The problem with previous epochs’ methods of tyranny was that they relied on overpowering the body. They relied on the hardness of metal and the power of weapons to enslave and imprison people.
The human spirit transcended that tyranny to create freedom, by organizing our physical power into structures that overcame the literal chains and walls of our imprisonment.
The mind seemed to be ephemeral, insubstantial compared to the steel and concrete that controlled us. But the mind allowed us to conceptualize of an existence without these things, to see freedom as a possibility and to seek it, and not to stop seeking and reorganizing our efforts until counters to these mechanisms were found and implemented.
The new tyranny, on the other hand, presents obstacles to the mind in the way that the previous tyranny presented obstacles to the body. The new tyranny is based on incomprehensibility, on preventing the mind from finding purchase.
If the victim cannot even form a comprehension of what is going on, then they cannot resist. Instead of chains and weapons, the new tyranny uses lies and complexity to imprison us. Just like bronze introduced a material that human hands couldn’t break, AI introduces a technology that the human mind cannot comprehend and navigate.
Breaking the mind of the prisoner is an old technique. It predates AI. We see it in brainwashing, in lying, in lobotomy, and in the administration of drugs.
But just as barbed wire enabled prisons to scale to house entire populations, AI enables mental imprisonment to scale to encircle billions of souls in an incomprehensible whirlwind of bullshit.
If a domestic cat with claws intact wanted to kill you, it would be hard to stop it.
I’ve only had brief encounters with truly angry cats, and they are nasty. One did a single swipe with its paw at my hand and just scooped out a chunk of flesh like I was made of soft serve ice cream.
Why don’t the companies want to piss off the dealers? Is some Toyota dealership really gonna stop selling Toyotas because a Toyota comes out with a self-diagnosis feature?
This feature is a no-brainer. Whenever there’s a feature the market would love (and hence pay for) the reason it isn’t there is the government doesn’t allow it.
I look back over history and see that every system of social organization ever was rigged against the people at the bottom, and then I look further back into nature and see that nature is literally trying to kill you all day every day, and I just take it as par for the course.
Our current system is less rigged against me than would be literally any other system under which I might have lived at any point in the past. I’m more free and supported than almost any other human who has ever lived, and for that I’m grateful.
I guess you could say I deal with it via the deliberate choice to be grateful, and to ignore the people who think I’m foolish for being grateful.
My mental health is certainly better than it would be if I chose to be bitter and resentful of the facts of existence.
Being surrounded by hostile forces that want to exploit and eat me is just part of existence. I am also surrounded by forces that want to nurture and assist me. I focus on those.
The ideal is to be capable of fighting a war, and capable of laughing in easy joy at the same time. Why? Because existence is war, and war is dreary and miserable if it’s the only thing that exists.
Elie Wiesel wrote in Night about finding freedom while strapped down to a table being tortured by concentration camp guards. It’s hard to find a scenario in which a person is more fucked. But it was there that he discovered the freedom of his spirit. If he can be free in that situation, I can be free in this situation.
Are you so deeply against “capitalism” that you’re against products as such?