stuff tagged with "humanity"
What technology takes from us – and how to take it back
🔗 a linked post to
theguardian.com »
—
originally shared here on
The solution to technology is not more technology. The solution to loneliness is each other, a wealth that should be available to most of us most of the time. We need to rebuild or reinvent the ways and places in which we meet; we need to recognise them as the space of democracy, of joy, of connection, of love, of trust. Technology has stolen us from each other and in many ways from ourselves, and then tried to sell us substitutes.
I spent the weekend attending my town's annual summer festival. It was a ton of fun, but it was packed to the gills with people, a natural consequence of our town's explosive growth over the past decade.
That growth has manifested as mcmansions that are packed together like sardines, distribution warehouses for mega corporations, and data centers for notorious champions of privacy and democracy.
Our town has courted new gyms and a couple restaurants, but I'd love to start seeing us actively recruit entrepreneurs who want to provide additional opportunities for us to come together and commune. You know, things like new dining options, shopping centers, theaters, arcades, churches, pickleball venues! Hell, why not a Puttshack?
Maybe I need to find a way to buy that open parcel of land that's a couple blocks from my house and build a coffee shop on it.
We are told that machines will become like us, but in many ways they demand we become more like them. To let that happen is to lose something immeasurably valuable. That immeasurability is what makes this struggle difficult, but what cannot be measured can be described or at least evoked and valued. It cannot be boiled down to simple metrics such as efficiency and profitability.
Resisting the annexation of our hearts and minds by Silicon Valley requires us not just to set boundaries on our engagement with what they offer, but to cherish the alternatives. Joy in ordinary things, in each other, in embodied life, and the language with which to value it, is essential to this resistance, which is resistance to dehumanisation.
Maintaining a sense of humor and focusing on small wins are great ways to find encouragement to keep going. Another way is to refuse to believe the bad press about human beings. We notice and pay the most attention to cruelty and inhumanity and that’s actually because our brains focus on the negative over anything else. But I like to remind us that the reason stories of cruelty are so shocking to us is that they go against most people's natural instincts. How else can we explain human survival to date? We mostly work cooperatively and we are often concerned with helping others. This is reflected in the world in small and big ways. We have to train our brains to notice.
The whole universe is contained in an apple wedge in a lunch box. Apple tree, sunlight, cloud, rain, earth, air, farmer's sweat are all in it. Delivery truck, gas, market, money, cashier's smile are all in it. Refrigerator, knife, cutting board, mother's love are all in it. Everything in the whole universe depends on one another. Now, think about what exists in you. The whole universe is in us.
The human race is challenged more than ever before to demonstrate our mastery, not over nature but of ourselves.
I grow little of the food I eat, and of the little I do grow I did not breed or perfect the seeds. I do not make any of my own clothing. I speak a language I did not invent or refine. I did not discover the mathematics I use. I am protected by freedoms and laws I did not conceive of or legislate, and do not enforce or adjudicate. I am moved by music I did not create myself. When I needed medical attention, I was helpless to help myself survive. I did not invent the transistor, the microprocessor, object oriented programming, or most of the technology I work with. I love and admire my species, living and dead, and am totally dependent on them for my life and well being.
The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference.
