I feel like part of this is a lack of attention to the technicalities and a lack of time, plus an oversaturation of things to do and think about.

The technicality is basically that we're individuals, in an environment and we have a brain to map and act within that environment, and we have certain biological needs + biological wants, and then in many ways the mental map has become extremely big. The second thing is that there are multiple paths we as individuals and as a group can take, and no one is telling us which path is the right way, and usually we never actually pick a path, we just end up there depending on what technology pans out. A big problem with the environment we're in is that it's impossible to predict the consequences of any given path, and so we are in many ways flying blind into the future.

The big contrast here I think is that we always want to make a different future, but the inherent problem with the future is that it is unpredictable. We could have made a conscious choice as individuals to re-create the stability of the past, but that seems uninspiring and boring, and so we sacrifice stability for freedom and the future. The problem is multiplied when we create a super hectic culture where even if we wanted to create stability, we couldn't, because no individual has the time to learn everything and properly predict consequences. I think this is kind of what the singularity is about as well, not just AI, but also the point where culture and life truly becomes non-predictable, even without AI. The more technology (basically environment) exists, the harder it is to know what to focus on and what to do. The only stability we have is rooted in our basic biological needs I think, and so it's not surprising that culture caters to those more than any other aspects of culture, because they create a stability. As Steven Soderbergh has commented, trying to create a film with even a little bit of nuance and ambiguity becomes extremely difficult, because we always seek the simple and easy answers.

The problem with simple and easy answers is that they are local and context sensitive. They are abstractions built on a chaotic foundation, built to cater to the emotions, experiences and mental maps of the current. In some ways, we will never find a truth or an answer, will we always have to create one ourselves. And these truths gets measured and judged based on the technological state of the culture + the recent history of usage of that culture, and to make it even worse, individuals and groups try to sell simple revision history and false facts to sell a certain interpretation of the technology and history of usage, leading to even more confusion. Since they cater to biological needs, they get picked up quickly.

Even though I agree with the article, I think it is also true that we will always build mythologies, and this is a kind of counterpoint to the article. The only outcome I think is a splintering of human societies into clusters of people who can live together, and those will become simpler societies again, until the technology and culture matures enough and the whole chaos starts over again.

</takewithagrainofsaltramble>