How generative AI is trying to rip the screaming soul out of the Enlightenment

Re:How generative AI is trying to rip the screaming soul out... by ETH_start on Tuesday July 02, 2024 @03:02PM (#40859503)

In some ways, left wing ideology is the radical rejection of reason.

Reason, being the ultimate tool of survival, becomes the dominant value of any social hierarchy. The left-wing instinct is to give voice to the unformed chaos, so that it may receive the attention it requires to realize its potential.

Thus, that which is rejected by the dominant values of society is seen as the domain of chaos, that requires tending to in order for its potential to come forth.

For that reason, anti-rationalism comes to be seen as the highest value for the left-wing instinct. In the long run, the destabilizing and decentralizing effect of this instinct may spur innovation and counter-act ossification.

This article is a prime example of that left-wing instinct manifested, as it takes as a priori that the enlightenment, capitalism and technology are harmful, because the forces of reason deem them to be beneficial.

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Re:How generative AI is trying to rip the screaming soul out... by etrautmann on Tuesday July 02, 2024 @03:03PM (#40859518)

This is a bad faith flamebait comment

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Re:How generative AI is trying to rip the screaming soul out... by ETH_start on Tuesday July 02, 2024 @03:14PM (#40859610)

I think it's entirely fair. The article sets up rationality as the destructive value.

>René Descartes (1596-1650) is often attributed as the one who blessed us with the dubious vision of mind-body dualism, but he was just playing into an emergent spirit of the times that was beginning to view rational thought as the true essence of humanity.

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Re:How generative AI is trying to rip the screaming soul out... by TheOtherHobbes on Tuesday July 02, 2024 @03:50PM (#40859879)

The Enlightenment was a first attempt to grow beyond centuries of monstrous, irrational, suicidally destructive monarchy and religious dictatorship.

While rationality has limits and a complex relationship with the body, it's still far more likely to keep you alive and healthy than a nostalgic hankering for a strong father figure and a thin pretext for bullying empathic effective adults.

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