The miseducation of society

This post is observational and circumstantial and based purely upon my own experiences and thoughts.

I think it is safe to say that even though we are more connected than ever before, division in this world is reaching an all time high. People are becoming more polarized and much less emotionally balanced than they have been previously. Skill levels are dropping while consumption of entertainment and avoidance activities are increasing. I don't see this as a natural progression, I see it as an engineering of society to create gaps between groups for various reasons.

We as a global society have access to the best and most complete set of information at any time in the known history of our species yet, we are struggling with problems that divide us. These are further pushed forward by groups who on the surface have the look of being well-intentioned but, fail almost entirely except in their ramping up of conflict and division.

Dividing the globe

Some work under the guise of equality while practicing some of the worst forms of prejudice imaginable. To raise the standards of their preferred groups, they crush the positions of what they class as enemies and anyone that gets in their way, gets shouted down, vilified in social media, ridiculed. Their method to gain freedom is to enslave others or, steamroll them.

There are many such groups, they appear on the left and the right and, they are spreading ever outward to the extremes. This process continually fractures and fragments groups into smaller and smaller niches with each believing that they have the right to ramp up their own activities to promote their narrow-views.

Violence rules, Discourse is dead.

Love yourself as you are

For the last however many decades we have had the idea of 'accept yourself as you are' and this has been pushed in a thousand different ways. The easiest to see is likely the idea of fat where people are continually made to feel okay about getting increasingly larger. There is nothing wrong with accepting yourself but, at what cost?

I see the continual focus on staying the same a way to continue people being controlled, keep them consuming, even if it isn't in their best interest. Everyone makes their own decisions in this life but, we are all nudged by our environment and the environment that contains us is leaning more and more toward weakness, not strength.

Are you not entertained?

This is the same for the entertainment generation, those who have been bred to be consumers of other's creations. This is the attention economy and what gets attended to is the easy to eat, the sugar, the pleasure, the high-calorie, low-quality, easy to chew fast food content that adds no value to the individual other than, killing time.

Wasting time is the order of this society now as to actually o something takes investment, effort, learning and, the ability to delay gratification. The immediate desires and the ways to fill them are so compelling that very few are able to deny themselves and, it is a slippery slope. No one gets fat overnight, it is a slow process of consumption and inattention until the hurdle of change seems insurmountable.

The consumer class

Once on the wrong side of that mountain, it requires a Herculean effort to overcome not only because of the effort to do but, the effort to not do what is so attractively packaged and marketed. The more in the consumer class, the higher the profits, like milk producing cows, cash cows.

People will make claims of all in moderation but very few have the ability to moderate because, it was never introduced as a mechanism or developed to be strong enough to withstand the draw of the products and platforms, TV shows, games and movies who have teams of behavioural psychologists armed with reams of testing and data to manipulate us into buying. We have been taught to think we are smarter than them, stronger than them but, here we are, controlled by them. Who did the teaching?

There are benefits for some

As products of our environment we are largely at the mercy of our surroundings and when we are surrounded by consumables, we are programmed to consume. We are played off against each other and will always look to have more, not be more. I am not talking about promotions and fame when I talk of be, they are things granted, given, provided by others. I am talking about the improvement of the self which requires, attention, support, time, investment. All of the things that are given to things that are provided to us but are meaningless to building the self.

There are enormous amounts of value to be made in creating consumers and keeping them there but, it is only available to a very narrow subset of the population because, to benefit from the masses, one can't be part of the mass. It isn't thinking outside of the box, it is living outside of the controlled.

But why not build an environment for freedom?

There is not a great deal of money to be made in freedom because once people are truly free, they will no longer purchase the useless, the valueless, the cheap to produce, high-margin products that will be bought, consumed, thrown away and replaced by the next version. Free people don't need much and, they don't need to replace as often. Turnover is a state of consumption.

The dumbing down of society

We, despite our access, are getting stupider as more and more people supplement their abilities with competitive cognitive artefacts that will eventually replace their skills altogther and, inhibit them, retard them from learning more. Skill levels are falling while consumption keeps climbing. We are put in a race to collect useless and the cost of what matters.

People don't seem to be paying attention to where this leads as the workless wealth world of selling attention real estate, pushes people at an increasing rate to be more and more unemployable.

How many can apply for the job?

And this is where it will lead as automation, AI, driverless cars, drone deliveries and all types of robotic services keep pushing into industries populated by people who are becoming less skilled and who have no hope of changing industry. Ther are about 8.7 million people employed in the trucking industry in the US alone. What will they do once automated driving takes over in the coming years, how many can re-skill? How many base level coders will beat the AIs, how many service positions will be replaced by a robot?

It is because of this that I see as a large factor in the miseducation of our world because rather than solve the problem of improving quality of life, they can lower it across the board and make certain that very few people qualify for the very few jobs that will still exist.

But in the meantime

Universal Basic Income will likely be the stop-gap measure taken to provide a basic existence for many people so that they can keep living and consuming. They can pay their rent, buy cheap food, a game for their console every now and again. They will be able to survive but, they aren't likely to have access to the all elusive meaning of life. Cattle.

Those who are employable however will be able to benefit from the cattle-class of society, they will be able to rent them properties or, sell them a skill that they require but are no longer able to perform themselves. Many of this subset will live lives of relative plenty because they will be able to provide service and product that is not possible to be automated. At least for a time.

As I see it

There are gaps forming, massive, massive gaps. They are going to cover skillsets, education, economic opportunity, health, mental stability, emotional control and many other factors that require investment to possess. There are going to be the haves and the have nots with a small group with the potential to move and act.

It has been happening for decades and the mountains are growing with fewer and fewer people standing in positions that will raise them up. Most do not seem to see the mountains as they grow as they are too busy looking at their phone, playing a game, watching TV and it won't be until they are in the darkness of the looming shadows that they will look up and find themselves, in a deep hole with no rope.

Trapped

But, they will be provided for, they will be thrown the scraps of life as they return what they are given in buckets back up to the top of the mountain. They will have enough to be entertained but not enough to climb out. There are people living this subsistence lifestyle now and the group size is going to grow quickly.

It doesn't have to be this way

No, it doesn't have to be this way at all but, it will likely get much like this in the coming decades although, the ones who are in the controlling group are unlikely to see it as they are continually protected from its view. Those who are in the consumer class will be continually protected through availability of information and the subsequent ignorance from not getting enough. Curated content, censorship and algorithms to feed pleasure will lead the way to produce more Unaware.

Automation and AI could be the force that frees up human potential from the mundane existence and scarcity so many suffer from but, to do so it can't be left in the hands of the current authority because, they are creatures of habit. And, their habit is to maximize their wealth no matter the cost to those who are not them. Every war ever held is from the position of maximizing the position of one side with the other side defending against a maximizing force.

Right now, the war is for our attention, our data, our privacy our voice and, they are doing a brilliant job of driving their attack through our defenses without necessarily even firing a shot. All they need to do is, make us complacent, uncaring, preoccupied and entertained.

And then, when the light does shine our way we will say;

"There is nothing I can do about it."

Taraz
[ an original ]