While everyone else is talking about AI, I’m going to engage in an exegesis of a single verse in the Old Testament, and yet somehow AI will still sneak in!
As an aside, if Alexander's God is technology (or some ideology of techno-liberalism or such) at least he exhibits a proper fear of it.
My mundane fear about the near future is that while some of the American Century is indeed a result of the traits we like to attribute it to -- bounty of the land, industrious spirit, ingenuity, etc -- a lot of it is simply the result of being in an unrivaled position post WWII, and we've since (or at least lately) been eating seed corn like its mana from Heaven. And when that's gone, we'll discover the other traits have diminished in the meantime as well; are we still industrious or ingenious? Good times making soft men is not a law, but it is a trend afaict.
Civilizational exhaustion is an interesting thing. No individual has been laboring for the length of a nation or civilization; each youth today has had just as much life to weary them as a similar young person in the most exuberant of times. If one discounts some malevolent spirit (which perhaps we would be hasty to do) we're left with ideas. Ideologies of despair, guilt, envy and so on. Or else, as the progressives might hold with some reason, social structures and economic barriers to family formation.
The diagnoses are plentiful, the cures have side-effects, and most of the doctors are quacks.
Well said. I don’t know if I’ve seen the “eating seed corn” analogy, but it’s apt. And yes, we have also somehow ended up with nothing but quackery as far as the eye can see.
As an aside, if Alexander's God is technology (or some ideology of techno-liberalism or such) at least he exhibits a proper fear of it.
My mundane fear about the near future is that while some of the American Century is indeed a result of the traits we like to attribute it to -- bounty of the land, industrious spirit, ingenuity, etc -- a lot of it is simply the result of being in an unrivaled position post WWII, and we've since (or at least lately) been eating seed corn like its mana from Heaven. And when that's gone, we'll discover the other traits have diminished in the meantime as well; are we still industrious or ingenious? Good times making soft men is not a law, but it is a trend afaict.
Civilizational exhaustion is an interesting thing. No individual has been laboring for the length of a nation or civilization; each youth today has had just as much life to weary them as a similar young person in the most exuberant of times. If one discounts some malevolent spirit (which perhaps we would be hasty to do) we're left with ideas. Ideologies of despair, guilt, envy and so on. Or else, as the progressives might hold with some reason, social structures and economic barriers to family formation.
The diagnoses are plentiful, the cures have side-effects, and most of the doctors are quacks.
Well said. I don’t know if I’ve seen the “eating seed corn” analogy, but it’s apt. And yes, we have also somehow ended up with nothing but quackery as far as the eye can see.
“We are not saved, but at least our cabinets are stocked with snake oil”