This quote from Philip K Dick seems relevant:

Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.

It’s a nice quote. But what about the notion that we’re always believing in something, and sometimes those beliefs tune closer to something objective but if we keep tuning past that into something else, then that reality becomes hard to conceive of and really does seem like it’s gone away.

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throwawayffffas 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

No matter how much you don't believe there is a tiger behind the bush. The tiger really believes you are going to be tasty.

	▲	pixl97 an hour ago \| parent [-]
		So you build a machine that kills all tigers and now you don't have to worry about belief. The problem with objective reality is 1. it changes. 2. it can be different for different people in different places. If I live in rural India, there is probably not a tiger behind the bush. If I live in downtown Chicago there is almost certainly not a tiger behind the bush. This leads to the hard problem of probabilistic thinking which requires a lot more energy than black and white thinking. Lastly, humans are real, and even incorrect belief systems create a reality you have to live in. God, for example, is almost certainly not real. Saying that in a forum will have some percentage of people downvote you and try to reply with a relatively poor argument. Saying it in the wrong place and time outside of the internet can most certainly get you killed. So just because something isn't real doesn't mean you should open your mouth at an inopportune time and learn the reality it created.

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ozim 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

When you break a leg you can’t start believing it is all good. It doesn’t go away.

As much as you would have aspirations to be a pro soccer player, badly enough broken leg can prevent you from ever being good enough.

Your imagination of being pro player does go away when in reality you’re not fit for the purpose.

	▲	jstanley 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		You can't become a pro footballer just by wishing your leg wasn't broken, but you can pay close attention to the difference between pain and suffering, and acknowledge the pain without accepting any unnecessary suffering. Pain is part of reality. Suffering comes from wishing reality was different to how it is.

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lstodd 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

There isn't an exact quote from Douglas Adams, you have to read it all, but he put the point marvelously: reality is scary, unlimited and lovecraftesque, and we have filters to avoid that. Only when you master those filters you can consider yourself conscious.

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AdityaAnand1 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Love it.

And something I wish the current crop of AI startups learn as well, just making XYZ agentic maybe isn't the answer to everything.

Same folks that said crypto will destroy traditional finance are now saying stuff like, AI will "destroy" all jobs and create a permanent underclass. Almost feels like every few years a new cult gets created with messaging perfectly designed to trigger the Gen-Z(/current college generation) into a frenzy and drinking the kool-aid.

Can't wait for it to be over (and then to do it all over again with something else). Being in my 30s helps. I care less :)

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fragmede 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Yeah. In the 90's it was outsourcing is going to move all software jobs to India. Turns out that did happen, but also not. Still, manufacturing jobs have actually left the USA.

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AdityaAnand1 4 hours ago | parent [-]

I think there is something parasitic in both legacy media and actually even worse in new media - where it finds the most toxic, negative idea that can latch on to the minds of the masses and runs away with it.

Maybe "things going bad suddenly in the near future" is just such a captivating idea to the human mind that those narratives will always find a way to dominate vs "everything will continue to slowly get better".

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inigyou 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Maybe things are going bad suddenly in the near future. For instance, the projected weather cycle later this year is four times as powerful as a Super El Niño. The US is one week away from running out of gasoline (was 4 weeks away, 3 weeks ago). Are these not things that should be reported?

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SpicyLemonZest 3 hours ago | parent [-]

I don’t think it’s about what should or shouldn’t be reported. It’s about your relationship to those things. If you wake up on July 21 and there are no headlines saying “The US has run out of gasoline, no driving!”, will you breathe a sigh of relief and be happy things weren’t that bad after all? Or will you browse the headlines for other scary things that might happen in the near future?

	▲	pixl97 an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		>It’s about your relationship to those things. The year 2000 problem is a good example of this. The year 2000 problem was not a problem. Not because it wasn't a problem, but because a shitload of people did a lot of work to make sure it wasn't a problem. If we didn't have news saying 'oh no, this is a problem' before Jan 1 2000, would it have been taken so seriously? In February 2021 Texas was so incredibly close to losing the grid that it should strike terror into the hearts of anyone that lives there (see Practical Engineering episode on black starts). Simply put this would have been a massive humanitarian disaster in the 3rd largest state in the US of a size the US has not seen in the modern era. Thousands would have died from the extreme cold that was occuring. Thousands more from a lack of medicine. Fuel would have been trapped in the ground, and ran out quickly anyway. The loss of refining capabilities on the coast would have crippled the entire US. Because of the stupid design of the Texas grid it would have taken weeks or months to get everything back online. The modern world has become very fragile due to long supply lines of necessary supplies. Covid did a good job of showing some of these weaknesses. I don't think the "did bad thing happen or not" is the way we should be looking at this. It's "How can we reduced the impact of bad things happening". And we're doing a terrible fucking job at it by consolidating companies and industries even further. Maybe we should actually be worried about a billion+ death event in the near future because of our stupid decisions at a global scale. Maybe we should turn that fear into doing something into preventing it.
	▲	rmah an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		This is, IMO, quite the insightful thought experiment. I suspect, however, that it is very difficult for most people to face.