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[deleted] 0 wrote (edited )

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kore wrote (edited )

Yes, what is your point?

So if I am anti-civ, am I anti-"thinking about how I want to relate to others" and thus anti-social? I don't understand why anyone wouldn't think about how they relate to others.

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[deleted] 0 wrote (edited )

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kore wrote (edited )

I am trying to say that if thinking about how one relates to others and uses techniques and skills to survive" is "civilizing," then there appears to be no way to live in relation to others while not being civilizing. And if I were asked "what's your point?", I would reply that I don't see any other way to live...

Another thing I thought of, when native americans (and others) burned forests, they were using technology to affect their environment in a way that was beneficial to them. And so since before people could write, there was a co-constituting relationship between technology and the world. The existence of the forests that many native americans lived in was dependent on technology to reproduce itself.

My "I eat" etc. comment was more directed at the "comprehensibility" point. When people help each other, they help each other.

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[deleted] 0 wrote

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kore wrote

Okay. I guess I'm just confused about why someone would be anti-civilizing if that necessitates being anti-social relations, based on the premises in this particular discussion. And also confused about how it would be possible to be anti-authoritarian if one must accept the authority of technology. I'd like to think that one can be anti-authoritarian and also make use of technology, which is I guess why I'm engaging in this discussion, to see what others think.

I appreciate your input, Raddle always makes me think pretty hard. To synthesize both our thoughts a little, I think it's interesting that somehow technology can sometimes be this really weird thing that is pretty pathological, like in your "iForest" example, but other times it can be pretty straightforward and helpful. As in the case of controlled burns. I think that's personally a shortcoming of some anti-civ arguments, the idea of "technology" being a monolith. I also think the tools/technology distinction is sort of flimsy.

Maybe a stupid thought, but if we try to control technology don't we have "authority" over it? ;)

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