Friday, January 24, 2020

The Rise of the "Useless" Class. How to Survive the 21st Century.


I recently came across an article predicting that critical thinking was/is on its way out. Reality is becoming blurred. The news media has long switched from disseminating information to peddling messaging, opinion, with a chosen slant. We're about to embark on a new world that will feature things such as "augmented" or "blended reality" in which the reality you experience and perceive will be supplemented by additional streams of information to create a partially manufactured perception in which the line between the two can become increasingly difficult to discern.

It was suggested that, as our connection with reality is manipulated we will gradually shift into a world in which we choose to follow feelings rather than knowledge. This may be what we're seeing in play in the United States today, even in the American Congress where some are struggling to defend the Constitution from erosion into irrelevance.

Change is upon us and it is going to intensify with every passing decade.  Which is why I offer you the latest out of Davos from historian and philosopher Yuval Noah Harari in which he discusses survival strategies for the 21st century.

5 comments:

Trailblazer said...

Still have to watch the whole video; that said.

The useless class have been around forever .
Lets talk , Eaton, Harvard et al and all that group buy in to jobs that not only pay well because of your schooling but jobs that offer influence and prestige without accomplishment.

we have always been suckers for manipulation , Trump was correct in praising the uneducated who will at the drop of a hat vote for those that offer free or cheap beer and easy solutions to complicated problems.
The only difference between the old school manipulation and bullshit is that the modern version is much more subtle and mind numbing.
I almost hit a friggin stupid prick that walked in front of my vehicle the other day whilst he concentrated on his phone! his mind was everywhere than where it should have been .
The Mound speaks of the anthropocene as the age we live in .
More honestly we live in a world of suspended animation quite unaware and unwilling to face up to current events.

TB

Purple library guy said...

"It was suggested that, as our connection with reality is manipulated we will gradually shift into a world in which we choose to follow feelings rather than knowledge."
You say that like it's a brand new thing. Ever watch an advertisement? Ever notice any information in one? We've been living like this forever. These issues got hammered but good in "The Space Merchants" by Frederik Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth, back in 1952 (still reads totally relevant today).

Trailblazer said...

Well worth a listen.


https://www.cbc.ca/ageofpersuasion/episode/

TB

The Disaffected Lib said...

TB, I never said the Anthropocene was going to last, at least not the human aspect of it.

The Disaffected Lib said...

PLG - those who follow this blog will be aware that I've railed on against messaging versus information all along. I got a crash course in it when I ascended from radio to TV news in the 1970s. All I knew when they hired me was that it was supposed to be a great promotion, a step into the big time. Within a month I was utterly demoralized. I went to law school.

No, of course it's not new. What is new is the latest developments in technology - smart phones, GPS, augmented and blended reality. We are in a much different place than we were ten years ago even if it doesn't look much different.

You should really catch up.

Not surprisingly this augmented/blended reality stuff was pioneered for its military applications. Now they've realized how effective it can be when used on us. We haven't been living like this forever. We're on to a brand new chapter now.