> We were not defined by our jobs but by our participation in a densely interconnected social world.
Serious comment: 20+ years ago, Burning Man taught me this. Back then it was closer to its founding anarchic ethos and in a pre-social media, pre-starlink, pre-cell phone world, provided an large-scale social experiment in constructing an artificial and temporary bubble of post-scarcity society, within which commerce and status relocated from the obviously economic, into other modes of competition and hierarchy-finding.
In specific, social status recentered on a spectrum of predictable values including durable ones such as charisma and appeal, but also more altruistic ones, such as the nature of the gifts one provided (experiential and environmental, more than tangible). Status through the "gift economy" is how this was described.
It was, frankly, glorious to inhabit: at least, for a week...
I have wondered idly where in the space of possible social structures humanity would find itself, in a post-scarcity world, as it became further decoupled from "contemporary capitalism" as we know it.
That is: was the "natural" social ordering that emerged at Burning Man, an accurate view of what a prototypical post-scarcity humanity would tend toward?
Or was it "merely" the one that emerged when all the participants were entirely inculcated in and hence prone to recapitulating the hierarchical arrangements of the quotidian world on which the fantasia of Burning Man was built?
My assumption is that human nature (in all layers of its stack) makes social hierarchy inevitable, and if we don't need literal currency, we'll find a coin to trade in, hoard, envy, and pursue.
But I would assume that, being a product of contemporary capitalism, with little ability to distinguish natural law from cultural constructs in my own intuitions, wouldn't I?
This is not an argument, it's an unfounded claim based on a straw argument.
The threat is distributed; the problem is systemic. Social herd behavior is very real, and it's a probability space, not a certainty.
Similar case: climate change is without any question causing millions of deaths per year and may well kill billions, not to mention destroying ecosystems, and how may people do you know who have given up eating beef or flying...?
You're right. That's why I'm doing my best to give the oil companies more power and influence. They are, after all, in the best position to stop climate change!
Castle dwellers dismayed at moat-crossing technology.
What's most important about this is that it's a case study of what happens when deeply evolved ecosystems are blown up by disruptive technology. The psychological and social and professional impacts and myriad and traumatic to be on the receiving end.
Mathematics is merely one of the first domains disrupted. It will be unique only for being among the first... absent disruption of the entire civilizational project as a result of the disruption being caused.
Woe for us that we try to navigate this degree of change at a moment when the very worst and ignorant and short sighted hold all the power, economic and political.
You just need to work your way down to a deeper layer in the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrioshka_brain Not the deepest layer. Humans would fry instantly there. But, the warm glow of the third layer down upon the fourth is quite pleasant.
Support click-and-spin with momentum: I clicked outside the mandala and quick-dragged horizontally, hoping this would spin the mandala.
You could support zero-friction and momentum, slowly stopping.
In either this unlocks a dramatically new aesthetic: clicking on the rotating surface draws splines. The mapping of gesture-to-line (hence mandala elements) changes completely.
There are some complications, intuitively one might expect "pottery wheel mode" where symmetry is not enabled... I think that would be "unlearned" however.
Always remember, Meta is a surveillance company, with no moral compunctions about being so. It's not about selling advertising, though it's also that.
That's also a useful smoke screen for the accumulation of dossiers on every user's every behavior, for consumption by those who sell not products but influence and push political behavior.
Get off every one of their products and delete them.
Serious comment: 20+ years ago, Burning Man taught me this. Back then it was closer to its founding anarchic ethos and in a pre-social media, pre-starlink, pre-cell phone world, provided an large-scale social experiment in constructing an artificial and temporary bubble of post-scarcity society, within which commerce and status relocated from the obviously economic, into other modes of competition and hierarchy-finding.
In specific, social status recentered on a spectrum of predictable values including durable ones such as charisma and appeal, but also more altruistic ones, such as the nature of the gifts one provided (experiential and environmental, more than tangible). Status through the "gift economy" is how this was described.
It was, frankly, glorious to inhabit: at least, for a week...
I have wondered idly where in the space of possible social structures humanity would find itself, in a post-scarcity world, as it became further decoupled from "contemporary capitalism" as we know it.
That is: was the "natural" social ordering that emerged at Burning Man, an accurate view of what a prototypical post-scarcity humanity would tend toward?
Or was it "merely" the one that emerged when all the participants were entirely inculcated in and hence prone to recapitulating the hierarchical arrangements of the quotidian world on which the fantasia of Burning Man was built?
My assumption is that human nature (in all layers of its stack) makes social hierarchy inevitable, and if we don't need literal currency, we'll find a coin to trade in, hoard, envy, and pursue.
But I would assume that, being a product of contemporary capitalism, with little ability to distinguish natural law from cultural constructs in my own intuitions, wouldn't I?
Regardless, I hope I get to find out.
reply