As I’ve said all along, if you import the Third World, you become the Third World
You know I think this is the closest my aggressively pragmatic self comes to feeling the juxtaposition of sacred and profane. There are two metrics that we use to describe our species: intelligence and prosocial behavior, and this flapping husk shits on both.
I think along similar lines, but I’ve taken a third descriptor onboard: disaster-prone. A mirthless history professor once told me that “history is a litany of unintended consequences”. Everything about the world and our history makes so much more sense if you mentally allow for the fact that we as a species tend to make rather absurd mistakes at scale, and now at the height of our global culture, our powers at their greatest, our need for common sense, tolerance, and cooperation at their most urgent in history due to impending climate collapse, geopolitical tension, and wealth inequality, the most powerful nation in history elected, twice, the most foolish, wicked man alive.
A single person is still intelligent and prosocial. I sincerely agree. But humanity i think has a critical mass at which point all of that is hidden behind layers of systematically disastrous behaviour.
You know I think this is the closest my aggressively pragmatic self comes to feeling the juxtaposition of sacred and profane. There are two metrics that we use to describe our species: intelligence and prosocial behavior, and this flapping husk shits on both.
I think along similar lines, but I’ve taken a third descriptor onboard: disaster-prone. A mirthless history professor once told me that “history is a litany of unintended consequences”. Everything about the world and our history makes so much more sense if you mentally allow for the fact that we as a species tend to make rather absurd mistakes at scale, and now at the height of our global culture, our powers at their greatest, our need for common sense, tolerance, and cooperation at their most urgent in history due to impending climate collapse, geopolitical tension, and wealth inequality, the most powerful nation in history elected, twice, the most foolish, wicked man alive.
A single person is still intelligent and prosocial. I sincerely agree. But humanity i think has a critical mass at which point all of that is hidden behind layers of systematically disastrous behaviour.