Aesthetic Materialism

I like Adam Conover.  I've watched him since the CollegeHumor days.  He's funny, he's smart, and I agree with a lot of the stuff he's said in the past.  I'll probably agree with a lot of stuff he says in the future. But recently, he uploaded a video, "AI Existential Risk Was Invented to Distract Us" which seems pretty half-baked.   Now I don't really think that it's very likely that AI will kill everyone.  I think it's much more likely that AI enslave us or make us doglike.  (To see my list of probabilities, click here.)  That said, I don't think it's impossible that AI will kill or hurt a lot of people.  Just unlikely.  And even though it's unlikely, it's important that we take steps to make sure it doesn't happen. But Conover thinks that people like me, who are concerned about this, are just big dummies, suckers, rubes, who have had the wool pulled over our eyes.  According to Conover, we are victims of a conspiracy - a v...

  People usually associate propaganda with politics, especially movements like Bolshevism and fascism.  But the term "propaganda," which is a Latin word, was originally used by the Catholic Church, to describe texts written and mass-printed for the propagation of the faith - usually to people of different faiths, who often spoke different languages.  Propaganda has been used by a wide variety of organizations - religious groups, clubs, fraternal organizations, corporations, etc., etc.. Even so, there has been a rich history of debate about propaganda within the political realm, particularly within the world of Marxism - and this debate has a wider application for everything from the fan base of pop stars to organizations of collectors of model trains and beyond. The problem is this: on the one hand, there is theory - pure, highfalutin theory.  But theory can be very complex and difficult to understand.  So, on the other hand, there is often a countermovement to ...

  Utilitarianism is not essentialist.  But human pleasure is essentialist.  And so is human desire.  Therefore, utilitarianism misses something fundamental (indeed, essential) about human desire and pleasure.

 Fundamentally, liberals believe that everything is detachable.