This video is harrowing.
Humanity’s greatest threat is the impending death of meaning. Once we as a society subscribe and surrender to this
-it’s over.-
Human beings are special, we can *create* meaning. Out of nothing. And so I have hope that we will create new roles for ourselves.
We certainly *can*.
For anyone who has looked into Calhoun’s Universe 25 - we’re in our own “Universe 2025” moment *right now*.
We get to decide where we go from here.
Do we adopt UBI and the narrative from this video - that we are “replaced”? Do we “give up”, as it were? We’re certainly headed that way.
-Or do we reframe?-
Do we *double down* on the things that make humanity special? Do we *create* the new narrative.
Do we surrender to lives that are “boring”, “redundant”, where we “have no purpose” and “do not matter”?
Or do we *create* NEW meaning?
Do we collectively *remember* a way of being - from before technology?
The meaning of being human. Of craft. Of experience with other humans and community.
I choose to *value* those things.
And demonstrate that I value them with intention and allocated time. Where I put my time.
Do we subscribe to be factory produced cookie cutter meaningless people? Do you choose that frame?
Or do we look around us at the value of human beings, human interaction, human creativity and ingenuity. Human time. The most scarce resource there is.
If we look locally at the people around us and the craft produced down the road by that barista who put her scarce resource *time* into perfecting the perfect cup of coffee. Take that in.
Can we choose to spend our most valuable asset *time* in nature with friends. Taking in the trees and the moment. Building community, family - something that grows with investment.
Can we live in this world of automation and embrace what it allows us *not* to have to focus on with our *time*. Because it frees us up for the things that matter: human experience, narrative, creativity, culture, -life-.
Money is a fungible asset. Markets shift. The value of currency is not constant. Time is non-fungible (even if it isn’t linear).
What do you value? Then get out of the hamster wheel you’re in. Forget about being obsoletified by AI. And go live.
Find what people who spend their *time* with you *value your time for*. What is that thing? That your friends say “I love you for this”. Then do it more. As much as you can. That might just be your “thing” in this new age in which we live. That might be your purpose. Refine it like your craft.
And don’t forget that humans are unique. We can control how we perceive things. And we can make a conscious choice every day to focus our perceptions on the positive future.
I have hope that we collectively will come up with a way to value human time more honestly and ways that human experience and outcomes can be directly impacted.
As I tap into my feminine more, the downloads I get continue to be:
“Women create with their bodies. You don’t need quests. Just focus on being.”
Me: cool, got it.
Also me: but the quests! 😩
For those who also notice a shift in time perception, you're not crazy
The machinery of the 'continuous self' may be a use-it-or-lose-it system. And convenience culture may be training us to use it less.
We may be diminishing the very sense of being a self that is alive
Kosmyna et al. 2025 - “Your Brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of Cognitive Debt when Using an AI Assistant for Essay Writing Task.”
Spreng, Mar & Kim 2009 - for overlapping brain networks in autobiographical memory, future thinking, navigation, theory of mind, and the default mode network.
Risko & Gilbert 2016 - for cognitive offloading.
Rolls 2019 - for PCC/cingulate connections with hippocampal memory systems.
Parvizi et al., 2013. “The Will to Persevere Induced by Electrical Stimulation of the Human Cingulate Gyrus.”
For those who also notice a shift in time perception, you're not crazy
The machinery of the 'continuous self' may be a use-it-or-lose-it system. And convenience culture may be training us to use it less.
We may be diminishing the very sense of being a self that is alive
We also have to consider that most technologies are dependent on a human in the loop...
And we are destroying the integrity of the agency of those humans