[FRIAM] mind candy

[glen]

IDK. I can't help but wonder how I'd have felt if Blue Origin had blown up with Shatner in it. I mean, that would be a great way to die ... among the possible ways to die. Were I up there, I *wish* I could die like that. Instead, I'll prolly die in a bike crash, bleeding out all over the asphalt or maybe from some nasty disease while rotting in bed ... maybe from an infection by a novel virus. Yuck. Dying in space or at tremendous depth seems like a much better option. Sign me up!

On 6/22/23 11:06, Jochen Fromm wrote:
> Yes, the Greek shipwreck was horrific but the Titan(ic) story sadly got much more media attention.
> 
> One aspect is the rich/poor divide: the Titan submersible contained 5 very rich passengers, while the ship from Africa was full of poor people looking for a better life. African migrants are for Europe what Mexican migrants are for the USA. People are afraid that there will be too many which take away their jobs and their appartments.
> 
> Another aspect is that the Titan story had for the last days the possibility of a happy ending that people long to hear. Unfortunately the latest news about a debris field near the Titanic has destoyed the hope for a happy ending too.
> 
> -J.
> 
> 
> -------- Original message --------
> From: glen <gepropella at gmail.com>
> Date: 6/22/23 6:57 PM (GMT+01:00)
> To: friam at redfish.com
> Subject: [FRIAM] mind candy
> 
> The Greek shipwreck was a horrific tragedy. Yet it didn’t get the attention of the Titanic story
> https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jun/22/the-greek-shipwreck-was-a-horrific-tragedy-yet-it-didnt-get-the-attention-of-the-titanic-story
> 
> By analogy with eye candy, where the Eloi get all the attention and the Morlocks spin the world, it's difficult to believe that any of us (well, most of us) actually value human life. When dorks like Yudkowsky fret over AI as an existential threat (and the only such intelligences we can see are birthed by immense wealth), are they fretting over, say, the 100 children below deck in the migrant ship? Is that what they're fretting over? I don't think so. It reminds me of the idea of elite overproduction <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite_overproduction>. Yudkowsky is an elite, but of a different stripe than, say, Samuel Alito (rubbing shoulders with billionaires). When an elite like Musk calls for a "pause" and an elite like Microsoft barrels on like a bull in a china shop ... and most of what we see in The Media (stupid English) is those fighting elephants, where do the 100 children rank? Are we merely biomass, providing the scaffolding to a higher order life form, much like 
> some of us think fungus and insects are scaffolding for us? If so, then who cares about a few dead bodies at the bottom of the ocean at all, whether millionaires or the forgettable poor?
> 


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