Mega-Thread of Low vs High Perspectives

[zurew]

On 2025. 04. 10. at 8:17 PM, Nilsi said:

That’s a very naive assessment. Combine AI, synthetic biology, and open-source gain-of-function research, and you already have a situation where someone reasonably sophisticated could engineer civilization-wipeout-level viruses from their basement. And let’s not pretend there’s a shortage of deeply disturbed individuals whose sole aim is to inflict maximum suffering on humanity - school shooters, sadistic torturers, the whole spectrum.

I’m honestly surprised you don’t grasp the fragility of the world we’re living in. This could all end in the blink of an eye.

And thats just the start - we can easily attach other arguments to this like you cant maintain a finite planet with exponentially growing energy need.

Before anyone would say "but efficiency bro" , that doesn't work in practice mostly because of jevons paradox. The more efficient shit gets the more accessible it gets and on a net scale we end up spending much more energy.  Today, the average person uses more energy in a single day than what a king did in an entire year centuries ago.

AI just makes this whole thing 10x worse, 1 because it makes things more efficient and 2 because the better it gets the more things it can be used for and this goes back to jevons paradox.

We also have no good way to properly price things (in a way where the price is not decontextualized, but its contextualized in the context of the whole world) - which inevitably leads to the fact that we externalize harm - why? Because we don't immediately need to pay the price for it ("other stupid people who will be directly affected by it , will pay the price for it") - if everyone would need to pay the real price for it almost all businesses would go immediately bankrupt.

 

 

And we can go on with other issues (AI alignment issue, environmental issues etc) ,but one main point is that a naive "but history though" doesn't work, because shit is widly different now in multiple ways.

Edited April 11 by zurew

[Nilsi]

1 hour ago, zurew said:

We also have no good way to properly price things (in a way where the price is not decontextualized, but its contextualized in the context of the whole world) - which inevitably leads to the fact that we externalize harm - why? Because we don't immediately need to pay the price for it ("other stupid people who will be directly affected by it , will pay the price for it") - if everyone would need to pay the real price for it almost all businesses would go immediately bankrupt.

Well, there you have your problem. And here I am, precisely a pessimist - in that I think the market has slipped the leash entirely.

I keep coming back to 2008. The event horizon. The point beyond which no emancipatory posture - Marxist or otherwise - makes it back in one piece. What followed wasn’t rupture, but revelation: the market is the alien in Alien. Unkillable. Adaptive. It rebuilds itself from ash. And instead of us hacking into it, it arranges us - like a puppetmaster made of code and appetite.

And as you said: not only is the market’s only desire to grow - it’s that even if it didn’t, the fantasy of a sustainable market is already a joke. Growth only happens through excess. Through burn. Through extraction. Like any cancer. Acceleration isn’t a side effect - it is the system.

So unless you believe in a miracle - and I mean the Silicon Valley kind, the gospel of the upload, where the market becomes so digital, so arcane, that it detaches entirely and drags us with it into pure cyberspace - then really the only question left is: what comes after total meltdown?

And I think that’s a literally unthinkable event. Because what’s melting isn’t just capital. It’s meaning. It’s time. It’s the whole symbolic scaffolding through which we once staged “life.”

[Nilsi]

8 minutes ago, Nilsi said:

Well, there you have your problem. And here I am, precisely a pessimist - in that I think the market has slipped the leash entirely.

I keep coming back to 2008. The event horizon. The point beyond which no emancipatory posture - Marxist or otherwise - makes it back in one piece. What followed wasn’t rupture, but revelation: the market is the alien in Alien. Unkillable. Adaptive. It rebuilds itself from ash. And instead of us hacking into it, it arranges us - like a puppetmaster made of code and appetite.

And as you said: not only is the market’s only desire to grow - it’s that even if it didn’t, the fantasy of a sustainable market is already a joke. Growth only happens through excess. Through burn. Through extraction. Like any cancer. Acceleration isn’t a side effect - it is the system.

So unless you believe in a miracle - and I mean the Silicon Valley kind, the gospel of the upload, where the market becomes so digital, so arcane, that it detaches entirely and drags us with it into pure cyberspace - then really the only question left is: what comes after total meltdown?

And I think that’s a literally unthinkable event. Because what’s melting isn’t just capital. It’s meaning. It’s time. It’s the whole symbolic scaffolding through which we once staged “life.”

It’s no coincidence, I think, that right around 2008, zombies came roaring into the cultural zeitgeist. Left 4 Dead dropped that year - pure panic and coordination against endless hordes. Then The Walking Dead in 2010, turning collapse into serialized trauma porn. Call of Duty folded in Nazi zombies like it was just another game mode, and by the time DayZ and World War Z hit, we weren’t even pretending it was fiction anymore. It was like we were rehearsing - over and over - for a world where the system collapses, but the motions don’t stop. The market didn’t die in 2008 - it reanimated. Hollowed-out, undead, no longer promising life but still demanding motion. Consumption without subjectivity. An economy of pure appetite, stripped of ideals. We didn’t slay the monster. We became its backdrop. And it kept moving.

[Nilsi]

2 hours ago, zurew said:

if everyone would need to pay the real price for it almost all businesses would go immediately bankrupt.

Also, just so we're clear: there would be no profit - none at all - if the real price were fully accounted for in trade.

[zurew]

10 minutes ago, Nilsi said:

Also, just so we're clear: there would be no profit - none at all - if the real price were fully accounted for in trade.

Yeah, precisely.

[Terell Kirby]

High perspective - Eben Pagan on avoiding devils in business:

 

Edited April 12 by Terell Kirby

[aurum]

High: Post-modern critique of history, globalism, egalitarianism, consciousness of American devilry

 

[Terell Kirby]

Susanne Cooke Greuter interview-higher stages of ego development:

Of course-Construct Awareness is one of the highest of perspectives one can take:

 

[Terell Kirby]

High perspective: great analysis on the complexity of discussing chronic illness.

Features: Balanced, acknowledges relativity of perspective, empathy, nuanced.

 

[aurum]

Low: circular reasoning, low-construct awareness

 

[Yimpa]

High: Vulnerability

Hey, I have those exact same headphones! They helped ground me when I was nearly dead.

Edited April 16 by Yimpa

[aurum]

Low: demonization, disgust, homophobia, double-standards, machiavellianism

 

[Loving Radiance]

High-quality:

• Broadly educated mind
• Based on true facts
• Epistemologically grounded
• Intellectual responsibility: critical thought, aware of echo chambers and corrupting digital knowledge & discourse landscape, historical awareness
• Independence and sovereignty of mind
• Politically unpartisan
• Systemic understanding of society & economy
• Working to address root causes
• World-centric

[aurum]

This channel is just a goldmine for these.

Low: pre-rationality, magical thinking, close-mindedness