"No matter how much we keenly feel the loss of that community, we aren’t ready to give up our freedom to have it."
Well, I am.
Obviously, not all my freedom, but decent measures of it because it's clear that being a radical individual will not bring me the things I truly desire for my family. It will not set up my kids for success as adults. And it will not lead to the kind of long term outcomes that are necessary for society at large.
We're all in a state of convenience obesity, we have personal freedom diabetes. Of course we don't want to do anything about it. Doing something about it sucks. Going to the gym is hard, going on a diet is hard, changing our lives is hard.
But it doesn't take a rejection of modern life to live close with others in a way that meaningfully, and helpfully constrains choices and creates community and belonging.
Good piece. I think this is generally true. Two exceptions I would have with it:
1. Something needs to be said about coordination problems. I don't want to give up my smartphone if I'm the only one doing it. But would I prefer to live in a world where smartphones were never invented, or one where the entire world agreed to unmake them? It's at least a tougher question, though it could only ever be a hypothetical, fantasy scenario. Even entering into a voluntary community where everyone forsakes technology is very different from abolishing them from the planet, because now you're an outsider trying to make do in a world built around technology you refuse to use.
2. Point taken that I wouldn't want to live in the 1890s. But I think there is a strong case for preferring the decade of the 2000s over everything that came after.
The 2010s were a decade of cultural degradation, accompanied by a stagnation in the advance of consumer conveniences. In that decade, we saw the beginning of Internet deterioration: en**itification. Much of the consumer surplus of the early Internet was harvested in the form of SaaS profits. Social media became more dominant while simultaneously degrading in consumer experience; Facebook went from an ad-light place where your friends posted, to a site dominated by ads and "suggested content." The 2010s were when the Internet began to break through more clearly into the real world, when people could no longer log off. Woke was one of the first consequences.
Meanwhile, for the first time since the rise of consumer electronics in the 1970s, these conveniences saw no meaningful improvements in the decade of the 2010s: cell phones, PCs, and game consoles were all fully mature technologies by 2011-2012; further improvements were incremental and difficult to notice. Netflix streaming circa 2011 was already very good, and an amazing value, never to be replicated.
I'm more optimistic about the 2020s so far. Maybe AI will prove to be a disaster in the end. But so far it is at least not an *unmitigated* disaster, which is more than can be said for the 2010s.
“The automobile led to urban decline in the US, and the rise of a suburbia that even its staunchest defenders will acknowledge lacks the charm of traditional cities.”
There was also a racial aspect to this: A lot of white people didn’t want to live with black people when black people started moving to the cities.
It’s interesting when you compare that to Europe, where white people live in cities and Middle Eastern/African people live in the suburbs.
Re: I don’t think, given the choice, any of us would go back to living in the 1870s or the 1950s or even the 1980s.
The 80s? Maybe. That's a time I remember--I was a teenager through most of it.
But one thing to be very clear on: giving up modern (post industrial revolution) technology wholesale, across the board everywhere means the deaths of billions.
Technology, better word, technocracy, is responsible for the collapsing birth-rate. The TFR is globally trending strongly suicidal. There are no bandages, let alone cures. Nothing else really matters.
Like we have any statistics. We have to make educated guesses. The estimated global TFR has always been between five (5) and six (6) until 1960. It is now at about 2.2. This masks the collapse of the TFR in the Far East and in most developed nations. China may very well be below 1. Canada and Italy just published separately that both countries are at about 1.1. What is the point of your comment? I am not wrong about the collapsing global TFR. I'm not wrong that it is technology that drives the TFR down. Do you wish this was not an issue?
We know enough to know that the driving force behind declining fertility rates isn't EvilScaryModernTech, unless you want to propose that we all go back to waterwheels and scythes.
Some people are still having kids, plural. They, and their descendants, will inherit the world. So no, humanity will not extinct if that's where your comment is headed.
Well that's a cheerful thought, I am glad someone will be around to turn off the lights. No extinction rebellion here. Do the math. You lose >90% of the population in 100 years when an older society has a TFR of one (1).
The technocracy's global hegemony drives down the birth rate. Nothing will change that, AI will accelerate it.
You assert. I explain. Technology rules over us, in the same way a master becomes dependent on his servants. Technology makes it easy to skip out on child-bearing. Our technological understanding of ourselves makes children burdensome. AI will do nothing to change the paradigm. It's wishful thinking to assume so.
So tell me JonF311, Why are you so absolutely certain the birth rate will increase, not decrease?
"No matter how much we keenly feel the loss of that community, we aren’t ready to give up our freedom to have it."
Well, I am.
Obviously, not all my freedom, but decent measures of it because it's clear that being a radical individual will not bring me the things I truly desire for my family. It will not set up my kids for success as adults. And it will not lead to the kind of long term outcomes that are necessary for society at large.
We're all in a state of convenience obesity, we have personal freedom diabetes. Of course we don't want to do anything about it. Doing something about it sucks. Going to the gym is hard, going on a diet is hard, changing our lives is hard.
But it doesn't take a rejection of modern life to live close with others in a way that meaningfully, and helpfully constrains choices and creates community and belonging.
Good piece. I think this is generally true. Two exceptions I would have with it:
1. Something needs to be said about coordination problems. I don't want to give up my smartphone if I'm the only one doing it. But would I prefer to live in a world where smartphones were never invented, or one where the entire world agreed to unmake them? It's at least a tougher question, though it could only ever be a hypothetical, fantasy scenario. Even entering into a voluntary community where everyone forsakes technology is very different from abolishing them from the planet, because now you're an outsider trying to make do in a world built around technology you refuse to use.
2. Point taken that I wouldn't want to live in the 1890s. But I think there is a strong case for preferring the decade of the 2000s over everything that came after.
The 2010s were a decade of cultural degradation, accompanied by a stagnation in the advance of consumer conveniences. In that decade, we saw the beginning of Internet deterioration: en**itification. Much of the consumer surplus of the early Internet was harvested in the form of SaaS profits. Social media became more dominant while simultaneously degrading in consumer experience; Facebook went from an ad-light place where your friends posted, to a site dominated by ads and "suggested content." The 2010s were when the Internet began to break through more clearly into the real world, when people could no longer log off. Woke was one of the first consequences.
Meanwhile, for the first time since the rise of consumer electronics in the 1970s, these conveniences saw no meaningful improvements in the decade of the 2010s: cell phones, PCs, and game consoles were all fully mature technologies by 2011-2012; further improvements were incremental and difficult to notice. Netflix streaming circa 2011 was already very good, and an amazing value, never to be replicated.
I'm more optimistic about the 2020s so far. Maybe AI will prove to be a disaster in the end. But so far it is at least not an *unmitigated* disaster, which is more than can be said for the 2010s.
“The automobile led to urban decline in the US, and the rise of a suburbia that even its staunchest defenders will acknowledge lacks the charm of traditional cities.”
There was also a racial aspect to this: A lot of white people didn’t want to live with black people when black people started moving to the cities.
It’s interesting when you compare that to Europe, where white people live in cities and Middle Eastern/African people live in the suburbs.
Re: I don’t think, given the choice, any of us would go back to living in the 1870s or the 1950s or even the 1980s.
The 80s? Maybe. That's a time I remember--I was a teenager through most of it.
But one thing to be very clear on: giving up modern (post industrial revolution) technology wholesale, across the board everywhere means the deaths of billions.
Amazon and other delivery services are reversing the need for a car as is working from home.
Technology, better word, technocracy, is responsible for the collapsing birth-rate. The TFR is globally trending strongly suicidal. There are no bandages, let alone cures. Nothing else really matters.
Wrong. Fertility rates have been declining for centuries, not decades.
Like we have any statistics. We have to make educated guesses. The estimated global TFR has always been between five (5) and six (6) until 1960. It is now at about 2.2. This masks the collapse of the TFR in the Far East and in most developed nations. China may very well be below 1. Canada and Italy just published separately that both countries are at about 1.1. What is the point of your comment? I am not wrong about the collapsing global TFR. I'm not wrong that it is technology that drives the TFR down. Do you wish this was not an issue?
We know enough to know that the driving force behind declining fertility rates isn't EvilScaryModernTech, unless you want to propose that we all go back to waterwheels and scythes.
Why do you think the TFR has crashed?
Natural human selfishness combined with decades of antinatalist propaganda.
Ah yes, propaganda. That's another word for media, correct?
Some people are still having kids, plural. They, and their descendants, will inherit the world. So no, humanity will not extinct if that's where your comment is headed.
Well that's a cheerful thought, I am glad someone will be around to turn off the lights. No extinction rebellion here. Do the math. You lose >90% of the population in 100 years when an older society has a TFR of one (1).
The technocracy's global hegemony drives down the birth rate. Nothing will change that, AI will accelerate it.
You assume present trends will continue indefinitely they will not. Absolutely not
You assert. I explain. Technology rules over us, in the same way a master becomes dependent on his servants. Technology makes it easy to skip out on child-bearing. Our technological understanding of ourselves makes children burdensome. AI will do nothing to change the paradigm. It's wishful thinking to assume so.
So tell me JonF311, Why are you so absolutely certain the birth rate will increase, not decrease?
You gave no clue what the future will bring. It's stochastic, not determinative.
When you jump off the bridge the future is determined. Nothing Stochastic About it.