience, emotional intelligence, etc 1/2
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