> Humans being manipulated is not, in and of itself, a hint that things are going wrong.
If a car can be stolen, should it be stolen ?
If a dog can be beaten, should it be beaten ?
I don’t think because something is fragile that it should be broken, on the contrary. We should recognize the delicacy of our species and design around it. That’d be a sign of evolved behaviour , I’d reckon.
> the #1 enemy of most people is their own mind
Again, define the « mind ». Is it really the mental space people live in that is the problem or the culture, teachings, bullyings and programmings that have been thrown at them since birth that are maladaptive ? I’d argue that the mind is fine, given what it can do and that it is just a tool. It is what we do with it that matters and since birth, we’ve been hijacked to fit in society.
> The result is most applications were severely dumbed down to work on a smartphone.
Good point, and it could be argued the user soon followed that dumbification, with youngest generations not even understanding the file/folder analogy.
I think we can go dumber ! Why need an analogy at all ? It will all be there, up in your face and you can just talk to it !
The content and services provided by AI still needs those humans behind. Maybe when it’s all AI agents talking to themselves, this would make sense, but before that, someone has to write, edit and choose that content.
I feel the call of the Muse, and always try to negotiate because, well, I need money to live.
To me, creativity feels like a laser I can point in any chosen direction.
Want to make a SAAS ? Sure ! Here are a dozen ideas !
Want to write a Sci-fi short story ? There you go, have your pick between those !
Want to make a video game ? Oh boy, have I got the concepts for you !
Then, it's the execution part. The one I never really got right...How could I focus on just one thing ? One thing to make, when the excitement is long gone ?Until I noticed that if I choose a good project, good in the sense that it feeds my soul, helps my fellow human beings and sadly, not necessarily that it will make me money...It's easier to stick to it.
In the end, the Muse wins. So I just stick with them, and who knows ! Maybe I can buy a beer or two with their fruits :)
I think the key for me, a lifelong messy person, was to find out what I like or don't.
Like :
-Taking notes on the fly for capturing fleeting ideas.
-When working on a project, embracing the mess by having as many documents/spreadsheets as possible.
-When a project is over, putting everything in a folder and letting it there.
Don't like :
-Using fancy tools like Notion, Obsidian and the likes.
-Getting stuck on rigid systems, and even worse : tied to a subscription.
-Being forced to use a specific device.
My solution ?
Upnote.
Proton Drive.
A messy desktop.
Am I the most "optimized" I could be ? No. But I can quickly find out everything I need fast, and when I'm working on a project, I know what to do.
Yes, it must be the tea and the coffee, not the lack of fat, corn and other sugars, the daily physical activity, the community or even the geographic settings.
>our DNA has been shaped by nature, not stories.
Interesting point, I believe the opposite. Or, let's say, that stories have much more impact that DNA on our behaviour/thinking models.
Religion, money, appartenance to a tribe outside of immediate family, all of that are stories that we adhere to.
Hell, look at kamikazes : a group of people willingly destroying themselves (and therefore, their DNA) for the perceived well-being of a larger imaginary group, "their countrymen".
No, I believe animals can and do predict their environment, but we differ because we can adhere to a layer of information that is on top of what we can observe : call it collective subconscious or myths, but this is information that helps us do more.
Well…if you present stories, for sure we gonna make chapters out of it. Or beats, even.
I wonder what the results would have been if people were showed documentary footage with no narration ? But my suspicion is that just like we sometimes see human faces in places they clearly don’t belong, structuring information in a story format (beginning, middle, end with rises and falls in between) is an intrinsic part of how we process.
Maybe it’s not so much that we like stories, but that we see stories everywhere and the more information takes this digest form, the more we feel at ease ?
> Vaccines are now being used in some places - but monitoring the disease and avoiding mosquito bites are the most effective ways to prevent malaria.
You’d think vaccines are the end-all be-all and the only reason we ever eradicated any disease, but I’m curious now : what makes certain diseases eradicated with vaccines (like polio, supposedly) and others just…go away (like malaria or even scarlet fever for example?)
It seems that for most of History, we personified luck and lived along that knowledge that something someone wanted some things out of that collective human experience, and thus was guiding events and people to a goal.
I'm wondering what we lost by trying to explain that. For sure, religions and mythologies are still here and kicking, but I'm curious if "Science" will ever get to a point where stuff like this becomes as trivial as "Well, it's God's Plan, I'm just the character in their cosmic drama".
WHat happens when the character want to change the story themselves ?
That’s the promise that initially brought me to the article, and I like the reason of the article. I’m just not sure I got more info from the title than the content of the article itself. But that is maybe just me, another fellow psychologist.
Harry Potter 4 was the first book I binged when I was a kid.
Lord of the Flies was the first book that made me feel weird emotions, and I liked it.
Snow crash is the book that made me think "Fuck, how can one write a book like that ?" and therefore started what I hope to be a lifelong hobby.
I still think of Flatland from times to times, as I'm jealous and amazed of the brain of its author.
Surprised as how such basic stuff gets "discovered" now and then. For all the toot of science, how come it took us that long to realise such a basic (in appearance at least I'm sure) fact ?
> Humans being manipulated is not, in and of itself, a hint that things are going wrong. If a car can be stolen, should it be stolen ? If a dog can be beaten, should it be beaten ? I don’t think because something is fragile that it should be broken, on the contrary. We should recognize the delicacy of our species and design around it. That’d be a sign of evolved behaviour , I’d reckon.
> the #1 enemy of most people is their own mind Again, define the « mind ». Is it really the mental space people live in that is the problem or the culture, teachings, bullyings and programmings that have been thrown at them since birth that are maladaptive ? I’d argue that the mind is fine, given what it can do and that it is just a tool. It is what we do with it that matters and since birth, we’ve been hijacked to fit in society.