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I was thinking about the direction that technology seems to be sending us down, apps like tiktok that are structured to give us instant gratification which leads to an addictive cycle. I think all advancements are designed for the same purpose: to make life a little bit easier, faster, and more convenient, at least in the short term. It's really an intrinsic, biological function of all living things. Everything is constantly making cost/benifit analyses to find the easiest way to find food, shelter, reproduce, and stay alive. Human's are so intelligent that we've been achieving this exceptionally well for centuries, and building upon it to design even easier, even faster, even more convenient ways to get what we want, till we've reached a point of utopian decadence beyond excess.
I don't think most people even realise just how extravagant our 'basic' lives are in developed countries. Most people consider owning a fridge, dishwasher, washing macine, car, computer/laptop, TV, smartphone etc to be bare essentials, and if someone doesn't own all of these, they'd be considered to be living in poverty. 100 years ago, poverty meant you could barely access enough food, clean water, shelter, and clothing to stay healthy - or alive!
But then on the other hand, it's as though every problem solved just creates new problems: Instead of malnutriton and starvation, we have obesity, heart disease and type 2 diabetes. Instead of isolated communities separated by distance, we have have petrol fumes and concrete jungles. And as we continue the drive to make things even MORE easy and convenient and gratifying, we seem to be getting more and more isolated, depressed, anxious, and unhealthy. We don't even need to leave our house to get food, socialize, shop, or consume media, it's all just a click away and served up to us. Even having to type in a password is such an inconvenience now that we can just get the apps to remember them for us.
It's like, we have everything we need and want.....but it sucks! And it's destroying us, removing the human side of all our interactions, and making everything we do less and less purposeful. I feel like especially for younger generations, the brain rot is seeping into 'the real world' in such a profound way, that it's genuinely terrifying. And I worry about where it ends. Will we eventually hook ourselves up to a dopamine zapping virtual reality where we'll be endlessly entertained, but simultaneously desensitiezed to it, to the point that we're incapable of feeling anything?
Is this the undoing of humanity? Is this the great filter that annihilates intelligent species before they can make it to a space-faring civillization? Is this a mathematically unnavoidable end point for living things?
Comments
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Ash (>w<)!
You need to read Industrial society and its future, all the answers to your questions are there
My Mortuary
i kinda lowkey wish i was a caveman thousands of years ago
Z0mbiel1verzz
You might be onto something...
VEINZ
anti natalism <3
Brynna
just keep thinking
zirconieee
I think that a lot of these apps and devices give what you give. They are tools. How you use them defines what they give you.
DAUGHTEROFTHESTARS
I absolutely agree with this but from my perspective, it's not necessary the need to have an easy life, it's more about money. Companys make us addicted to their product (something that they want to do), so we buy, buy, buy... Tiktok is very addictive because it's a short videos platform with lot of stimulation, which we like a lot. And while we spend hours in the platform, looking for more stimulation, the company earns thousands of millions of dollars. (By the way, sorry for the horrible english that i have)
I agree 100%. They know exactly how to get us hooked on their products. And don't worry, your English is perfect!
by oxXFrankXxo; ; Report
Benji
A lot of these issues is because of powerful people not being responsible and finding way to get around being accountable. It has lead to the industry standards of manufacturing customers and creating addicting products making people think they can be satisfied by them when they aren't. So much information on better well being has become hidden because of other parties being given all the impressions because the real and helpful info doesn't pay out as much as most ads you see today.
If you want to fix all of this though, you will need to work hard for. Find all the information, consumables, and shelters that are interested in cultivating better livelihoods and teach people on how to make business and ideologies with more than simple profit goals.
I don't think the problems can be blamed on one person though. It's easier to measure profits with something tangible like coins, notes, and and a single number than anything else so people have made such number into the standard method of measuring self and peer well-being and wealth despite how faulty the model is. It has lead to societal expectations and stress no matter your class in society.
Even if there was people you could blame for all the crap that happens today, they are either long dead or such professionals that trying to lock them up is a waste of time that could be used undoing the damages.
I am speaking too much though so I could be very wrong. Double check with peers and other sources.
Evanescence, The Blue Lotus
Hi! It’s really fun to read this, and while I agree with some points, I have a different perspective to share (｡•̀ᴗ-)✧
Companies have always tried to make consumers addicted to their products(ﾉﾟ0ﾟ)ﾉ~ especially on social media. It’s a misconception to think that TikTok represents all of technology〈(•ˇ‿ˇ•)
And, the world is not a finite entity; it is constantly expanding and evolving and so our challenges, this dynamics of our relationships have always existed across different times and places. You might take an interest to the system of life!
That's literally what I said
by oxXFrankXxo; ; Report
moontiger95
I don't think there's anything inevitable about the course of human history. At the end of the day, what happens is the sum total of everyone's choices, and we can always choose differently. If we allow ourselves to go along with the current of the things happening around us without any reflection, then we only have ourselves to blame if we are dissappointed in the outcome. Of course, no individual person can steer the choices of everyone else, but if we all individually make better choices, and avoid doing things that will cause harm or ugliness, then things may be better on the whole.
I may add, if you find the "ease" of modern life to be dehumanising, you are always free to take the harder path yourself.
by moontiger95; ; Report
Maybe it isn't innevitable, but it's interesting the patterns that emmerge over time. People can be so destructive and also so cooperative and kind, just depending on circumstances, and countercultures emerge to overtake when things get out of hand. Like the hippies in the 70's, and the more recent social justice movements and environmentalism.
And yeah I am doing a lot of 'traditional' living things. I have a 10 metre garden plot growing vegetables and native plants to reconnect with the environment. And tiktok is on a permanent restriction :p
by oxXFrankXxo; ; Report
DinoTheFishXP
I've been thinking about this a lot myself. It sincerely feels like we are falling down a deeper, and deeper hole, untill there is no way to dig back up again. We humans have evolved way too quickly, and this somehow came to be our very doom. Our feeble minds aren't made to process all of this information and stimulation. It rots our brains to the point where some of us aren't even capable of forming a simple creative thought anymore. Humanity has in fact been constructing it's own doom, brick by brick, and it is terrifying to think about how much it has accelerated in the past couple of years.
pie3940
Your post is so true it even scared me a bit