7 Comments

They/them is referring to trans people.

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Another superb post, Rob. I’m slowly repairing myself and prepping for the future that awaits us including technologically (on which note, Molly White’s blog essay today is helpful: https://www.citationneeded.news/wind-the-clock). But it does seem all too horribly clear that anyone who does decide to fight on rather than go live in a cave has the truly mountainous task of dealing with the widespread death of empathy. Not a crisis of empathy; a death.

I have my own thoughts about how and why empathy is no longer an active component of so many people’s makeup. They have to do with the utter decline in humanities education since the 1990s at least, in favor of an instrumentalized vision of education which sees no value in skills and capabilities that won’t serve a corporate bottom line. And while empathy (like imagination and innovation) is often one of the attributes corporate employers claim to require in their employees, the last few years in the tech sector have taught us that, in many cases, that requirement is merely symbolic.

I do not know practically how we overcome this death of a fundamental moral capacity, nor the educational decline that may have caused it. All part of the Sisyphean work ahead.

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“The father’s wife” tell us you love your mum another way Rob

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i feel like an internal exile as well.

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Always refreshing to see Trump called names by someone who has fallen for the "I'm not Trump" Biden and Harris tagline.

Wars, genocide, censorship, mass federal government abetted illegal immigration, soaring food and housing costs - these are not subjects worthy of consideration.

No, what really matters is that Trump is rude.

TDS: its not just for breakfast any more.

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Someone send Rob Horning some flowers, sounds like he needs cheering up, I would bu'cept I don't know a good florist in his area.

Also, he's wrong, only my artificial is intelligence, not anybodys elses.

Don't believe me, hell i wouldn't either!

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Great post, thank you. Technology is already reducing the hassle of having to do cognitive work (i.e. think about stuff). On the basis of this, it is now also seeking to reduce the hassle of having to feel things.

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