It's going to be an interesting century for sure.
The human mind is simply not evolutionary adapted for what's coming up.
The human mind is simply not evolutionary adapted for what's coming up.
https://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2013/06/19/193493225/t...
Maybe we're in fact evolutionarily adapted to not being evolutionarily adapted. We have successfully dealt with a whole sequence of hard societal pivots by now…
The fact that humanity as a species has survived past social shocks does not mean it's a certain thing we'll survive future ones. Our ancestors had much longer to adjust their societies for new technology than we're getting these days.
This can be said of pretty much everything humans ended up creating with technology so... not sure there's anything really new down the road. Humans adapt.
A couple of examples of things humans did not adapt to:
- emphathy at distance; nowadays, a drone operator will push a button, kill a dozen people, and feel like it was a videogame
- prioritizing long-term and abstract rewards, over short term ones; this is the reason why we have phenomenons like global warming
- adjusting hunger to virtually unlimited availability of food
All the above are concrete and very serious problems for humanity.
IMO humanity will adapt, and the first sign of this is that those problems are getting recognized and given more and more traction.
The situation lies on a spectrum between "not problematic" and "really problematic".
There is actually plenty of evidence that tangible impact already started, independently of the perception of those whoe live in areas where the effect is neither perceived nor obvious.
As a manager in tech, people who were on performance management rarely attacked me, they would find someone on the team to harass instead. Same thing with blaming a downturn in the economy on women painting their hair blue or mini skirts. Anything but blaming the powerful.
(Pardon my reach here, I watched Chimp Empire not too long ago...)
This might depend on the context. RadioLab recently did a podcast titled "Toy Soldiers." Using low-flying "toy" drones rather than the high-flying "predator" drones, they make the case that drone operators get an oddly intimate portrait of their enemies. They go into how they reference them by their attire ("the 'red shoe' guy”) and witness on an up-close and personal level how they grieve over their comrades.
The rejection of spirituality leaves mankind pretty hopeless, I think.
> Evolution is a bitch in that way, individuals matter not at all.
People were traditionally able to kill each other face to face
> prioritizing long-term and abstract rewards, over short term ones; this is the reason why we have phenomenons like global warming
There's a balance. If anything I'd say people are putting too much priority on long term abstract rewards, so we see people saving too much and never enjoying themselves, or putting off having children until they can't because they're worried they can't raise that child perfectly.
> adjusting hunger to virtually unlimited availability of food
We're already solving this; people who overeat are already having fewer children, there's been a huge cultural shift towards gyms and health food, and we've seen some promising drugs released recently. We don't adapt instantly overnight, but we do adapt.