Life Outside PLT1

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October 27, 2007 on 1:12 pm | In Contemplation | | hackra

It’s times like these, drunk at 4am and unable to sleep due to the fact that I’ve just downed 2 cans of red bull, that I like to sit back and ponder the framework of things that are. I’m sitting in the dark, pounding on a keyboard like some Shakespearean monkey (of Hamlet fame), the soft glow of the screen providing just enough ambient light for me to type by. I consider the nature of society and how human failings are (at least in theory) compensated by being part of a greater whole. The question I now pose is; given an infinite number of humans (provided we don’t wipe ourselves out, re: nuclear/chemical/biological warfare, or nature wiping us out re:SARS, Superbugs, influenza), ultimately, is the direction that our society is headed in pre-determined by the nature of our communal existence, or is human group behaviour sufficiently random that our future cannot be predicted. This brings us to the classic Sci-Fi of Asimov in the Foundation series, where it is imagined that human behaviour in large enough groups is, while not completely deterministic, predictable to a large enough degree (and error is not compounded by recursive calculation in a manner that would reduce the the reliable timeframe to a useless length) that humanity can be steered around rough patches and (hopefully) avoid tearing ourselves apart.

The trouble with predicting the motions of large groups (assuming that soceity is predictable in a manner similar to the one outlined above) is that it falls down in the face of individuals that exist are more than a mere dimple on a population chart. People who live in society, but do not behave the same way as the rest of it, propagating ripples throughout our neatly arrayed functions and variables.

The trouble is, that given the question “Can’t we all just get along?” the answer is so often a resounding “No” when queried against the prevailing nature of the society the question is posed to (vis a vi, the middle east conflict).

Are we all horrible, selfish people who can’t see far enough past the end of our own limited existences to see the bigger picture? Has our society shaped us in a way that our children and our children’s children are not going to amount to anything more than we have? That they’ll continue the same petty grievances against groups of people they don’t know?

What do you want from life?

What do you want the next generation to get from life?

If you’re looking for some kind of clever argument, some final point that I’m building towards, I assure you I don’t have one. I’m just some drunk lunatic with a keyboard and a propensity to embarrass myself when I think too hard.

Ignorance and complacency will be the death of us.

(Also, your giraffe is on fire)

Sober Addendum: I’m not sure exactly wtf I was thinking, regardless here it is, make what you will of it.