"I no longer need love and belonging, because that implies I need relationships to assist me in my life goals." There is no soul growth (individuation) in isolation. The unrelated human being lacks wholeness.
And therein lies the canundrum. Everyone wants everything for free, but if you follow the logic to its conclusion, there is no longer anything called "human". It is the nature of life to struggle, create and achieve. Without that, life as we know it cannot exist.
When I lived alone and wasn't working in my forties, I tried to sleep as long as I could. This was in Edmonds, WA, where it rains almost all the time. I'd sleep for twenty hours, then ride my bicycle in the rain, sometimes at 2 AM, to Green Lake and back. I'd come back on Aurora Avenue. Once, at 3 AM, I was headed north on Aurora going home. A young prostitute was standing there in the rain by the cemetery. She didn't have an umbrella and was soaked. Jeez! If I'd been in my Jeep, I would have picked her up and taken her home to get a hot shower and warm up.
When I'd get home from the bike ride, I'd shower, then drink Michelob Light until I was tired enough to sleep again. I drank a lot of beer.
I'm with you, brother! The problem is that there are a lot of folks who want everything for free. They don't have the first clue why that's a dead end existence. It's doomed to fail, as we've seen over and over again. I was raised to understand that without work there is no eat. Unfortunate, a large number of folks haven't gotten that message.
we don't need to have to work to eat and maintain a comfortable temperature and level of humidity. It'd be good enough if we all had that assured but that nobody would be satisfied with their lives if they weren't improving themselves in some useful way. I don't think that if you or I had what we need to eat and be comfortable that we'd just lay around watching tv.
I know quite a lot of people who would do nothing but veg on the couch surfing Tik Tok or Instagram if they didn't have to feed themselves or show up to the office. I don't understand the mentality, but it does exist.
Some are getting the message. Able-bodied SNAP recipients in OK are now required to have worked at least eighty hours during the previous month. We'll see how that turns out.
My father, grew up during the depression. Western North Carolina, Smokey Mountains, cabin with a dirt floor. During one of my selfish, immature moments complaining about working. His reply was simple and easily understood..
Stephen if we could eat shit, we would not have to work.”
My folks were Depression era too--Martinez, California and Corpus Christi, Texas. Even though they were well to do by the time I came along, I still had to mow and plow at 8, and have a real job at 12 (grease monkey on weekends, motorcycle tire salesman on weekdays). I wasn't getting a free lunch fer nuttin', by Gumm. Don't think Dad ever used the same expression, but I got more or less the same message.
Farm life is never boring as there were never enough hours in a day or week to complete all your chores. Milking the cows was not so simple as it sounds. Next came the churning and separating. My mother made 22k butter, rich golden and delicious. She sold it for $1.00 a pound. I loved the butter milk with its golden flakes dispersed throughout.. every animal had a purpose and its own requirements.. Mom dreamed of horses and we had quite a few. Quarter to Arabian. Dogs of course but not decorative, working. I need to stop but in essence I was trying to convey that we were lucky to have had those experiences. This farm and its myriad of responsibilities was the choice my parents made. They surely could have chosen a much easier path.
Pops as I called him later in life was a hard nosed no frills kind of man. He was a gentleman ordained by Congress. When I came home from Vietnam, I was working two jobs, bar tender & construction and managed to get fired from both in a week. Actually a blessing in disguise as I moved to Maine. Pops owned a farm with dairy, pigs, cattle and two turkeys, one named thanksgiving and the other Easter. 160 acres of forest, fields of Timothy grass, summer garden and woods for heat plus chestnut tree for furniture making. My old man was fierce, tough in ways that have disappeared in America. Knowledgeable enough to name every plant & tree in the woods. What you could eat and what not to eat. He served 30 years in the navy, E-1 to full Commander. His World War 2 service was condensed, “ From the Slot to Japan.” What I’m trying to say is I got to know him and I’m grateful I did.
I think there's a concerted effort to take all the joy out of life. It began a long time ago when all the known copies of Aristotle's Poetics volume on humor were destroyed. Nowadays, everyone wears their hearts on their sleeves and want to be offended by everything all the time. Simple system of rewarding victimhood to make an entire society of victims. Oh well, I still like ethnic jokes.
Musk is a very brilliant guy but his idea of replacing humans with robots and everyone staying home drinking Mai Tais or whatever is insane. He wouldn't do it and there are large #'s of people just like him, just not as successful, who would, either. Just another version of socialist paradise.
Musk is a great marketer, like P. T. Barnum, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. They don't really understand the technology, but they have strong visions and know how to hire engineers and technicians to make it real. Musk is trying to build a 60s sci-fi fantasy. Even his rockets look like old sci-fi movies and his robots like old sci-fi TeeVee shows. It's all a weird retro world that defies reality and human nature, but looks cool and is fun for about 10-15 minutes.
Well, not quite, but it's not far up the road. Been there twice in the past 20 years, but I'm just not a beach guy. I'm more like John Belushi in "Continental Divide".
FS, your argument goes beyond automation and questions whether labor, stricto sensu, is disappearing as a meaningful economic input. When Musk speaks about billions of humanoid robots, the real implication is not scale, it is the erosion of scarcity in both physical and intellectual work. If labor becomes abundant and near free, then wages, productivity and even employment start to look like atavistic concepts.
In that setting, value shifts elsewhere: most plausibly to energy. If intelligence through AI and output through robotics are functions of compute and compute is a function of energy, then the cheapest energy producer may become the most “intelligent” economy with a decisive edge in innovation and R&D.
While we talk about lunar bases, Mars colonies and orbital data centers, humanity's needs remain basic: fresh water, affordable food, clean air. These are not becoming more accessible but more strained, which raises a final question: who or what is the human adventure for in the end?
Excellent points, and I note that the cheaper the input costs per unit of output, the closer you get to 100% productivity. I have to wonder, though. Since the late 40s, humanity has been on a labor-saving bender, but all it's done is free up more time to work. Don't need a housewife anymore, so she can get out in the labor force and earn a salary. Instead of freeing us up for intellectual and creative efforts, we're only getting more time per human resource to build widgets and shuffle paperwork. In the end, it seems to be an argument between stochastic and deterministic universes, but perhaps that's reductio ad absurdum.
In any case, if you took all the women out of the workforce, men would be able to command livable salaries to support a family. The more readily a resource is available, the lower the cost of obtaining it.
You noticed that too, eh? Yup, something's going on. The fact that T. Thomas Brown vanished after discovering anti-gravity is a big red flag. Actually, the Universe is energy, but they are working overtime to keep us from tapping into it.
Yes, I saw Zardoz many years ago. Going against the community (everything was decided communally) was punished by aging, and no one could die because they were reborn into the vortex, as it was called. Great sci-fi movie.
If you saw it on the big screen, I'm jealous. Never had that experience. I think it's one of Boorman's most interesting and unusual efforts (he wrote and directed). I was hooked from the opening shot of a stone head flying around. If someone hasn't read the Wizard of Oz, they probably don't get that reference. Very strange flick, but fascinating.
I may be one of the few Zardoz fans. It is a quirky film, to be sure, but one that has aged surprisingly well in spite of the goofy dialogue. Besides... Sean Connery in a loincloth. Need I say more?
I should have figured folks around here would be Zardoz fans. Certainly, the beefcake factor can't be discounted. I like the house of mirrors scene and the apathetics home.
Very sorry to hear about the impasse with your new project. I did follow up by introducing a friend of mine who was in the biz a few years ago. Not sure if he replied to my email introduction. With respect to treatments of the concept of immortality, I do not like Zardoz at all. But there was a book that might be good for a mini series, Roger Zelazny's _This Immortal_ which is worth reading if you have not. And call him Conrad....
It's not an impasse so much as it's business as usual. I'm investigating AI tools that can generate a streaming series from a script. Much cheaper and less headache with prima donnas in any case. I'll look for the book. I'm in the middle of a large editing project, so I'm just coming up for air before diving back in. Could be worse. Could be raining.
Great piece!!!! I think Hollywood"s collapse may actually open new opportunities for the arts as long as society holds. Technology has gotten some great tools to use, and I am not including AI in that tech. Our local SCV Camp just created our own historical DVD with desktop tech tools, lots of research, and a couple months "creating". The only weak link is distribution. The Epstein Class runs all the "big" outlets. Opportunity there for someone. BTW, loved your wildlife and handshake piece. Read it to the wife. We both had tears running down our face from laughter. Thanks for all you do!
When I got into the film/video business in the early 80s, you needed millions of dollars and entire buildings full of equipment to make "broadcast quality" productions. Now, I can do everything on my desktop (and more) for what it used to cost me $300/hr to hire. My phone has a better camera than anything professional gear I used at the time. No complaints from me. A little creativity and a few hours work and you can produce pretty much anything Hollywood can, which is why they are shrieking in horror right now.
"I no longer need love and belonging, because that implies I need relationships to assist me in my life goals." There is no soul growth (individuation) in isolation. The unrelated human being lacks wholeness.
And therein lies the canundrum. Everyone wants everything for free, but if you follow the logic to its conclusion, there is no longer anything called "human". It is the nature of life to struggle, create and achieve. Without that, life as we know it cannot exist.
Ah, so that's why people create drama in their lives if they have none.
When I lived alone and wasn't working in my forties, I tried to sleep as long as I could. This was in Edmonds, WA, where it rains almost all the time. I'd sleep for twenty hours, then ride my bicycle in the rain, sometimes at 2 AM, to Green Lake and back. I'd come back on Aurora Avenue. Once, at 3 AM, I was headed north on Aurora going home. A young prostitute was standing there in the rain by the cemetery. She didn't have an umbrella and was soaked. Jeez! If I'd been in my Jeep, I would have picked her up and taken her home to get a hot shower and warm up.
When I'd get home from the bike ride, I'd shower, then drink Michelob Light until I was tired enough to sleep again. I drank a lot of beer.
It was a lonely existence. I kinda went nuts.
I'm glad that you came back to us.
I think there'll always be demand for human labor, touch and creativity. The plastic thing may give a great back rub, but I'd prefer Bo Derek any day.
I'm with you, brother! The problem is that there are a lot of folks who want everything for free. They don't have the first clue why that's a dead end existence. It's doomed to fail, as we've seen over and over again. I was raised to understand that without work there is no eat. Unfortunate, a large number of folks haven't gotten that message.
we don't need to have to work to eat and maintain a comfortable temperature and level of humidity. It'd be good enough if we all had that assured but that nobody would be satisfied with their lives if they weren't improving themselves in some useful way. I don't think that if you or I had what we need to eat and be comfortable that we'd just lay around watching tv.
I know quite a lot of people who would do nothing but veg on the couch surfing Tik Tok or Instagram if they didn't have to feed themselves or show up to the office. I don't understand the mentality, but it does exist.
Some are getting the message. Able-bodied SNAP recipients in OK are now required to have worked at least eighty hours during the previous month. We'll see how that turns out.
Work for food? The gall! Everything should be free and you should pay for it so I can lounge about on the beach. It's only fair that way.
she's 70. maybe you need to update your fantasies.
OK, I'll go with Farah Fawcett and Ali MacGraw. Celluloid heroes never grow old.
My father, grew up during the depression. Western North Carolina, Smokey Mountains, cabin with a dirt floor. During one of my selfish, immature moments complaining about working. His reply was simple and easily understood..
Stephen if we could eat shit, we would not have to work.”
My folks were Depression era too--Martinez, California and Corpus Christi, Texas. Even though they were well to do by the time I came along, I still had to mow and plow at 8, and have a real job at 12 (grease monkey on weekends, motorcycle tire salesman on weekdays). I wasn't getting a free lunch fer nuttin', by Gumm. Don't think Dad ever used the same expression, but I got more or less the same message.
Farm life is never boring as there were never enough hours in a day or week to complete all your chores. Milking the cows was not so simple as it sounds. Next came the churning and separating. My mother made 22k butter, rich golden and delicious. She sold it for $1.00 a pound. I loved the butter milk with its golden flakes dispersed throughout.. every animal had a purpose and its own requirements.. Mom dreamed of horses and we had quite a few. Quarter to Arabian. Dogs of course but not decorative, working. I need to stop but in essence I was trying to convey that we were lucky to have had those experiences. This farm and its myriad of responsibilities was the choice my parents made. They surely could have chosen a much easier path.
LOL!
Pops as I called him later in life was a hard nosed no frills kind of man. He was a gentleman ordained by Congress. When I came home from Vietnam, I was working two jobs, bar tender & construction and managed to get fired from both in a week. Actually a blessing in disguise as I moved to Maine. Pops owned a farm with dairy, pigs, cattle and two turkeys, one named thanksgiving and the other Easter. 160 acres of forest, fields of Timothy grass, summer garden and woods for heat plus chestnut tree for furniture making. My old man was fierce, tough in ways that have disappeared in America. Knowledgeable enough to name every plant & tree in the woods. What you could eat and what not to eat. He served 30 years in the navy, E-1 to full Commander. His World War 2 service was condensed, “ From the Slot to Japan.” What I’m trying to say is I got to know him and I’m grateful I did.
As I was reading your comment, this came to mind:
https://youtu.be/qlIXn0r0AY8
I only had 125 acres and pecan trees, with cows, goats, sheep, chickens, horses, and dogs and cats living together. But I was happier then.
Turning hard times into comedy is good for the soul. Nowadays the humor is lost but we have truth social.
I think there's a concerted effort to take all the joy out of life. It began a long time ago when all the known copies of Aristotle's Poetics volume on humor were destroyed. Nowadays, everyone wears their hearts on their sleeves and want to be offended by everything all the time. Simple system of rewarding victimhood to make an entire society of victims. Oh well, I still like ethnic jokes.
I like ethnic jokes and miss comedians like Don Rickles. Can you imagine him working over victim hood. Oh my aching balls from laughing so hard.
Musk is a very brilliant guy but his idea of replacing humans with robots and everyone staying home drinking Mai Tais or whatever is insane. He wouldn't do it and there are large #'s of people just like him, just not as successful, who would, either. Just another version of socialist paradise.
Great movie recs.
Musk is a great marketer, like P. T. Barnum, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. They don't really understand the technology, but they have strong visions and know how to hire engineers and technicians to make it real. Musk is trying to build a 60s sci-fi fantasy. Even his rockets look like old sci-fi movies and his robots like old sci-fi TeeVee shows. It's all a weird retro world that defies reality and human nature, but looks cool and is fun for about 10-15 minutes.
You didn't recommend Blue Lagoo? For shame, mate. Losing your touch, are ye?
Rufus lives at the Blue Lagoon.
Well, not quite, but it's not far up the road. Been there twice in the past 20 years, but I'm just not a beach guy. I'm more like John Belushi in "Continental Divide".
I was saving that for myself. Didn't want anyone else competing for my fantasy.
FS, your argument goes beyond automation and questions whether labor, stricto sensu, is disappearing as a meaningful economic input. When Musk speaks about billions of humanoid robots, the real implication is not scale, it is the erosion of scarcity in both physical and intellectual work. If labor becomes abundant and near free, then wages, productivity and even employment start to look like atavistic concepts.
In that setting, value shifts elsewhere: most plausibly to energy. If intelligence through AI and output through robotics are functions of compute and compute is a function of energy, then the cheapest energy producer may become the most “intelligent” economy with a decisive edge in innovation and R&D.
While we talk about lunar bases, Mars colonies and orbital data centers, humanity's needs remain basic: fresh water, affordable food, clean air. These are not becoming more accessible but more strained, which raises a final question: who or what is the human adventure for in the end?
Excellent points, and I note that the cheaper the input costs per unit of output, the closer you get to 100% productivity. I have to wonder, though. Since the late 40s, humanity has been on a labor-saving bender, but all it's done is free up more time to work. Don't need a housewife anymore, so she can get out in the labor force and earn a salary. Instead of freeing us up for intellectual and creative efforts, we're only getting more time per human resource to build widgets and shuffle paperwork. In the end, it seems to be an argument between stochastic and deterministic universes, but perhaps that's reductio ad absurdum.
In any case, if you took all the women out of the workforce, men would be able to command livable salaries to support a family. The more readily a resource is available, the lower the cost of obtaining it.
if free energy were contrary to the laws of physics there would have been hundreds of less new world ODOR murders these last 150 years.
You noticed that too, eh? Yup, something's going on. The fact that T. Thomas Brown vanished after discovering anti-gravity is a big red flag. Actually, the Universe is energy, but they are working overtime to keep us from tapping into it.
Yes, I saw Zardoz many years ago. Going against the community (everything was decided communally) was punished by aging, and no one could die because they were reborn into the vortex, as it was called. Great sci-fi movie.
If you saw it on the big screen, I'm jealous. Never had that experience. I think it's one of Boorman's most interesting and unusual efforts (he wrote and directed). I was hooked from the opening shot of a stone head flying around. If someone hasn't read the Wizard of Oz, they probably don't get that reference. Very strange flick, but fascinating.
I may be one of the few Zardoz fans. It is a quirky film, to be sure, but one that has aged surprisingly well in spite of the goofy dialogue. Besides... Sean Connery in a loincloth. Need I say more?
I should have figured folks around here would be Zardoz fans. Certainly, the beefcake factor can't be discounted. I like the house of mirrors scene and the apathetics home.
Very sorry to hear about the impasse with your new project. I did follow up by introducing a friend of mine who was in the biz a few years ago. Not sure if he replied to my email introduction. With respect to treatments of the concept of immortality, I do not like Zardoz at all. But there was a book that might be good for a mini series, Roger Zelazny's _This Immortal_ which is worth reading if you have not. And call him Conrad....
It's not an impasse so much as it's business as usual. I'm investigating AI tools that can generate a streaming series from a script. Much cheaper and less headache with prima donnas in any case. I'll look for the book. I'm in the middle of a large editing project, so I'm just coming up for air before diving back in. Could be worse. Could be raining.
"Could be worse. Could be raining." My favourite line from "Young Frankenstein."
Spoken by my favorite character, Abbey Normal
"Free" is the greatest sales pitch even higher than sex in marketing. Freedom! in the great 'Muricka
"After I’m dead, I can’t very well create kinetic energy,..." Rufus.
Well, the government disagrees with you. The Death Tax takes kinetic energy (money) from your dead body.
"Zardoz" is a great flick. I saw it at the movie theater when it came out and was blown away.
Great piece!!!! I think Hollywood"s collapse may actually open new opportunities for the arts as long as society holds. Technology has gotten some great tools to use, and I am not including AI in that tech. Our local SCV Camp just created our own historical DVD with desktop tech tools, lots of research, and a couple months "creating". The only weak link is distribution. The Epstein Class runs all the "big" outlets. Opportunity there for someone. BTW, loved your wildlife and handshake piece. Read it to the wife. We both had tears running down our face from laughter. Thanks for all you do!
When I got into the film/video business in the early 80s, you needed millions of dollars and entire buildings full of equipment to make "broadcast quality" productions. Now, I can do everything on my desktop (and more) for what it used to cost me $300/hr to hire. My phone has a better camera than anything professional gear I used at the time. No complaints from me. A little creativity and a few hours work and you can produce pretty much anything Hollywood can, which is why they are shrieking in horror right now.