DISQUS

Matt Searles · 1 year ago

I like Joseph Campbell's idea of the Earth.. or social media seems to call to mind Indra's Net in a whole new way.

Out side of that apocalypse does seem more like a real possibility then we generally seem to think is really real.. and that makes me a little nervous as I think.. what is needed now is a whole lot of waking up.

I mean.. we got questions about the future of the oil supply.. there's the possibility that global warming could effect global food supplies, we have our current economic problems.. This along with geopolitical tensions.. often just beneath the surface.. there's just a lot challenges before us, that could, depending on how they are dealt with..

When you mix this kind of thing with the massive rate of change.. It seems to me that whenever you have high rates of change that we start getting utopic and distopic dreams.. Electricity brought us the frankenstein monster and... on and on.

I'm reminded of the art proceeding the second world war.. When you look at it you get the feeling that.. some kind of explosion was coming.. I'm not sure how to explain it exactly.. like sitting in the volcano.. as if God was coming or something..

I think one of the coolest things about technology.. and the accelerating rate of change.. is that there is an increased sense of mystery.. there is a certain sense of awe... I think sometimes we think this is just cool aid... and its not that there isn't a lot of cool aid.. but #1 that doesn't mean that things aren't huge.. and #2 this brings us to the question of cool aid psychology.

When you think electric cool aid tests.. you think dyonesius.. Nietzsche's lion eating thou shalts.. which is like a little death to intercession.. clearing the way for new dreams to manifest.

It's odd though.. in social media you often hear of best practices which always make me feel like a method for relieving us of having to have an experience of awe, mystery, and wonder.. and I wonder if perhaps.. our value systems have caused us to cultivate a part of our potential that isn't well suited for the disruption.. and that this might be a core problem.. the generation gap syndrome amplified to the nth degree by our new rate of change.. and here comes the creative destruction... across so many industries.

I see the resolution of this problem in the Hindu / Buddhist concept of Viveka.. discriminating between eternal and temporal values / truth. Much of what we perhaps thought was the rock.. that we built the foundations of our civilization on.. we are now learning only appeared static..

In economics we once thought supply and demand was a law.. but now in digital media the supply is infinite.. you can copy that file all day long if you like.. and what does that do to it's value?

So I think what needs to happen is a distinction between the temporal and eternal... in how we manage change.. because once you start playing with that sword.. you realize that the change isn't really all that fast at all.

So.. I guess that's kinda what I think on this subject..