Last night we discussed the qualitative difference between the advent of the printing press and the advent of screenworld.
The benefit of screenworld is that we can sift out those other human beings who share our minority worldview (emphasizing human freedom from technocratic overreach)—but in order to find them, we (often) have to use screenworld.
This is because those who care enough are a minority. To protect the freedoms we value as spiritual rights—such as no biometric id/ mark of the beast/ body or DNA alteration to participate in society—we have to seek out and support others. And the way to find them is through screenworld.
Screenworld is the false double for the day-awake clairvoyance that ought to be developing. (The latter portion of the insight is from Steiner, but he did not call what we have at present ‘screenworld.’)
I experience distinct changes in my own consciousness as follows:
how much time I spend using computers and
being in an environment that has more or less wifi, electricity, and other generated electro-magnetic frequencies.
Time spent using computers and awash in EMF is characterized by frenetic thought, ambition, anxiety, and more-more-more. The more the computers do, the more we humans who work with them need to do. Now there are jobs as content engineers for AI; thirty years ago that would be like learning html.
It changes the work, but it has the same result: poor humans, pour your soul and spirit into the eighth sphere, and let it be the food for the intelligence which now lives there, working on incarnating itself. Do more, more, more: run more businesses, more accounts, more side hustles and AI will make it possible.
What disappears is the quiet time for reflective meditation and contemplation.
Like today and like thirty years ago, technology forces people to change jobs and skills. Humans as natural resource/ standing reserve for technology, see Heidegger. This “forcing” of changed skills is considered unacceptable by some, embraced by others. There is plenty of work for anyone who is skilled in actually making sh*t in the real world, i.e. carpentry, plumbing, electrical work, sewing, etc. Everyone I encounter who does these things well is busy: but they run their own businesses.
Perhaps we are facing a transition specialized screenworld corporate jobs will be replaced by AI.
But those who are not locked into a screenworld job will find their way.
When the written word became widely available, with less labor—post-printing press—we saw consciousness descend deeper into the material world (“the fall”). Yet, all of us humans today relish that we can buy books on demand covering virtually any topic we wish. Thirty years ago that was not possible. Last month I bought nineteen books across my obscure current topics of interest. It is incredible.
Qualitatively, how is this transition to the screenworld different? How is my typing here different than setting type? It’s different—and we will know it by the fruits.
A very interesting text that illustrates the paradigm shift and how our brains work in a given environment. The slow work of thinking has now been replaced by mechanical and repetitive settings, forcing individuals to adapt to the machine rather than control it: “Information has been broken down and segmented into tables, parameters, and attributes, creating a completely new phenomenon in the execution of formal and informal tasks. Previously, the slowness or even absence of information systems forced the operator to rely on their knowledge and analytical skills to ensure the quality of their work, and now of the product produced. Improvements in the speed of execution of systems and increases in their storage capacity have made it easier – in appearance – to carry out activities. The mental effort required to solve a complex problem has been greatly reduced by automatic and mathematical calculation. Thus, it was said, we would free up mental energy that could be put to use in analysis. Unfortunately, this did not happen. The more powerful the systems became, the more we used the mental capacity of users to configure them.”