How do we recapture the "grassy fields" of our past? Or should we be making something entirely new? Bottom line: how do we deal with the rapidly changing world?
I'm a little surprised you didn't mention Alvin Toffler's book "Future Shock." I remember when it came out, it attracted an almost religious following. I was a bit put off by it, because it seemed to be a theory of everything. A lot of the phenomena that Toffler cited and projected have certainly come true, but I doubt it can all be explained by future shock. Another book on rapid change that shows it is not just a recent phenomenon is Phillipp Blom's "The Vertigo Years." Perhaps you could read it so I won't have to.
I'm a bit late to the conversation, but this line really struck me:
"What sort of headset would actually bring out our noblest impulses rather than our deepest cravings?"
My immediate thought was "That's what meditation is!" I started meditation around 45 minutes a day about a year and a half ago, and it often feels like a training ground for life. I'll feel peace and contentment, but I can see greater peace, contentment, and pleasure dangling just out of reach. As I reach for it, I'll get an intuitive sense for what it is that keeps me from obtaining it, I need more patience, acceptance, love, or something similar. Then, as I practice what I lack, I get direct feedback during the meditation, and as I get better at it, I see ways of applying it to my daily life. It's a fascinating process.
Well, maybe they'll come up with a VR headset for cows that while showing them pasture also teaches them liberal arts and sciences and increases their IQ to the point where the cows will solve all of our (physical and metaphysical) problems for us.
I think I'm picking up what you're putting down. And I believe I cover that possibility (though perhaps not to your satisfaction) It nevertheless does not seem to be the way things are going, and perhaps someone out there will crack the code and turn cows into brave, bold and brainy bovines, rather than terrified and traumatized tiktok trafficking tauri. We should definitely hope for such an outcome, but I persist in thinking that the probability is low.
I would suggest that the best "definition" of when the headsetting really begins with technology comes from Heidegger's Essay Concerning Technology, which draws the distinction between the windmill that harnesses windpower passively and then a coal mine that sets upon nature to yield what it needs. Jacques Ellul and Langdon Winner are also worth looking at for this stuff.
I'm a little surprised you didn't mention Alvin Toffler's book "Future Shock." I remember when it came out, it attracted an almost religious following. I was a bit put off by it, because it seemed to be a theory of everything. A lot of the phenomena that Toffler cited and projected have certainly come true, but I doubt it can all be explained by future shock. Another book on rapid change that shows it is not just a recent phenomenon is Phillipp Blom's "The Vertigo Years." Perhaps you could read it so I won't have to.
Your wish is my command. I have purchased it on Audible.
I'm a bit late to the conversation, but this line really struck me:
"What sort of headset would actually bring out our noblest impulses rather than our deepest cravings?"
My immediate thought was "That's what meditation is!" I started meditation around 45 minutes a day about a year and a half ago, and it often feels like a training ground for life. I'll feel peace and contentment, but I can see greater peace, contentment, and pleasure dangling just out of reach. As I reach for it, I'll get an intuitive sense for what it is that keeps me from obtaining it, I need more patience, acceptance, love, or something similar. Then, as I practice what I lack, I get direct feedback during the meditation, and as I get better at it, I see ways of applying it to my daily life. It's a fascinating process.
Well, maybe they'll come up with a VR headset for cows that while showing them pasture also teaches them liberal arts and sciences and increases their IQ to the point where the cows will solve all of our (physical and metaphysical) problems for us.
I think I'm picking up what you're putting down. And I believe I cover that possibility (though perhaps not to your satisfaction) It nevertheless does not seem to be the way things are going, and perhaps someone out there will crack the code and turn cows into brave, bold and brainy bovines, rather than terrified and traumatized tiktok trafficking tauri. We should definitely hope for such an outcome, but I persist in thinking that the probability is low.
Some really very interesting thoughts about the wider metaphorical - and no so metaphorical implications of the cow headsets!
I would suggest that the best "definition" of when the headsetting really begins with technology comes from Heidegger's Essay Concerning Technology, which draws the distinction between the windmill that harnesses windpower passively and then a coal mine that sets upon nature to yield what it needs. Jacques Ellul and Langdon Winner are also worth looking at for this stuff.
I'll check those out! Thanks!