This video would have been at home on many threads, but there is lots of great content from Big Think and much of it bears discussion, so here’s a new thread. Please, check out some Big Think videos and if you see something worth discussing share it here!
To start, I just watched this one, which has a lot of interesting ideas that I personally agree with. What do you think?
What will replace religion?
Obviously it would be the Church of Marco and the saints of dual citizenship.
I dunno, I found myself praying to discobot a few days ago…
Why the future tense?
There’s a lot of overlap here with the things that JP rambles about.
My view is that there is going to be no Meaning 3.0 in the near future precisely because there has been such a concerted onslaught on Meaning 1.0 and Meaning 2.0, from various directions.You’re not going to achieve a synthesis of 1.0 and 2.0 into a newer and better upgrade when the originals have been so completely discredited. People have lost the meaning in their lives because it has been deliberately and carefully demolished, possibly with some intent to replace it with a quasi-religious belief in an all-powerful State apparatus.
If that was the motivation, I think it’s going to backfire horribly. Most people aren’t picking up on the new Orwellian ideologies that are being offered to them (well, some are, but most aren’t). It’s fairly obvious where the zeitgeist is heading: a new religion based on the supremacy of Man, except that man in his idealized, godlike form is now a weak, emasculated, superstitious, irrational and emotionally-labile being who has no grand plan for the universe. And since he has no lesser beings to smite, he’s going to smite himself in an orgy of self-flagellation.
TL;DR: I reckon things are going to get worse before they get better.
Hi! To find out what I can do, say @discobot display help.
Kind of old news, isn’t it?
Yes, but unlike JP this guy comes across as pretty sane. 
Not so different from medieval man, then?
Once again we agree on something. 
The video is new, and it made me think of a lot of the conversations we have on here. I also wanted to introduce the Big Think channel, because there is a lot of great content there. Here is one I’ve handpicked for you:
I mean the “God is dead” idea. I think I’ve seen this one with Pinker! Funny because I was going to say something about things being better than ever before and its likely inverse connection with spirituality.
That’s seems a pretty big leap for something that could just be the result of technological growth. Or are you saying spirituality hinders its growth?
it was a Pinker reference
Neither I think (I’m not very clear about your first point). When you and your loved ones’ needs are met, you know more than 99.9% of people in history, you have free time to spend on pursuits, etc. etc. etc. life itself will be more meaningful and appeals to unseen entities less worth spending time on to many.
OK, got it. I thought you were suggesting causation the opposite way, as in a decrease in spirituality led to a better material existence.
Not a Big Think, but one of my favourites by cosmologist Sean Carroll:
This is a decent short primer for someone curious about AI but not sure where to start