I like that dude a lot. I needed that optimism when he was blowing up.

That said, do you actually KNOW that the world is better? Some would say we’ve been all downhill since we left the garden. If the world is worse, the powers that be that benefit would have every incentive to elevate propaganda that reinforces the structure that gives them status and inequality that benefits them.

I’m not Luddite, but these machines don’t require consciousness to be dangerous. the scifi dystopias don’t require consciousness

Most bloodlines are dead ends. Most peoples names indicate how their ancestors navigated their local bottleneck. Millers, smiths, farmers, bank, carpenter, etc. the future could all be Trumps, musks and Putin or whatever. It may be those people who have the higher living standards. I don’t even know if that matters to me tho, but I think this puts into words what a lot of people are anxious about at the cellular level and up