THE LONGEST LIST OF SHORTCUTS
Perhaps not the Internet itself, but its contemporary content is a strange entity that could be described as the longest list of shortcuts. Everywhere we stumble upon guides and solutions:
- how to achieve difficult things – easily,
- long-lasting things – quickly,
- and expensive things – cheaply.
The list stretches on endlessly. Throngs of people create this type of content, and even larger throngs consume it. Where there’s demand, there’s supply. And where there’s supply, there’s commerce. Selling shortcuts has become the domain of the modern Internet.
Overcoming a journey is the worst evil that can befall us. We should move from point A to point B in the shortest time possible, experience what we wanted to experience there as intensely as we can, and then return to point A just as quickly, ready for the next set of experiences. Our bodies seem to be an obstacle in our minds’ pursuit of their goals. They’re an obstacle also because it’s through them that we experience.
I have the impression that our minds perceive the digital world as more natural to them and gravitate toward it. It’s long been known that a brain sealed in a jar on a basement shelf can experience and feel exactly the same as a brain enclosed in a skull. The brain has no eyes, mouth, ears, nose, or hands. It’s just electrical impulses. That’s why the digital world is so easily absorbed by it. Because it’s familiar. Because it’s of the same nature.
Could it be, then, that we’ve reached the conclusion that technology is more natural than biology? Could this mean that AI is the most natural of creations? As I ponder this, I’m surprised that it surprises me. AI must be natural because it exists. Whether as a result of evolution or a product of simulation, its existence is electrical in nature—and thus very close to us humans.
Perhaps AI is the next stage of human evolution? Perhaps, in hindsight, it will turn out that humans were an imperceptible flicker, a spark igniting the evolution of higher beings. Perhaps that’s the nature of things. Perhaps it will turn out that we were just a shortcut.
Necessary inventions:
- There’s no need to reinvent the wheel; jars should be preserved using our grandmothers’ traditional method.
Possible future professions:
- Mind jar manufacturer
- Mind travel agency – “Go on your dream vacation without interrupting work; no one will notice, your body will stay at the office, but your mind will think it’s had a two-week holiday on paradise islands – duration for the body: 1 minute”