Amen indeed. That clip from Liam Scheff (very much thanks for that) ties in with my thinking on Technology as an erzatz 'saviour' which will 'control Nature' so sabre-toothed tigers don't leap out of the undergrowth and gobble us up. Science has long been a religion in which people put their faith, with its priests in white coats, and Technology (viewed as merely 'Applied Science') carries the same message and clout in people's minds. The sabre-toothed tiger has morphed into vaxxes, GMOs, etc -- and many still seem not to have noticed yet.
There is no solution. Fact immunity is adaptive in an unknown chaotic setting which is what we live in regardless of advance. It is selective for the same reason mutation itself is, and sexual reproduction which remixes genes semi-randomly. If we accepted facts, one belief system would sweep the globe and homogenize minds. That would create a single vulnerability to the entire collective cognition.
The choice is subsistence isolation, or team combat at the cultural level. So many truths intersect here, like how all life evolves into autocracy. (Neocortex ruling trillions of cells for example, or every culture seeking to dominate the planet.) The only way we're ever gonna be happy thanks to chaos and mutually exclusive demands is custom realities, or engineered delusion. Because even if we go the david pearce route and fix our hedonic treadmill, we're still stuck with the harsh math of reality finding a way to disintegrate any single thing.
I fear I'm close to an answer on the fermi paradox front here.
See also:
“Selfishness beats altruism within groups. Altruistic groups beat selfish groups. Everything else is commentary.”
Amen indeed. That clip from Liam Scheff (very much thanks for that) ties in with my thinking on Technology as an erzatz 'saviour' which will 'control Nature' so sabre-toothed tigers don't leap out of the undergrowth and gobble us up. Science has long been a religion in which people put their faith, with its priests in white coats, and Technology (viewed as merely 'Applied Science') carries the same message and clout in people's minds. The sabre-toothed tiger has morphed into vaxxes, GMOs, etc -- and many still seem not to have noticed yet.
There is no solution. Fact immunity is adaptive in an unknown chaotic setting which is what we live in regardless of advance. It is selective for the same reason mutation itself is, and sexual reproduction which remixes genes semi-randomly. If we accepted facts, one belief system would sweep the globe and homogenize minds. That would create a single vulnerability to the entire collective cognition.
The choice is subsistence isolation, or team combat at the cultural level. So many truths intersect here, like how all life evolves into autocracy. (Neocortex ruling trillions of cells for example, or every culture seeking to dominate the planet.) The only way we're ever gonna be happy thanks to chaos and mutually exclusive demands is custom realities, or engineered delusion. Because even if we go the david pearce route and fix our hedonic treadmill, we're still stuck with the harsh math of reality finding a way to disintegrate any single thing.
I fear I'm close to an answer on the fermi paradox front here.
See also:
“Selfishness beats altruism within groups. Altruistic groups beat selfish groups. Everything else is commentary.”
David Sloan Wilson Edward O. Wilson
The solution is not buying into the religion of contagion.
Amen.