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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   34984 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 9, 2025

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Ok but this is a wholly generalizable dismissal of the ops observation about material malaise within a society of abundance. It doesn’t mean it’s necessarily that it’s wrong. But I think those who recognize the ops observation should consider AI abundance making it worse.

Sure there will still be transcendent art. Just like now there’s plenty of meaningful and spiritually fulfilling lives and communities within the culture. I myself have the latter in spades.

But it can be both true that the potential for any individual or subgroup remains and can be found, while the broader culture deteriorates and the ratio worsens

The Reign of Quantity cannot be solved by the destruction of its means. If that were the case, Luddism and its successors would have succeeded.

We must ride the tiger. There is no other way.

Transcendance will have to find other ways to make itself known to us than the superficial messages we are used to.

I am the op. I don't think the problems with our spirituality are from AI art.

I know. I am saying then the connection you are making to abundance and the cultural malaise makes less sense. AI (not art specifically or even meaningfully. That was not meant to be causal, just exemplar) will increase the meaning deficit as it removes purpose for a lot of people.

I see, there's a misunderstanding in my pairing of abundance with malaise -- I was not meaning to suggest the abundance caused it, but rather, I was contrasting the fact we have abundance with the fact we still have greater malaise, because our malaise is for non-material concerns such that abundance cannot help.

I personally adore abundance. It's great. I would not chalk our malaise up to it. I can readily imagine a prosperous society that has abundance and spiritual richness.

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