I feel like the future pretty much has to be more local, in person, and human, and as much as you can interact with the internet as a utility rather than as the main source of interaction in your life it is for the best. That’s probably the best lesson you can teach your kids if you don’t want them to be part of society that just sort of permanently falls into the internet, always plugged in via goggles or brain implant and fed AI generated content, never to return. It already seems like there’s a group that is basically terminally online and it seems like it’s only going to get worse.

While I agree that moving all human interaction to the internet is likely to be a net negative, there is only so much you can do as an individual. It takes two to tango, you need a sufficient number of other people with the same mindset to resist this move to the internet. As someone whose parents kept them away from certain forms of technology, media, etc., all it really did was alienate me from others. At the end of the day, I'd rather connect with others through the internet than not at all.

I guess where I live I’ve been lucky to find a nice community of people who don’t live online.

Why would the vast majority of people watch a human YouTuber or other kind of charisma-based influencer when they can choose from infinite custom generated ones that always provide exactly the content they want at any time, look and act just like they want them to, and listen to feedback perfectly, and interact with them on a one on one basis?

For the same reason people line up to get popular fashionable products that look the same as everyone else, when they could have an infinitely customized one for far less.

The “customization” narrative is far too based on assumptions of individualism, and doesn’t factor in sociability at all.

The potential difference I think is that you will be able to replace your social circle with people who behave to your preference. Advertising will be per person, rather than per segment, so that will fade as a unifying factor. I think once parents start putting AR goggles on their kids all bets are off about how social relationships with humans in your presence have some kind of primacy will fade away. That said, I do hope you’re right.

I’m not sure, there is something meaningful and rewarding in doing even hard work to make life better for the people around you, or creating beautiful things from the sweat of your brow. A future of forced endless leisure sort of sounds like a dystopia honestly.

I agree, but I was trying to imply that I find the “we solve all problems and there’s no way to feel like you’re helping others” scenario to be preeetty unlikely. Much more likely is a future where we continue to sweat from our brow, but without directly tying it to subsistence, and with much more personal autonomy.

I think the term “emotional labor” might be a good tool to hint at what I’m talking about. That’s just a subset of the wider “there’s more ways to be productive than a capitalist job” view

Potentially they can use early versions of the automation to accelerate this.

Already do. CNC lathes, (GOF)AI designing chips. A "century or two" is a framing so alien to me that I don't understand how anyone can think it would take that long.

Artists seem like they are first up for replacement, no?

That is one way of looking at it. The other is that we are now all artists.

And GAI's are not our end, they are our future, our mind children - just another generation eclipsing and replacing their predecessors. Just eclipsing and replacing faster.

I say this with all humor, but some seriousness stoicism may be the healthiest way to process what is happening.

We are all artists in the sense that we type what we want into the text box? I think that’s more just another form of consumer than an artist.

Does he get to an answer in the book?

The last sentence looks like an answer to me.

Also, their whole business is something like “Are you the perfect mark? Then you can pay me to help you.”

Many of the courses offered by the folks a level or two “up the pyramid” include instruction on finding people who are a good fit for your coaching—which, I shit you not, includes not asking too many of the kinds of questions they absolutely should be asking. It’s all about finding someone who’ll fall for your pitch and then directing the rest of the sales conversation away from questions that would reveal you have no expertise or track record of success or wanting to pin down exactly what the intended beneficial outcome of the coaching might look like in concrete, specific terms, and quickly dropping anyone who is too resistant to staying within the lanes you want them to.

This can happen to anyone who accepts external authority on psychological matters. If you want to build a bridge, obviously you need an expert. But if you can't be a light to yourself and presume that you need a guru, therapist, coach, shaman or whatever to teach you things you couldn't possibly find out for yourself, well, there are no shortage of people (well intentioned and not) who will keep you in the role of the helpless by assuming the role of the helper.

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with listening to other points of view, but ultimately one needs to be a light to themselves and observe deeply what rings true.

It’s honestly a bit islamophobic to assume that anyone saying religious violence is bad must be attacking Muslims, isn’t it? Jumping to that conclusion requires a bunch of leaps that I’m not sure are actually true.

Down with graybeards, up with salt and pepperbeards

I'm a native English speaker and it sounds less sophisticated to me. Something a middle management drone somewhere would say.