Comment by heresie-dabord
6 months ago
The A.I. economic bubble is a mad scramble to ride the crest of a wave of stock-pumping expectations before the inevitable collapse and dump. Trillions of dollars of "value" from bloviating promises. It's worthy of a new chapter in Mackay's Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. [1]
> religious impulses don't die with the withering of religion
Religions have of course come and gone throughout human history. The preceding deities, temples, and artwork are called mythology by people inside today's temples of fervour.
But let's be clear, disparate local tribal practices and beliefs are only formalised by a power structure for the masked purposes of the power structure.
What springs eternal is the maintenance of control in political and tribal hierarchies.
> A desire for a totalizing solution to all woes
The fact that our species exhibits astonishing credulity is illustrated throughout history to the present day, not just in religious activities but in every context of economic scams and demagoguery.
[1] _ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_Popular_Delusion...
The thing about bubbles is that it's devilishly difficult to tell the difference between a total sham and a genuine regime shift while it's happening because the hype level is similar for both.
Sure, it certainly could be difficult. But this is often because of information assymetry — the purveyors are making big claims about the dragon in their garage. [1]
If your intuition told you that there ought to be some evidence for grand claims, you would be right to be suspicious of the continuing absence of suitable evidence.
[1] _ http://people.whitman.edu/~herbrawt/classes/110/Sagan.pdf