HOME | DD
alexiuss β PERSONAL CATASTROPHE AND PROBABLE SOLUTIONS
Published: 2013-04-10 15:27:25 +0000 UTC; Views: 36432; Favourites: 690; Downloads: 277
Redirect to original
Description
Your life is headed for a disastrous end.Everyone will die.
That is a fact.
Especially you.
You will die.
Your friends will die.
Everyone you know will die.
These are indisputable facts.
Your body will break down and crash in one way or another.
Your heart will stop.
Your brain synapses will cease firing.
100% guaranteed termination.
You and everyone you know has less than 122 years left.
The oldest person alive was 122.
Oldest person alive now is 115.
Death should be your number one enemy.
Do not accept it.
Do not welcome it.
The question is - are you willing to extend, improve your life and the lives of those you love?
Why haven't you done it yet? Do you think it's impossible?
Flying for us was impossible until airplanes were built.
Now, the question is- how do we stop the personal catastrophe of death?
The logical answer is - science!
We can slow death down using modern medicine, and we can stop and reverse some accidental causes of death.
Aging is one cause that we cannot currently stop.
Should we simply focus all our efforts on stopping aging?
No.
Humanity as a whole is not ready for immortality.
If immortality was invented tomorrow, only the richest would attain it and use it as a tool to gain more control over others.
Control that equals to war and misery. Are the richest countries, companies and people solving problems?
They are not- a lot of them support wars and fund unsustainable developments.
If immortality was given to everyone tomorrow, overpopulation would quickly destroy civilization.
Before we can stop aging we MUST shift the pattern of human thought itself.
Of your thinking and my thinking.
Can it be done? Yes.
Will you do it? Probably not.
Not unless you take my words seriously and read this article every morning when you wake up.
Not unless you and I shift, or at least learn to shift our modes of thinking entirely into logical, rational and problem solving.
Basically, become amazing at life and solve all your problems.
Once all of your personal problems are solved, you can focus on solving problems of humanity as a whole.
-How does an individual become a problem solver?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Step 1:
Become a rationalist.
Understand the principle of "Occam's razor" to manage your life.
"Simpler explanations are, other things being equal, generally better than more complex ones.
Among competing hypotheses, the one that makes the fewest assumptions should be selected."
Occam's razor is used in medicine when there are many explanations for symptoms and the simplest diagnosis is usually is the correct one.
If a child has a runny nose, they probably have the common cold instead of a rare birth defect.
If a tree suddenly feel down in a forest - wind was responsible, not a wizard.
When faced with two or more answers, you can use Occam's razor to trim away improbable ones.
Any statement or answer made without proof or scientific evidence backing it, can be trimmed.
Learn to apply skepticism when faced with new information, especially information that has no logic or scientific proof behind it.
If you enjoy reading sci-fi books, a fun way to become a rationalist is to read "Harry potter and the methods of rationality".
Google it and read it.
If you know of more articles that explain rationalism and help learn it, link in your comments.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Step 2:
Understand statistics and probability.
Embrace the scientific method.
Statistics rule the world. Probability defines it.
If you understand statistics you can master the art of understanding and interpreting reality most correctly.
If you know which decision leads to statistical win, you can make great decisions in life and solve problems very easily.
There is a pattern to all things in life. If you can figure out this pattern you will accomplish anything.
Yes, you need to know math, especially % math, to do it!
Real life example:
In 2007 I used probability to figure out a statistical pattern that would (at that time) get my artworks seen by millions all over the net.
Seasonscape now has 1.8 million views just on deviantart and I'm a successful freelance illustrator.
Others:
Joan R. Ginther, a former statistics professor, had won four different multi-million dollar jackpots in Texasβthree of which came from purchasing scratch-off lottery tickets. It was speculated that there was actually a pattern to where and when the winning tickets were sold, and that Professor Ginther had figured out this pattern.
If you know of great articles that explain how to learn statistics and help apply them, link in your comments.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Step 3:
Become a problem solver.
Google is a collective knowledge of all of humanity. It has countless answers to questions(including incorrect ones).
A rational googler can differentiate between incorrect answers and correct ones.
A statistics-knowledgeable googler can calculate the probability of the most correct answer, discarding incorrect ones,
(by calculating amount of proof that applies to each answer and by statistically estimating how likely is each thing to happen)
Thus such a googler can answer ANY question as correct and as detailed as possible.
A talented googler can solve almost any problem in their personal life and help others solve their problems.
When faced with buying a new product- Google about it and read some reviews.
Some products are 50% cheaper online, obsolete, have better versions, or do more harm than good.
When faced with any problem in life from small to impossibly large- learn to immediately google for existing solutions or at least google and find tools that can help arrive at a solution faster.
If you know tutorials on improving googling skills, post them in comments.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Step 4:
Change the world.
Embrace and promote scientific literacy.
-How do we create a "problem-solving" society?
We must raise a generation that is masterful at problem solving.
We must raise a generation that actively uses the internet to learn.
Education itself must be changed from "fact-memorizing" to "problem solving".
As soon as kids are old enough to understand logic, rationality and probability,
they must be taught how to utilize the full potential of google (or any other search engine).
Schools must first teach logical thinking and scientific literacy, and then they must teach the "art of googling for answers".
Once these two steps are achieved, a student has the skills to move forward on their own, solving all basic problems in their way and finding or creating tools to solve more difficult problems.
Imagine a school with wi-fi where students would be taught to to google answers on their laptops, instead of forever reading facts from books.
Imagine a school where students would be taught how to look at search queries and taught to understand which answer is most likely to be correct out of all the answers google provides.
Imagine a school where logic, skepticism, and critical thinking (information evaluation) are taught.
Imagine a school where students and teachers would be allowed to argue among each other to figure out which answer from google is most probable and most logical and which are answers can be disproved and how.
What if kids learned how to get their questions answered, instead of being provided answers by teachers to memorize?
What if kids were actively encouraged to google all the things in school?
What if right away kids would learn how to google topics that they are actively interested in learning about?
If all knowledge is immediately accessible, there is potential to destroy embarrassment and ignorance.
If a student is talented at something, they could immediately learn specific skills that would move their talents forward.
What if we figure out a way to raise kids who would actually get ALL of their questions answered from the beginning of their life?
A generation of kids who wouldn't be too afraid/embarrassed to ask the internet for help and would always know how to ask the right questions to get the right answers.
The world can be a much better place for everyone, if we change our mode of thinking from:
"oh god why"
to
"lets google it and solve this problem".
Related content
Comments: 290
Nice.~
You're very welcome! c:
Have a great day!
π: 0 β©: 1
How is this related to poetry...? I mean, at first I thought it was gonna be a poem about evading death, but you turned it into 'Google saves the world'? What the heck?
π: 0 β©: 0
I'm almost positive that this is satire meant to highlight our reliance on and obsession with the internet, which includes the fact that we would rather Google something than think it through ourselves. Maybe it's also a subtle reference to the fact that we have this collection of knowledge from every single person with access to a computer all over the world, plus the knowledge of those before the time of computers recovered from history and posted online.
And we look up pictures of cats.
You guys all need to Google "Where to find chill pills".
π: 0 β©: 1
It's so subtly satirical it can't be told when reading it. I'll pass on that kind of satire.
π: 0 β©: 0
We stopped discovering, and moved unto looking up what other people discovered.
My negativity aside, I liked this article. It seems like example of enticing non-fiction.
π: 0 β©: 0
So.
Plannin' on changing the world through googling stuff?
Good luck with that.
No, really, I don't judge ya or anything. But this whole text seems kinda childish and naive. First off all, the problems you need solving aren't solvable by googling. Real problem is having a terrible sickness striking you or someone close to ya. Loosing a house in a fire, suffering dangerous accident... Those are the REAL problems. What can you solve by googling stuff? How to make brownies in microwave? How to make a birdhouse?
And if you're talking about solving the problems of entire societies and nations, it's also not done by friggin' google. It's done through extensively trained and/or brilliant minds that have been tackling the problem for years. Science works like that. I know your minds are full of histories of young geniuses that changed the flow of the world, but they are 1) in enormous minority 2) mostly hiding many important factors, like help of their older colleagues, and 3) mostly lying. I'm sorry to break it to you, but you don't dive into molecular biology as a 15 years old boy and set stuff straight, you gotta plow your way through many books, hardships and whole lotta practice. During the way the problem solving is important, but you never ever gonna solve stuff with google - you only use it to find books and articles., which is easier on other portals, to be honest.
Also, to all of you world changers, what did you change in the world that you can say "I'm changing the shape of the world"? You're sure you're not affecting just your local communities? You're sure you have international, world-wide impact? Or is your meaning of this phrase skewed towards "I planted a tree in the ground, the ground is the world, therefore I'm changing the world!"?
On the ending note, I think you have some logical flaws up there. You say "death is number one enemy". This is a strange statement as it is in my opinion, as you can't really fight a concept, but that's not the point. You follow up with "how do you do it? Sience! But you can't just stop aging!" And then you jump to being rational and googling stuff. How is that even connected? I just don't follow you. Also the stuff about immortality is a moot point, we ain't achieving it anytime soon. Just prolonging average lifespan due to medicine.
π: 0 β©: 2
Very well put. ^^ I personally agree with all the points you have made, so thank you for sharing them.
π: 0 β©: 0
And about statistics - they are really important in some areas of life. But usually not when it comes to life of a single person. As the saying goes, you can drown in lake that is statistically one-meter deep.
π: 0 β©: 0
First off, a school where the students have to teach themselves is worthless. That's the one I went to, and what lessons do I have use of now? Why, the ones that had teachers who actually did their job instead of just handing out homework (completed through either books or google or whatever) while spending the years evaluating my knowledge.
I know how to learn, I've known that since I was a baby. But if I am to learn on my own, I do it much better, well, on my own. As a matter of fact I've never learned so much as since I've been out of school. My years there were a huge waste because there were so many teachers who did not know how to teach, and simply replacing the books with google will certainly not solve this problem.
I reckon a problem-solving society would require schools that teach the techniques of problem solving, encourages creativity and thinking out-of-the-box. Google is useful, but should in no way be necessary to someone who is truly resourceful.
Besides, wouldn't using google to the suggested extent give them by far too much power? They're already spies and control freaks, and the possibility they have to choose what people will see is not insubstantial.
Second, death is not my enemy, but my friend-- I have accepted it, when my time has come, be it in a hundred years or even as I write this, I will welcome it, and that decision has taught me how to lead a purposeful life. I'd rather die than live forever without death as a teacher. I don't wish something so dreadful as being abandoned by death on my friends or anyone I know either, and certainly not on humanity.
Instead of immortality, wouldn't it be a better solution to focus our efforts on not fearing "the personal catastrophe of death"?
π: 0 β©: 0
You had me at problem solving.
You lost me at Google.
I am actually sincerely hoping this may have been an experiment to encourage people to talk about and express their views on information and bettering man, though that's much to hope for on an anonymous art site.
First of all, we are already lead through a world now so intently absorbed in instant gratification, complacency, and content absorption as opposed to content creation. The internet is a two-sided coin: It is a resource for finding other people's messages and creations. For someone to find it, it must first be put there by someone knowledgeable. All of the incredible sources are diluted versions of this original content that has been misunderstood. Yes, memorization is a faulty teaching mechanism in schools, but teaching an already entitled generation that they don't have to work towards knowledge makes them unwise and inexperience.
Have you ever heard of that stereotypical old grandpa always telling his grandkids how he had to walk to school in winter, with no shoes, carrying his little sister... back in his day, with none of the world's modern conveniences? The most deeply ingrained lessons are taught by those who worked for their craft and genuinely had an interest in it or was LEARNED by these people on their own. Yes, we have modern benefits in the form of new books, new discoveries, new societal standards, available education... and while objective, critical thinking and problem solving are very useful skills, leadership and independent thinking/motivation are just as, if not more useful. Once taught that the world will always give us our information and we have no reason to seek out our interests, no more original content or advancement will appear.
Google is not the answer to our problems. What about the oppressed, who can not have their voices heard by a search engine through censors? What about the ignorant, who cannot discern credible from incredible with a statistical graph? What about the alone, who want human acceptance and free expression? What about the impoverished, who need to survive in their own personal battle in every part of the world?
I appreciate your sentiment to "improve humanity"... but it seems your view of humanity is very small. If you are an altruist, go amongst, learn from, and think about your fellow man AS WELL as seeking to grow and improve yourself and live a fulfilling life. We have all already accepted that we shall die, though we don't know when- Whatever someone does with their life, it should count. It should be genuine.
Don't put your faith in a magic box.
π: 0 β©: 0
Oh hey, poetry on DeviantArt that's just a shallow diatribe telling us what to think with line breaks after every sentence instead of, you know, actual poetry with form and cadence and meter and symbolism and artistic merit. It's been literally seconds since I saw something like this. Oh well, at least I can savor the irony of someone telling people to look up information online when they've blatantly misspelled a word in the title.
π: 0 β©: 0
google is the answer to everything in life
π: 0 β©: 1
π: 0 β©: 1
Wow, I.. I am amazed by the Harry Potter story. I had always thought something similar, like: Why the heck donΒ΄t wizards care about maths/science/anything? It hardly made sense to me.. Thanks for introducing me to this very, very amusing story
π: 0 β©: 0
First : What's the point of living if you're not dying in the end ?
Second : If all your questions are answered from the beginning, you don't keep on ASKING questions right ? That means you just stop thinking. This means death.
Third : Stop it with google. Go to the library, ask real people, take classes ... Yes google is very convenient, but it certainly doesn't have all the answers, and it certainly can't be objective.
π: 0 β©: 0
this is a really good point
but who gives two flying feathers about human life, honestly?
π: 0 β©: 0
I took IB for three years, and The Theory of Knowledge (TOK) was the best class I ever took in high school. It dealt a lot with philosophy and discussing intriguing topics.
Unfortunately it is exclusive to IB students since there aren't many assignments or homework.
π: 0 β©: 0
Half of the educational system I grew up in...
Were more concerned about copying down information, not so much actual learning...
I failed a few classes the first time because I was trying to LEARN the materials rather than just copying everything down...
And I almost didn't pass high school, because I'm slow at writing so simply copying down info was hard for me...
But when I graduated, I knew more on the subjects we were told to learn than others who graduated, because I actually tried to LEARN the materials, rather than practically copy/pasting everything...
(Sometimes we literally were told to cut out words and paste them onto the answer line.)
Also the school's censored dictionaries and thesaurus' didn't help either...
Brought in my own just so I could actually look up words if I did not know them...
(Most web sites were blocked in the library and the computer lab did NOT have internet at all.)
At some point during the last few years of high school, I brought in a laptop from home so I could type up some of my work so that writing didn't hinder progress, and so the problems of paper being damaged or smudged were not always a problem...
(Plus I hate most pencils and simply filling a mechanical pencil with the SAME type of graphite as most of the school's pencils wasn't good enough for most teachers.)
Due to not having the schools' wifi passwords, and the fact that the laptop was not all that powerful,(meaning no video games) most of my teachers were okay with it...
A couple actually encouraged it...
Now as far as changing people's ways' of thinking...
Most people I know are too stuck in their ways to think any other way than what they THINK they already know...
(Grandmother thinks the TV is a better info source than the interwebs. Lady next door thinks humans are not a form of animal. An old friend thinks she'd die if she didn't have her video games, and believes it too. etc.)
Over all this idea WOULD be a good one...
IF more people were open to it and willing to change for it...
I can tell you right now, a good majority of those I've met are not willing...
Not all, but most...
π: 0 β©: 0
No, sorry but I didn't like it. And I don't buy it. It's too shallow.
First of all, I don't think that problem solving is that important. At least, not in the way you described here. Some problems are non-solvable or solving them doesn't mean only knowing the right method/answer but understanding and respecting others. Do you really think that google will solve problems like violence, crimes, abuse, hatred toward everything that is different? No. Cause you cant google the tutorial of how to improve your morality. You can only learn it from others. And kids that spend all their time in front of computers, being unsociable, egoistic and selfish won't learn that for sure. Not to mention that the info from the net usually means wikipedia where everything is simplified and kids don't even read it, just copy it without thinking. That won't take us anywhere imo.
π: 0 β©: 0
Both my Chemistry teacher and I concur with you wholeheartedly.
Up problem solving!
π: 0 β©: 0
I can't say I agree with all of this, but I agree with much of it.
I especially agree with this statement: "Education itself must be changed from "fact-memorizing" to "problem solving"."
π: 0 β©: 0
Je t'encourage Γ continuer !
π: 0 β©: 0
Make internet the main source of knowledge and students blindly trust it? How about no.
Students should learn facts, they should be allowed to make their own theories, if they are incorrect the professors would correct them as good as they could. Making society better can't be achieved by googling, it can only be done by thinking.
π: 0 β©: 0
Death should not be scary, only tragic.
Do not disrupt the balance.
~
Otherwise, very interesting.
π: 0 β©: 0
Interesting idea, but I must disagree from teaching from the beginning to go to google. How, if only taught to search up the answers, even if they are correct, can an individual learn to think? To problem solve? On their own. We cannot become dependent on things such as this for all the answers. We're taught to memorize facts because it's very helpful to KNOW them. To UNDERSTAND them. If we just google all the answers, who would learn anything save the search query? There are many people who would take advantage of this and then not go to better themselves beyond the search query and statistics. Then where would we be? Human society would cease to move forward. We would be stuck. As much as I or any other person hates the dull learning on school, we are taught and helped to understand many useful things, that can be applied to so many areas of life. And frankly, when it comes to life, google can't have all the answers. You have to come up with those yourself. Regardless, this was a very thought provoking read. Thanks for looking at my opinion.
π: 0 β©: 0
You left out one ingredient if you want to create a better existence for the society at large, as well as anyone personally. Each should be imbued, from the earliest point where they can understand it, with a knowledge of their responsibilities to the whole, as well as self. How to conduct themselves in a global village of many billions, versus being a complete irritant. It may be impossible to stamp out greed, but that doesn't mean that we should not try and get rid of most of it.
π: 0 β©: 0
I support the Less Wrong way of thinking and I support this.
π: 0 β©: 0
I don't doubt your good intentions, but the above article sounded like corporate talk. I was seeing a manager (in a suit!) saying those words to a team of sales people...
π: 0 β©: 0
Just gonna leave this article here [link]
π: 0 β©: 0
There is a way way to become immortal, but not in the living sense. Ideas are immortal, whether they are of the fantastical sort (Tolkien) or more reasonable; Darwin or Einstein for example. If you wish to become immortal all you have to do is give an unusual contribution to humankind, that's all.
I wouldn't rule out books entirely yet, they have their uses and I like to have a filled shelf.
Curiousity and reasoning have to be ingrained in children, after all. It's curiousity that usually sets the first step and reasoning (logical) that should follow.
Just my two cents.
π: 0 β©: 1
What you're talking about is the concept of meme. A word that, just a tiny bit ironically, has changed in meaning thanks to the internet...
π: 0 β©: 0
Sound slike some bioshockish purist talk to me!
π: 0 β©: 1
Only unlike "bioshockish purist talk" it ain't racist and it promotes thought.
π: 0 β©: 0
I agree with the majority of this. As a problem solver, world changer, and all-around good guy, I'd add an extra step: "Overcome your fear of death." There are multiple ways to accomplish this, but belief in an afterlife is certainly among the most popular. Once one has overcome his fear of death, fear of failure and fear of harm quickly fall. In the end, there is only possibilities to explore and no worldly concern can stop you.
π: 0 β©: 1
Odd, and completely unrelated question, but what is your pic mean/from? I bought a used skateboard off of someone and he had painted that weird A on it.
π: 0 β©: 1
Sure, no worries. This A is regularly used as a symbol for anarchy. Of course, what anarchy entails is different for everyone. Some see utopia, others dystopia.
I'm an optimistic person, so I used to look forward to a utopian anarchy. But lately, I've come to have a greater appreciation for government, or the need thereof. It's wisdom come from age. But then, this is RA, and that's about as anarchic (aside from Zee Captain) as it comes.
π: 0 β©: 1
Omg thank you! You have no idea how many times I've see that symbol now. I almost thought it was an Avengers sign lol.
π: 0 β©: 0
This. This is the best. We finally have a near infinite amount of information at our fingertips, not only from our own perspective but from both specialists and the layman alike, as well as other countries. What do we do? We ignore it. Or worse, we see something on the internet and immediately take it as fact. We should never be complacent with what we are given. And I agree with Step 4; the children are our future!
π: 0 β©: 0
Methuselah: 969
Jared: 962
Noah: 950
Adam: 930
Seth: 912
Keenan: 910
Enosh: 905
There people, records to break.
π: 0 β©: 3
We, as humans, can no longer live that long. If those people lived that long, I have a theory why we can no longer even come close to those numbers. Earth has been poisoned by our machines for a long time, the air we breathe is heavily laced with smoke, chemicals, and toxins. We also move our bodies less, and eat very unhealthy foods that have unnatural contents. This can easily breed nasty disease, such as the terrible and rapidly growing; cancer. Our emotional health isn't as good either. Gloom and doom is shoved in our faces constantly, on the internet, in the papers, on the TV, on the radio. "Someone was brutally murdered today", "a new disease is on the horizon", "our government is collapsing", etc. Our mental health is also under attack. More and more children are abandoned, more and more are being abused either sexually, physically, verbally, or emotionally. We are exposed to blood and guts now at an early age, TV promoting it as well as video games that children soak themselves in. There is so much more violence being bred in our society, it's frightening. Children killing children, parents killing their offspring, people attacked for race, gender, religion, and sexuality. Our vaccines are most likely experimental tests, pumping our veins and bloodstreams with concoctions. The young adults of our society are pressured with drugs and sex, doing drugs one time can ruin your life, and having sex one time with a stranger can cause a sexually contracted disease to breed inside of you. I could go on forever. So you see, there is no possible way anyone can even come HALFWAY close to even REACHING those numbers.
π: 0 β©: 2
Not to mention that fact that DNA, even when not a cancer, begins and then continues to make mistakes. The information our bodies use to live and make the next generation gains more and more 'typos'.
π: 0 β©: 1
Indeed. It's...well, it's sad, really.
π: 0 β©: 0
I couldn't agree more. Even the godliest of men have great flaws now a days. And it sounds like you pulled that out of Mathew chapter 13, or revelation, because that's pretty damn accurate.
π: 0 β©: 1
I just gave my theory, I didn't pull anything from the Bible.
π: 0 β©: 1
Well its relevant.
π: 0 β©: 0
<= Prev | | Next =>