73 Comments
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Stephen Walker's avatar

Yes, but if the video was a truthful self-portrait of western civilization, it would have included rape, torture, and bombing of children in tents—who are starving and suffering from hypothermia.

Marci Sudlow's avatar

True, but that is there, and this is here. A portrait of the Western Empire here at home.

elena the red's avatar

No rape of children in the west huh?

Have you somehow missed hearing about Epstein? Have you somehow missed hearing about gitmo where w bush and Obama made torture the apple pie of American values? And in case you didn’t know every single winter USA has people that freeze to death on the streets. Yes they make it worse on Palestinians in Gaza but it’s in the USA part of the west at least I won’t speak for the eu but I would bet it happens there as well.

Marci Sudlow's avatar

Epstein's island is not in the USA, nor were his victims. Ditto for Guantanamo and those imprisoned there.

Nod Dranoel's avatar

what's your point? America is a murder death cult. Killed 10s of millions for resources and imperialism. That's enough to be disgusted by it. And yes, Guantanamo IS the USA. Just like the American embassy anywhere is the USA.

"Yes, Guantánamo Bay Naval Base is legally considered U.S. territory for the purposes of jurisdiction and control, even though it is located on the island of Cuba. Guantánamo is treated as U.S. territory for legal and operational purposes."

ChatGPT 4.o

https://substack.com/@noddranoel/note/c-195073650?r=12tyeg&utm_source=notes-share-action&utm_medium=web

Marci Sudlow's avatar

------"America is a murder death cult. Killed 10s of millions for resources and imperialism. That's enough to be disgusted by it."--------

What makes you think I'm not disgusted?

Nod Dranoel's avatar

I never said you were are were not.

"That's enough to be disgusted by it"

Stephen Walker's avatar

No. Western civilization is carrying out all of these things, every day, all around the world. Don’t try and separate “us” from “them”, or “here” from “there”. That’s precisely how we got to this point.

Nod Dranoel's avatar

You forgot the murder death cult which has killed 10s of millions with imperialist globalist power moves.

Dr Anne McCloskey's avatar

Just brilliant. Profound and very sad, but sadly we are here. I pray there's a way back, but the signs are ominous.

John Turcot's avatar

Nice thoughts, but who do you pray to?

W.F.Miloglav's avatar

Even if there is no God, maybe it's useful to invent one?

Landru's avatar

Many have. What is the most interesting God? The Roman Gods seemed like idiot savants, expert in one field of domination. Shiva seems to be the most benevolent. Of course the indigenous of North America were fun.

Landru's avatar

I pray to the Universe. Standing on a mountain in Chile viewing images from one of the most powerful cameras in the world will do that to you. The added benefit, I am not expecting an answer other than a possible cleansing Neutron shower.

John Turcot's avatar

I don’t disagree in the slightest, except perhaps to ponder on the definition of the universe, which is entirely an image of whoever defines it.

Nod Dranoel's avatar

Why do you ask? That was not the point of her statement. god is a personal thing. No one should ever challenge another's spirituality. With respect to gods, no one can provide proof either way. So there is simply no real argument. Just a bashing pursuant belief or disbelief. And no, I don't have a god. I have respect for spirituality.

You revealed your intent, with your writing.

"Nice thoughts, " Not really, they were sad thoughts, based on a recognition of the patterns she has seen in her life and the patterns that repeat themselves daily. She recognizes that we have lost the class war and that we are powerless.

"but who do you pray to?" None of your damn business.

Inter-Dimensional Dissentery's avatar

Like the opening line of A Tale of Two Cities: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of

Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had

everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way—“

Charles Dickens

elena the red's avatar

And where is this alleged “best” part now? I see micro joys but we have macro grief.

Inter-Dimensional Dissentery's avatar

Oh have you not read the book? He’s basically saying in London at the time there were extremely wealthy people and extremely poor. So yes there is joy, just not for you and me. Assuming you’re not a billionaire.

elena the red's avatar

I have but that is then you were likening it to now and I see no best of now therefore the question which I thought was obvious

Inter-Dimensional Dissentery's avatar

I’m sorry but I don’t quite understand your reply. 😞

elena the red's avatar

You compared now to dickens

I said there is no best of now.

Inter-Dimensional Dissentery's avatar

There certainly is a best of times if one is a billionaire. Super yachts, private jets, and all the adrenochrome one can handle. All of this whilst much of the world can’t afford food. That’s what I was going on about. The juxtaposition of the man with nothing being avoided by a robot delivering food to a person who very likely has a comparably amazing life is on display. But in all likelihood the recipient of that food is dead inside and working from home; isolated from their humanity.

Marci Sudlow's avatar

Ask an oligarch what he/she thinks of these times. As London at that time, so as now in this. The slide back into feudalism progresses.

elena the red's avatar

Idgaf about those paychopaths

John Turcot's avatar

Maybe Charles Dickens had a point, maybe not!

LHargeaves's avatar

The photo is missing the robot boot that kicks the person on the way by. (I’m aware there is nothing to laugh about here, but can’t get the image out of my mind)

Henri Mellett's avatar

Ulrich Horstmann wrote an interesting perspective on the species that calls itself " homo sapiens" in his book " Das Untier" ( the beast) where he suggests that the human animal has been destined to stop all suffering by eradicating the biological conditions for it as a result of the successful evolution and conclusion of the arms race, and if you asked me if i wouldn't still choose life if i knew it depended on eternally throwing up trumps and Epsteins etc, i wouldn't be too sure, since their non being seems so highly desirable that maybe if being could only continue if their strain of virus also continued, then maybe absolute non being would be the consummation much to be desired. On the other hand, as the socialist pessimist Philip Mainlaender suggested, the best way for the conscious living to traverse the suicide of god which is the entropic decay of the universe we are all a part of, would be to set up a socialist system as a matter of pragmatic compassion and prudent wisdom, with no Trickster commodity prestidigitation and the great money trick to distract from the basic bleak facts of our common human predicament. But if you can't have the good without the Trumps and Epsteins, then maybe nothing would be best.

John Turcot's avatar

Yes, but was this “predicament” of our own making? Are we responsible for the fact that we were born into a survival of the fittest environment?

Henri Mellett's avatar

Of course we're not responsible, neither for evolution nor social learning, certainly not for the capitalist distortion of human sociability or potential, which is why socialism emerged as a natural revulsion at the hyper egoistic system that crystallized the reified deformity of the bourgeois character, ultimately exemplified by the Trump memeplex....must be beginning, please, of the long awaited end...

J M Hatch's avatar

The Delivery Robot, like ICE, has a job. To get the people to normalize Soylent Green processing.

Crapp's avatar

yep, and just like us, the robot is running on code. Our code is more dynamic and more invisible to us, but there it is.

Brilliant observation.

Lisa Savage's avatar

This, right here: "social safety nets have been stripped bare in order to help millionaires become billionaires."

And what did we normal people get in the bargain? Trinkets.

spider ray johnson's avatar

Sums it all up . Sick society.

John Turcot's avatar

Yes, sick, and not sick. Is nature sick?

Roy McIntosh's avatar

THE REAL WORLD!?------World wide politicians, royals and establishment must have been involved in the EPSTEIN SATANIC EVIL CULT! Many of those same people behind the CO'n'VID 2020 MURDER OF THE VULNERABLE AND ELDERLY and also making money. Add on the POISON JABS! Perfidious anuses only words to describe them!

Noel Spangler's avatar

Nicely written! I thought this piece might be relevant to the conversation:

Bots Commemorate Human History Month

https://www.newworldhumor.com/p/human-history-month-ai-newscast

Hannahlehigh's avatar

It really is as sad as that looks.

John Turcot's avatar

Yes , hard to make clones better than the originals.

David Korabell's avatar

All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace

https://www.readingdesign.org/all-watched-over-by-machines

Brautigan meant it seriously, but I think it now applies much more ironically.

Marci Sudlow's avatar

-----"I saw a video of a food delivery robot navigating around the body of a homeless person lying on the sidewalk, and I can’t stop thinking about it."-------

Now it is seared onto my brain.

------"It captures so perfectly the creepy dance between suffering, apathy, frivolity and corporate profiteering that makes our particular dystopia so distinctive, in just a few short seconds of footage. "-------

John Turcot's avatar

Two conditions are revealed with this video. One, the robot avoids the victim. Two, he does the job of delivering the goods.

Isn’t the image that of what happens in nature, as simply doing what it takes to survive? Did we ask to live in a survival of the fittest world.. who is responsible for this situation, is or our maker?

jamenta's avatar
3hEdited

If you think about it, the robot represents something one can also find in Nature: cooperation and collaboration. In order for modern humans to have built a robot with this kind of technology - requires a significant amount of technical shared knowledge, collaboration of manufacturing processes from different parts of the world, the extreme collaboration and human knowledge of building the computer chips that drive the automation of the robot. The amount of technology and collaborative development that goes into making a single micro computer CPU chip is an unbelievably complicated process, requiring an enormous amount of technological know-how, that can only be achieved by modern man's ability to share information, share industrial mechanisms, share and collaborate with advanced sciences in physics and chemistry (including quantum physics).

There would be no robot on that street if it weren't for the immense modern, human civilization collaboration to produce said technology, as opposed to the individualistic ideology of "survival of the fittest" of Social Darwinism - unless one redefines "survival of the fittest" as a cooperative/collaborative effort itself. But then you're just playing a definition game.

What's tragic though, is this remarkable cooperative technological achievement is marred by its use: to feed the profits of those leading the world into moral and physical descent: the billionaires soon to be trillionaires, many of them technocratic oligarchs themselves. Caught in an ideology that rewards human sociopathy for unending profits and self-aggrandizement at the expense of other humans. A soulless world, that values personal survival and wealth above all else.

John Turcot's avatar

In nature the survival of the fittest agenda is a constant presence. It is agreed that it takes a great deal of cooperation and knowledge to make a viable computer chip, but the reward is that the best chip will be the survivor.

The definition of Darwin’s ‘Survival of the Fittest’ can be interpreted in a hundred ways, but the bottom line remains… the fittest wins.. and if ‘The Fittest’ means making the chip that will be used in all robots, then the definition needs no alteration.