How far can neuromarketing/neuroeconomics push human beings into slavery in the face of post-scarcity automation?
Will humans continue to be able to compete with AI in terms of the production of psychoacoustic mass-hypnosis mind influence tools? Can politics be reduced to transaction of weird juices in the cerebral goop?
Will art be supplanted by systems of algorithms twitching like a mass of brain cells in a quivering pool of briglhty strobing sperm? Well, it could go like that, no? Can we not just design some sort of appropriate apian chemical cycle and genetically modify the slaves, soldiers, kings into perfect versions of themselves? Well, to what end? Where does pac-man fit into all this?
Is the solar system the prison for our collective information networks? Is the mind equivalent to spirit? Can we put AI superintelligences into funny little insect bodies that light up with their emotions and have cute little moustaches and top hats? Wacky accents? What will it take!?
How charmed can a man be by a machine? How do we make a human being that works tirelessly, feels no sadness, and does it all for virtual goods generated by an AI so that he pursues knowledge to great extremes to advance the human/machine slime mold into anything other than a cumming/farting/self devouring ouroboros spinning around in some very fucking awesome self destruction cycle as the sun dies. Insert hot pockets non-sequitur.
So what about high end fascination with music, sound, light- cell phones become soap opera talk show pinball slot machines with virtual dope dealers cranking out some hideous world blood and bones broken rich people advancement plan, but the facts stand- don't they? A man with a million dollars can't eat a million more hamburgers than me all at once, there are inevitable rules to the game. Satisfaction is fleeting, but can we not change that? Is there much point to ever-blessed bliss? I personally don't find much of a point to pleasure for pleasure's sake.
But bread and circuses, yes, a good time might really get to be interesting in the next ten generations or so, if we don't all desiccate into old photos and antique store dusty brickabrack that doesn't work. Do you even have old photos anymore? Well, nothing much remains, not really. We're digging around in tels, and staring at the stars figuring out the edges of the universe, and I want a sound that tickles your heart strings like swamp thing, and I don't know how much actual good work is getting done.
Well, the future is a mess, I'm ok with that, but how do I improve myself as a person in the face of AI with the means to reverse engineer and control me via many brutal and sexy methods my entire person, only getting better with time and going deeper than wide? I'd find the attention embarrassing, let me be anonymous.
I mean do I read books and withdraw? Do i dive right in and get a hair cut?
Is there something to this disconnection and spending more time with books? Am I like one of those men watching the shadows? Have i been sheltered from certain types of learning because my caste doesn't need that sort of thing? Can i sort of sneak around before it becomes cast in iron and learn some of that sort of stuff and just keep it my little secret? How much trouble can you actually get into by learning distillation?