DoesntWantToBe t1_j2o5fla wrote on January 2, 2023 at 7:53 PM

I think you might have already started losing it.

Nothing you described is even mildly reality breaking. In fact, I'd argue that nothing is reality breaking beyond the very short-term reaction for humans.

We're extremely adaptable. Things that seem unthinkable quickly become "Oh, another infinite source of information that I carry with me at all times? Boring."

Even if the truly unthinkable happened, say we were visited by a race of aliens that revealed the secrets of God the universe and everything to us, the chaos would be temporary. A matter of decades at most, more likely just a couple of years.

Not because we're sane, rational beings capable of absorbing and understanding it, but because we're upjumped monkeys with short attention spans. In a very short period anything will go from "terrible truth" to "Not my problem" as we move on to other concerns, search for new stimuli to amuse us, or just give up trying to figure out what it means and focus on our own lives again.

Very few people care, or would spend any time on, what it all means. Religions adapt to keep their tithes flowing in, but the average person just nods, smiles, and goes back to their Real housewives marathon.

ribblle OP t1_j2p0uap wrote on January 2, 2023 at 11:19 PM

The problem is, these things aren't just information. They would be constant annoyances and danger and, threats. People don't actually just move on. The gears turn, and sooner or later you start worrying about nuclear weapons again. This stuff would represent a much more immediate and often personal problem, with the stress to match.

But, let me not bury my point. If you have all these things constantly in your view, your just not going to have the same experience we're accustomed to today. You could end up living like a rabbit mentally running away from one strange question after another.

DoesntWantToBe t1_j2pc72i wrote on January 3, 2023 at 12:36 AM

None of these things represent a threat to a reasonable person, and strange questions are what we're good at as a species. We invented god and the devil, we invented lizard people disguising themselves as human and running for political office.

We're not confused or terrified of these things as a species. Some members of our species are incredibly anxious and terrified of everything, you seem to be on the anxious side, but that just isn't most people.

Most people won't even think about these things beyond the conveniences they provide, like the way they treat facebook's data sharing today. Convenience trumps existential questions like privacy, humanity, and the nature of the human soul.

Some people will be excited for the potential changes and nerd out about it, much like the people who closely watch the space industry and dream of mars colonies.

A tiny, tiny percentage of people will stand on street corners and scream that the end is nigh. They'll be driven crazy by the changes to what they see as the natural course of human evolution.

But they won't impact how humanity moves forward with these advances. Because humanity will just keep moving forward until and unless something wipes us out. It would take a near-extinction level event for the average person to start having daily anxiety about advances in biogenetic and computer sciences. Most people just aren't that fussed with it.

And absolutely nothing coming in the next 20-30 years is going to change that barring a nuclear war or asteroid hitting the earth. Societies change quickly, but not that quickly.

ribblle OP t1_j2pcfdr wrote on January 3, 2023 at 12:38 AM

Christ man. I'm a paranoid schizophrenic for having my worries about rapid technological progression. Fucking reddit.