I think I'll take a break from this one, after some parting thoughts.

I don't believe in a "soul" or any particularly special cosmic importance assigned to human beings or any particular divine presence that assigns such importance to human beings. That said, crude reductionism plays into the hands of the ruling class and is far more often used to degrade and denigrate "the other" than it ever actually meaningfully challenges the arrogance and the abuses of the ruling class. Look at how many of them (and their enabling minions) see the rest of us as "NPCs" or even "husks" to borrow a term from the "Effective Altruist" eugenicists discussed here a few days ago.

If we're all supposed to call our individual consciousness "an illusion" on some deterministic grounds and then stretch that stance further to state that we can (and by implication, should) be easily replaced with chat programs and the like, why fight the ruling class at all? Why not just let the superficially more efficient computers do their thing, let the the owners of such computers, simply "stochastic parrots" like the rest of us even if they clearly get a lot more power and privilege with their own "parroting," rake in those profits at all our expense? Why don't we just let them do as they please and instead lay down and die because we have no more right to exist than the machines that the ruling class owns for purposes of replacing us, one purpose at a time? It all doesn't matter how we suffer because our lived experiences are all just an illusion, right? :galaxy-brain:

If and when society is improved somewhat and suffering is reduced, I'll be more open to discussions of how we're all "meat computers" in "meatspace" and what meaningful consequences (if any, really) that such reductionism entails for how we should think about ourselves and each other. Until then, it's just another kind of alienation and insulation, a privileged position to see others suffering and adhere to crude and nihilistic yet ironically lofty perspectives on the human condition that usually further demoralize the proletariat instead of motivating them to fight back and, materialistically, do fucking nothing to improve their material conditions.

That's why so many right-wing techbros like to talk about "meatspace" and "meat computers," I argue. The perspective does not threaten their power and in their interpretation actually strengthens their grip.

Parting thoughts over.

:manhattan: