Our institutions- including our economies, governments, and religions- are all trying to do the same thing. These systems exist to help us make good decisions and do good things. In different ways, they are each a judge of moral actions + executor of deeds deemed moral. This process of judgment and execution could leverage economic forces like supply and demand, it could be through a political process like voting, or it could be an interpretation of existential relevance based on the insights of a prophet.
I love the DALL-E images - this "persistence of memory" is one of my favorites. Kind of scary and amazing how AI can create something so similar to what the artist would create.
Perhaps another way of approaching this daunting subject is chronological. Imagine when a small group of people emerged and needed to survive. Then imagine each step along the way toward that end. Eventually if it went on long enough it would likely, maybe inevitably, look like what exists around the world today regardless of premeditation.
I see that you did. By the time I had read the entire article and reflected on it I had forgotten your beginning about the 1 person then the 2 then the 8 billion. My mind must have filled in the space between the 2 and 8,000,000,000.
Really loved this one and the overlap with Maslow's hierarchy was really insightful. Love the time horizon perspective as well.
Interesting to consider that everything is moving "away" from religion. Electricity starts in economy and moves to being a regulated resource. "Don't murder" goes from religion to government enforced. Does the government/economy ever move their responsibilities under the jurisdiction of religion?
Good question and I guess not really. Religion has typically been the "first mover" when it comes to offering a moral path, so the other systems borrow from its ideas. And since religion mostly remains an ideology that doesn't incentivize the creation of products or services beyond those that teach the ideology, there's nothing that can be "handed off" to it, other than new ideologies I suppose. Said differently, the ecosystem of religion ain't good for much other than generating religious ideas and spreading them.
I love the DALL-E images - this "persistence of memory" is one of my favorites. Kind of scary and amazing how AI can create something so similar to what the artist would create.
Ya, it's amazing for sure. The newest addition to this "text to content" space is "text to video." Maybe I'll start working vids into these :). https://ai.facebook.com/blog/generative-ai-text-to-video/
Perhaps another way of approaching this daunting subject is chronological. Imagine when a small group of people emerged and needed to survive. Then imagine each step along the way toward that end. Eventually if it went on long enough it would likely, maybe inevitably, look like what exists around the world today regardless of premeditation.
That's a valid approach for sure :). I somewhat use that exact method in this post: https://michaelweiss.substack.com/p/howdoyoudecidewhatsmeaningful
I see that you did. By the time I had read the entire article and reflected on it I had forgotten your beginning about the 1 person then the 2 then the 8 billion. My mind must have filled in the space between the 2 and 8,000,000,000.
:)
Really loved this one and the overlap with Maslow's hierarchy was really insightful. Love the time horizon perspective as well.
Interesting to consider that everything is moving "away" from religion. Electricity starts in economy and moves to being a regulated resource. "Don't murder" goes from religion to government enforced. Does the government/economy ever move their responsibilities under the jurisdiction of religion?
Good question and I guess not really. Religion has typically been the "first mover" when it comes to offering a moral path, so the other systems borrow from its ideas. And since religion mostly remains an ideology that doesn't incentivize the creation of products or services beyond those that teach the ideology, there's nothing that can be "handed off" to it, other than new ideologies I suppose. Said differently, the ecosystem of religion ain't good for much other than generating religious ideas and spreading them.