You’ve seemed to ignore other posts I wrote about natural vs human processes so I’ll invite you to read some of those if you want. — schopenhauer1

I couldn't find them.

WHAT??

As opposed to the chemical and biological processes of the human body you mentioned that we don't understand, yes. — schopenhauer1

WHAT??

I couldn't find them. — Hanover

It's kind of in there briefly but basically whereas natural processes are not in our control, human-made processes are the outcome of other people's decisions. Where natural processes could not have been different in this universe, human decisions can. Right now it is the case that some get to create technology and others simply support or use it.

It's kind of in there briefly but basically whereas natural processes are not in our control, human-made processes are the outcome of other people's decisions. Where natural processes could not have been different in this universe, human decisions can. Right now it is the case that some get to create technology and others simply support or use it. — schopenhauer1

There's obviously a difference between a human created control on my behavior and a non-human one, but why does this difference matter in terms of the pessimism it should bring me?

Why am I sadder that I must rely upon a gun that I can't create in order to kill my food as opposed to the sadness I feel because I lack the physical ability to kill my food due to my physical limitations?

Because it becomes a hierarchy where you become a secondary character in your own life. You just support those who matter to the creation of the tools.

Clearly a human understood and can create those things. But that was not you. You’re just a supporting cast. You’re ignorant and far removed of the very tools you use.

What if we are tools? We seem bewitched by telos, even killing ourselves when we can't find one. We're sentient tools/machines!!! :cool:

Because it becomes a hierarchy where you become a secondary character in your own life. You just support those who matter to the creation of the tools. — schopenhauer1

So Hank Aaron was a bit player in the story of the guy who made his bat?

I think you need something more there.

Different. You are a bit player to the guy(s) who figured out principles of harnessing and distributing electricity.

You can say that baseball isn't baseball without the people who invented the official "bat". It's not even the bat producer.

The consumers allow the producers to keep producing, but I am saying that is secondary to the people who invented the stuff and/or can reproduce the stuff and improve it.

This is about control right?

In a way.. Think of it this way..

The internet is a behemoth of complex technology.. It started with Arpanet, and the technology behind that.. TCP/IP... But also relates to purified silicon (doped with boron, phosphorus, and other elements), the ability to conduct electricity directionally, voltage, current, copper alloy ionic structures.. magnetism, chemical reactions, logic gates, and the rest.. It's immense. You are but a spec in this technology (made by human efforts) but yet you have almost no real agency in its production.. Then multiply all the technology involved in that complex process exponentially through the years with hundreds of thousands more things that are involved in modern electrical and electronic technologies. There are protocols and standards, etc. etc.. It's all set out from by some other nebulous groups of peoples in corporations and agencies involved in their development.

So it's not just that we are a spec in the universe. We are a spec in our own forms of sustenance to keep our daily lives.

You are but a spec in this technology — schopenhauer1

No, no I'm not. Neither are you, though evidently you think you are. I am a human being, not a network device, and I'm not part of the internet, but a user of the internet.

There are two possibilities here, I believe, and you needn't tell me which one applies if you don't want to:
(1) You think you are part of the internet.
(2) You feel you are part of the internet.
We may be able to talk about (1). I am not qualified to address (2).

You are but a spec in this technology — schopenhauer1

A cog in the great machine we call the universe! Work, work, work, die! We're replaceable parts; momma nature doesn't care about us because she can always create another human being just like/better than us. Si?

You are a part I meant as a consumer of the technology. Not sure how you took that literally.

I meant more we are a passive consumer of technology rather than its creator. You can support it, buy it, service it. But you probably didn’t design or invent it. Nor can you really understand all the technology that went into it. Hence my example of the internet and all its innumerable parts.

You are a part I meant as a consumer of the technology. Not sure how you took that literally. — schopenhauer1

Because if you thought of yourself as, or felt yourself to be, a depersonalized part of a great machine, then your position would make sense. It's still not clear why I should feel bad that I am consumer of the internet, anymore than Hank Aaron should have felt bad before playing a game he didn't invent using a bat he didn't make.

The idea seems to be that anything that I don't have complete control over has complete control over me. I should feel bad because I am not a god.

The idea seems to be that anything that I don't have complete control over has complete control over me. I should feel bad because I am not a god. — Srap Tasmaner

Right, and then he draws a meaningless distinction between technological control and natural control, where I am supposed to feel powerless because I rely upon the internet but not upon my lungs.

Where others feel awe at the complexity of the universe and inspiration at human ingenuity, he feels powerlessness.

Sounds like a psychological predisposition more than a philosophical problem.

:up:

So what ... :roll:

Well, it is about control to some extent. There are those who understand and create the technology, and those that can only use it. There are those who set the protocols and standards of the technology, and those who haplessly must review the literature already set in place by the first group and to some degree work backwards to figure out what they (the big dogs) did if they need to fix it.

https://blog.robertelder.org/how-to-make-a-cpu/

@apokrisis@Tzeentch@_db

Any further thoughts?

Sorry, this just looks like gibberish to me. That's not how technology evolves, not how engineering works, this whole image you have of some cabal of the powerful imposing shit on the helpless plebs, that's just what you say about everything and has almost nothing to do with the evolution of the Internet, for example.

I'm not saying it's "imposing shit on the helpless plebs". That's just what it becomes. It's not necessarily designed that way, that is simply the nature of the hierarchy of technology of those who create it and use it.

As I said earlier:

One side--- Estrangement of the minutia of the tools themselves
Other side--- Estrangement from the minutia of the tools themselves. — schopenhauer1

A cog in the great machine we call the universe! Work, work, work, die! We're replaceable parts; momma nature doesn't care about us because she can always create another human being just like/better than us. Si? — Agent Smith

@Srap Tasmaner

I'd like to go back to this because I think I got lost in my own message. Yes, there is some aspect of what I call "minutia-mongering" going on. That is to say, as technology increases exponentially, the amount of minutia the human needs to know to produce the technology increases, thus making us very much a cog-like entity of minutia-miners. We mine minutia (and we have to "mind" minutia).

This actually ties in to an earlier thread here about what the monolith was in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. What it can mean is that the tools have made humans estranged from their workings (HAL goes off the deep end and barely a programmer knows how/why) AND we have become changed to mintia-mongering bores.. (look at the soulless Discovery ship, with Dave and Frank just sitting idly, checking stats, running in place, staring, not saying much.. HAL has more personality than they do!). Minutia is all they are minding because they are mining minutia!

I meant more we are a passive consumer of technology rather than its creator. You can support it, buy it, service it. But you probably didn’t design or invent it. Nor can you really understand all the technology that went into it. Hence my example of the internet and all its innumerable parts. — schopenhauer1

I get what you mean! We're, in a sense, being led by our noses!

:up:

You can resign a game and move on (intra-wordly affairs). You cannot resign from life and move on (inter-wordly affairs). — schopenhauer1

I just wanted to add that I think this title would look great on the NYT best seller list: Series in Pessimism, by Schopenhaur1.

But you can exit life. Just don't let the hospital get a hold of your half dead body, they'll resuscitate it.

Resigning and moving on is not really resigning though is it as you’ve merely transformed or exchanged your game for another (easier/harder)

Euthanasia says otherwise regarding your second point.

You cannot resign from life and move on (inter-wordly affairs). — schopenhauer1

Oh, but you can. So says Epictetus:

“Remember that the door is open. Don’t be more cowardly than children, but just as they say, when the game is no longer fun for them, ‘I won’t play any more,’ you too, when things seem that way to you, say, ‘I won’t play any more,’ and leave, but if you remain, don’t complain.” (Discourses I.24.20)

In the immortal words of the Boss :

Got a wife and kids in Baltimore, jack
I went out for a ride and I never went back

intra-wordly affairs — schopenhauer1

was that supposed to be '-wordly' or '-worldly'?

Words, words, words! Yes, from 'wordly' affairs we may, might, should, would resign. How many times have I told a tedious pontificator on National Public Radio or the BBC to SHUT UP! and turned the radio off?

As for the world and its affairs, I am not quite done.

The only real important distinction to be made between people is by economic class - haves and have-nots; most everything else is derived from this, I think. Of course, those who have the capital will invest in technology that supports their continued ownership of capital - and sometimes they will even oppose technological progress that threatens this ownership. According to Ellul, this is one of the reasons why capitalism will disappear; the goal of capitalism is not the same as the goal of technical efficiency - it's not efficient enough.

Really though, nobody understands the entirety of a complex modern machine (including social machines like governments). They may understand how to use it, or understand a single component by itself (which is useless by itself), or the may have a vague high-level understanding of how all the components work together, but no single person can possibly understand a machine in its entirety, let alone all of the machines that are now used in our lives; nor can the average person have any real say on anything either.

Gone are the days where tool-making went alongside tool-using, with every step of the process being understood by everyone. Now we have experts, specialization, technological giantism, etc.