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Comment by Geldwechsler on Why is the Future So Absurd? · 2007-09-10T23:37:26.000Z · LW · GW

Society seems to be evolving both to AND from ridiculousness, but at the same time, some things have not changed at all. We still eat exactly the same foods as people did 2000 years ago, and we still have the exact same bodies as well as emotions as we did back then! The growth of technology has caused some societies on this earth to progress, but at the same time, the backlash against it has caused some to regress back into the ninth century. Modern society is also becoming much more perverse as a result. There's forms of sexuality out there nobody would've even conceived of before the internet came around, much less admitted to them, or practiced them in such a way that was viewable by millions of people. I think Dali invented his "cledyllism" thing as a joke, but it seems like cledyllism has taken over. We now live in a world where, as a result of sexual liberation, the women have become masculinised, and men are becoming more and more feminised, and by that I don't mean in just a touchy-feely way. I mean physically. Would they have hired a guy with shoulder-length hair, an earring in his left ear, and a t-shirt with a skull on it for any job in the 40s? Never! Or if a woman decided to shave her head and get like 50 piercings they would've sent her to the mental hospital! People are definitely becoming less conformist, and more individualist, and I think that trend will continue (transhumanism, extropianism, all that). Based on extrapolation I see the following becoming the dominant trends of the future:

  1. Breakdown of major cities, as more people move to the country and cyber-commute from there.

  2. Greater civility, as more people realise its not about what you know, but who you know.

  3. Societal division being primarily on religious, as opposed to ethnic lines.

  4. The abolition of state and local governments, the corporation as we know it, education as we know it, and the family as we know it.

If you notice, people are also getting a lot more intelligent than they were in years past, and it's not just the internet that's doing it. Just look at any movie from the 30s or 40s. There's usually just one plot line. Nowadays if you watch even a stupid mass-produced hour-long TV show, it'll have like 6 or more of them. And even little kids will understand them, and their significance. In other words, I think because we now have basically a global culture, you get a better intermixing of genes, as well as exposure to different ideas and information.