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Thomas
@aviationdoctor.eth
People in the early 1900s used to dream enthusiastically about the 21st century. They held ambitious world's fairs to celebrate humanity's ambitions, published glowing pop-sci articles, and wrote hopeful futuristic fiction. Who does that anymore? Who gets positively excited about what the future holds for our great-great-grandchildren? It feels like the 21st century, despite being just one average human lifespan away, already lies behind some inscrutable (and perhaps impassable) Great Filter caused by some combination of technological singularity, AI takeover, collapse of late-stage capitalism, demographic decline, societal rot, deadly pandemic, and/or climate catastrophe. It's as if nobody dares being bullish about humanity's future due to a growing collective (and largely unspoken) unease
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Adam
@adam-
Collective optimism has sadly been overshadowed by persistent pessimism. Part of the dopamine click funnel strategy is to keep people enraged and engaged, which all the juggernaut platforms use as their playbook. It takes a lot less effort to keep people in fear than it does for them to imagine how things can be better. Having said that, the world is starved for optimistic outcomes. It just has to break through the noise to reach others.
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Thomas
@aviationdoctor.eth
Is it just that though? I try to not give in to the dopamine treadmill and distraction firehose, and yet I struggle to paint an optimistic picture of 2100 and beyond. Just too many unknowns, especially with AI/the singularity potentially around the corner (10–15 years horizon?) and the climate crisis looming (of which I think the 2030s will bring a great reckoning). Even billionaires (presumably the most well-informed among us with access to big brains and think tanks) are building underground bunkers in remote places. How do we explain that?
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