It is interesting that the Waldorf School of the Peninsula, where technical devices are off-limits for under-11s, should be such a popular place for tech elites to send their children. I can see how this would help to create a communal mindset among the children who attend there, but what does this say about how their parents see the role of technology vis-a-vis parallel societies and alternative systems? It would seem to suggest at the very least that they see their own relationship to technology as different to that of the hoi polloi.
Let us not forget that the Puritans who came here on the Mayflower in the name of religious freedom proceeded to set up their own theocracy. They wanted freedom, but only for themselves. They were holier than thou. Literally, the "chosen" ones. They expelled or killed those they didn't like.
The technologists are behaving similarly. Wannabe gods, in their own kingdom, their own imagined Heaven, with a gate on it.
In their heaven, everyone is super smart, numbers always go up, rockets always go up, and people merge with machines and so achieve immortality. Elon is the latter day Joseph Smith, with similar sexual practices, to create more of his own type of people.
This is a kingdom of the "Thinkers," aka the "Materialists," who are also "Believers" but don't like to think of themselves that way, don't like to think about themselves critically, at all. Kind of ironic...my "woke mind virus" beat up your "woke mind virus." No more obsolete "Do unto others," that's for weaklings. DOGE is GOD, spelled backwards, plus E(lon).
And freedom for me and my kind, but not for thee, or thine.
Americans find it easier to move on than to learn. Just have a look at our colonial history. Here we go again with the "Tyrant" problem. Paul Revere has to warn the people, again. An interesting topic for Easter, and the day after the beginning of the rebellion against the British. Some problems never go away.
At least the Merry Prankster bus had a sense of humor...
Nick-It is a wonder how you continue to stare the beast in the face without averting your eyes. There was another fellow on the Merry Pranksters' bus. Stewart Brand. To my mind one of the most important characters in the early stages of California hypnotech culture. His book, Whole Earth Discipline, turned him into a heretic to the environmental romantics. Wonder what he's thinking now. Srinivasan had the audacity to invoke that brilliant Berkeley economist A. O. Hirschmann's treatise, Exit, Voice and Loyalty. I hope Hirschmann was buried in a cylindrical coffin so he wouldn't thump as he spun in his grave. A last bit. As an antidote to all this toxicity, Steinbeck's The Wayward Bus, set in California in the thirties, is simply marvelous. HB
I watched the recently restored Metropolis last night - I've read about this 1928 German silent film for years but had never seen it. While the plot itself is pretty standard (boy meets girl, girl captured by evil guy destroying everything, boy rescues girl and kills evil guy) -- the conceptualization of the future in which all this takes place was extraordinary. It belongs to the small collection of original dystopic visions from the early twentieth century: "We", "The Time Machine", "Brave New World" and, of course, "1984". Each of these has a somewhat different conception of Hell on earth. I read an essay recently that argued that Huxley's vision is much closer to where we're headed than Orwell. I think the jury's still out but tend to agree. But both Huxley and Metropolis (Lang?) envision a world where small cadres of the elite live seemingly wonderful lives at the expense of everybody else, which is what the Googler's world - and Silicon Valley in general (where I am originally from, by the way) reminds me of. I am always astonished by the extent of their arrogance and conceit.
It is interesting that the Waldorf School of the Peninsula, where technical devices are off-limits for under-11s, should be such a popular place for tech elites to send their children. I can see how this would help to create a communal mindset among the children who attend there, but what does this say about how their parents see the role of technology vis-a-vis parallel societies and alternative systems? It would seem to suggest at the very least that they see their own relationship to technology as different to that of the hoi polloi.
Let us not forget that the Puritans who came here on the Mayflower in the name of religious freedom proceeded to set up their own theocracy. They wanted freedom, but only for themselves. They were holier than thou. Literally, the "chosen" ones. They expelled or killed those they didn't like.
The technologists are behaving similarly. Wannabe gods, in their own kingdom, their own imagined Heaven, with a gate on it.
In their heaven, everyone is super smart, numbers always go up, rockets always go up, and people merge with machines and so achieve immortality. Elon is the latter day Joseph Smith, with similar sexual practices, to create more of his own type of people.
This is a kingdom of the "Thinkers," aka the "Materialists," who are also "Believers" but don't like to think of themselves that way, don't like to think about themselves critically, at all. Kind of ironic...my "woke mind virus" beat up your "woke mind virus." No more obsolete "Do unto others," that's for weaklings. DOGE is GOD, spelled backwards, plus E(lon).
And freedom for me and my kind, but not for thee, or thine.
Americans find it easier to move on than to learn. Just have a look at our colonial history. Here we go again with the "Tyrant" problem. Paul Revere has to warn the people, again. An interesting topic for Easter, and the day after the beginning of the rebellion against the British. Some problems never go away.
At least the Merry Prankster bus had a sense of humor...
Nick-It is a wonder how you continue to stare the beast in the face without averting your eyes. There was another fellow on the Merry Pranksters' bus. Stewart Brand. To my mind one of the most important characters in the early stages of California hypnotech culture. His book, Whole Earth Discipline, turned him into a heretic to the environmental romantics. Wonder what he's thinking now. Srinivasan had the audacity to invoke that brilliant Berkeley economist A. O. Hirschmann's treatise, Exit, Voice and Loyalty. I hope Hirschmann was buried in a cylindrical coffin so he wouldn't thump as he spun in his grave. A last bit. As an antidote to all this toxicity, Steinbeck's The Wayward Bus, set in California in the thirties, is simply marvelous. HB
I watched the recently restored Metropolis last night - I've read about this 1928 German silent film for years but had never seen it. While the plot itself is pretty standard (boy meets girl, girl captured by evil guy destroying everything, boy rescues girl and kills evil guy) -- the conceptualization of the future in which all this takes place was extraordinary. It belongs to the small collection of original dystopic visions from the early twentieth century: "We", "The Time Machine", "Brave New World" and, of course, "1984". Each of these has a somewhat different conception of Hell on earth. I read an essay recently that argued that Huxley's vision is much closer to where we're headed than Orwell. I think the jury's still out but tend to agree. But both Huxley and Metropolis (Lang?) envision a world where small cadres of the elite live seemingly wonderful lives at the expense of everybody else, which is what the Googler's world - and Silicon Valley in general (where I am originally from, by the way) reminds me of. I am always astonished by the extent of their arrogance and conceit.