1. Diets of processed food, carbs, sugar, etc.
2. Alcohol
3. Dopamine jerking online content and social media
4. Porn
By mentally enslaving, I mean people are running at a hugely reduced mental clarity, which is stopping them from living life to its full potential. They are essentially living on automatic, with reduced ability to have agency and be agile about how they live
Personally I think number 1 (diet) is the easily the most underated.
And secondly, the rate of growth and change seems to be working us towards a less resilient system overall. As an anecdote, my co workers are all highly paid, but in private conversations - everyone is burned out and cynical, even when the situation doesn’t necessarily warrant the cynicism.
Maybe it’s always been this way, and I’m just now seeing past my own blind spots.
I don’t know what the solution, and if there was one, I imagine it’s be a hard problem to get people to agree to that solution.
The effects of all this is distrust, disunity, isolation, division. It’s poison to causes, countries, and relationships. Practiced liars eventually can’t even see reality at all, and can’t fix their problems because they can’t see them.
It's better to consume less, not demanding the latest and greatest to impress your peers, budget conservatively, so as to be unsinkable.
There is no "we" since we are all different. Everyone does something wrong, but nobody does everything wrong — yet in aggregate, "we" do everything wrong :) But everyone does something right, too, so in aggregate, we do everything right (nothing wrong) too!
As long as people keep doing that, I think "we" should be good.
Not being a luddite, just making an observation. The biggest threat to modern society, nation security,mental health,etc... you name it, is too much tech too fast with not enough social frameworks to adopt to it. The adoptin will come but all the big social pains are part of the adoption process which could be less painful at a slower pace. Wrt reliance on tech, it creates a power imbalance where adopters gain short term advantage over non-adapting people, the reverse is true as well. For example, the US military us relying on drones and ships with reduced manpower, not simply because they can but they realized getting a large number of americans fit for service or manufacturing ships, planes and tanks at WW2(or more) scale is impossible due to americans being physically unfit but also because of the wastefulness and inefficiency of the military indistrial comples. Instead of solving underlying issues, it was solved with tech. So if China for example catches up with tech against US, all they have to do is not rely purely on tech like the US and use body count to win any conventional conflict. I am just using that as one example.
Let's say I am relying on uber and a grocery delivery app. Being able to have a reliable phone and a working app (and a working not-banned account) is a dependency for my basic needs. This is not a convenience but a reliance. Lack of public transportation or grocery stores within walking distance of residential areas could be an underlying problem covered up with tech reliance and those who refuse to adopt tech are excluded from opportunities. This is an example but I literally can't enter my apartment without an app, every resident is an involuntary adaptor of some app.
I didn't want to pick more controversial examples but every major modern problem I see, I can connect it to this issue.
Sorry if this doesn't help you come up with a solution given this is HN.
Blockchain technologies.
Growing food far away from people.
Eating meat at nearly every meal.
Turning fossil fuel calories into food calories.
Paying teachers too little.
Devaluing the thoughts and feelings of those who are younger than us, or those who have had different life experiences.
Valuing good data too little.
Valuing bad data too much.
Lacking empathy for people that we disagree with.
Falling victim to gut reaction or emotion without critically thinking about why the gut reaction or emotional response exists.
When I was born, HIV was a death sentence and pretty quick. Today it is something you live with, which when treated correctly can't even be detected, and a vaccine is being tested.
During my childhood it cost money for every minute you were on the phone, and we didn't have an internet connection at home. The best, newest information on many topics I had access to was a physical encyclopedia.
Today we have driven the cost of global video calls down to zero.
Between 1990 and 2015 we added a billion people and cut the number of those living in extreme poverty down by half. Of course this being a positive thing, nobody much noticed.
Just as an example: I live in an urban area and generally take public transportation, but for many reasons having a car would be a good idea. So I buy a car.
First-order effect: my monthly payments go up; going further faster is easier; I can get more groceries at once
Second-order effect: because payments went up, I have less money for other fun things; because I can go further, faster, I drive more often; because I can get more groceries at once, I save money by buying in bulk
Third-order effect: because I have less money for other things, I stay home more often; because I drive more often, I'm walking less and therefore burning fewer calories; by buying in bulk, I have more food on-hand at home
Fourth-order effect: because I stay home more often AND I have more food on hand AND I walk less, I gain weight
Fifth-order effect: weight gain leads to worsening self-esteem, higher risk factors for disease, needing new clothes (and Nth order of less money again!)
But most people just stop at the first one and then are shocked and have to deal with the consequences of their own actions because they didn't think things through.
Not to get political or anything, but think about what people say about these issues:
- anti-vaxx positions ("my freedom!" -> nth-order effect of "my choice kills other people")
- anti-choice positions ("ban killing babies" -> nth-order effects might be: increased poverty, increased populations in schools, fewer taxpayer dollars to go around)
- NIMBYism ("not in my back yard" -> gentrification, eventual collapse of unsustainable economy where poor are priced out)
- labor shortages (and so on)
- various forms of government (and so on)
If people were more likely to think about the Nth-order effects of their actions, I firmly believe we'd be in a better place.
So how do we teach this kind of thinking to more people?
I'm not entirely sure, but my best idea right now is to teach everyone how to play chess.
Anyway, it's something I think about quite frequently. If only my cousin could see past her first instinct and grasp the consequences of her actions, her family might be less messed up.
corrective course: start by removing the "flag" button