Synthetic Pleasures: Technology, Control, Passion | Documentary 

When you think about it, it's not even surprising.

Abstracting this just a bit, I miss when people had a sense of hope in general for the future. That life would get better. That democracy was on the upswing. That we were going to be able to solve so many lingering problems. It seems this era was one of last times that was true. Did the internet kill hope? Or did we lose it separately and just decide to manifest that nihilism in the shape of the inane hatred we now spew at each other? My sneaking suspicion is that, for the US at least, the "cultural malaise" that Carter spoke about was absolutely true, the computer revolution glossed that over with trillions of dollars, but it never really left. When that fever dream broke, we realized we were in the exact same spot. A generation got a huge boost in between, but the true spoils of the era ended up in the hands of a few giant corporations. Nothing was solved, democracy and reality itself is being challenged and all those problems seem more and more to just be elements of the human condition. It's like the momentum of the enlightenment flywheel has finally spun down and we're just lashing out because we have no idea where to go from here, if even reason itself has run out of solutions. I mean, I'm not despondent. I can find purpose in my own small world, in trying to be kind to others. But I'm not hopeful. I don't fantasize about the world changing breakthroughs that I was taught to believe in in school during the 90s. That even if I couldn't manage to change the world for the better, surely one of my smarter, more diligent, more ambitious classmates would.

@@barcodenosebleed5485 😢 this is all very much it. So awful to see, knowing where I thought it was going.

I think that potential is still there, this is just perhaps the first step of humans learning to use it. The first thing people want to do when they have a platform is use their voice, get their opinions out there, not surprising. People are still learning how to utilize the powers new technology gives us. But eventually we’ll get tired of just doing the same thing over and over. Some people might still continue to use technology that way, but I think overall we will evolve past that as a species. I’ve always had that hope and still do! It’s part of the process, I believe

Gonna need that

try jean baudrillard