Discussion about this post

User's avatar
Cian O Reilly's avatar

I'm reminded of some lyrics from one of my favourite songwriters, Richard Dawson;

"She asks why we spend precious time

crafting our sheaves by hand

when we could acquire all we need

from the bastle at Beadnell

or one of the abundant Caskets of Parting Cloud

which every sundown

float to ground on their dark balloons.

I answer her as best I may:

That in a world such as today's

where each person can display

a bounty of data

on the quivering cavewall of their eyeball

at the merest flick of a lash,

the only facts of any worth

are not so easily dispersed.

Yes, it matters how we learn -

real knowledge must be earned...

Everything else is a husk:

wisdom's simulacrum."

And I think of newborn foals, already fully equipped with the ability to stand and bounce about whereas us humans need what the guatemalan mayans called a second gestation where we must continue our development in the external womb of the village. Already for millions of years we've been putting more and more of ourselves into the world. Is it a movement towards greater and greater interdependence? Maybe in a hundred years most humans won't be able to read at all, in the same way computer technicians no longer require the skill of mental arithmetic and just can't do it anymore, though they're arguably doing some "higher level" processing. We might be synthesising oceans of data in a fraction of a second - "each person can display a bounty of data on the quivering cavewall of their eyeball at the merest flick of a lash".

There is the argument I've heard in response to the idea that if ai can just build your app for you now then coding becomes irrelevant; but humans are always just innovating with whatever raw materials we have. If our raw materials are an earth with extractable metals we can develop tools and fashion a brooch. If our raw materials are electronics and mathematics, we can make a first computer. If our raw materials are meta-apps that can generate any sort of software tool from a thought, then we just keep applying the same level of innovation to that and produce...godknowswhat. There is no endpoint. It's innovation all the way up. Can it hold and will it destroy us all are other questions.

There is a massive issue with this interdependence of course, which is that it can actually just become a dependence if the resources of the whole are owned and controlled by *cough elonmusk&friends*. But seeing this overall pattern we're talking about not as an arbitrary cultural event but as part of an ongoing evolutionary process, a tide so much bigger than any of us... is pretty darn compelling to me. Like, what are we becoming.

Expand full comment
Uaifo Ojo's avatar

This is a Supreme article I must say, especially as it's about a topic one hardly ever thinks about let alone read about. I doff my hat to you ✊🏼👏🏼

And reading this from Nigeria, I can say we haven't yet gotten to the point where you global northerners are in terms of too much comfort taking away core skills but I worry truly that we may not be too far behind especially as the technological advancements now reach us about the same time as you guys more or less

I have no clue how you guys can turn things around but I hope my people don't wait until the situation is critical to begin thinking of how and in what ways we adapt to the comforts of modernity

And I was just thinking to myself today that it seems the skills of 'toasting' (that's what we call wooing ladies here) female folks is largely obsolete in this world and in my own society already. Love and relationships now seem transactional and nobody really cares if you've got game or character, just if your bank account is worthy of attracting the kind of female you want

And that's a sad state of affairs as there seems to be no more fun or flirtation going around in the world between both sexes anymore and one of those skills that seems to have been adapted away from the mainstream. Anyways, that's just my petpeeve as I'm a lover-boy at heart and females don't seem to give a shit about that anymore and just money oriented

Back to your article, there really isn't much I can add as you've hit the nail on the head in everyway I can think of. Bravo once again 👏🏼🥂

Expand full comment
12 more comments...

No posts