Society of 2025

 By Milton Lima

15-02-2025

Consider human history. From the beginning of history as we know it, we have seen that people have been divided into communities. In an anthropology class, you may be introduced to a concept we call culture. Any history lover will tell you: Science is born along with human history.

This story is told in the books of philosophy and history. Before it was read by what is called modern man, it was read by what is called ancient man. There are those who say that it is a history that has lived the essence of art, and there are also those who believe that it is a history of politics. In fact, what there is history, and so we shouldn't assume that everything is true.

For more than a decade, I've been hearing at university that, after technology, human beings would replace man himself with a machine. It would be normal for us to live with robots. I haven't believed it since I learned that men lie. What I heard in college would give me something to talk about decades later.  The machine is a substitute for the word human; its defenders want us all to be transhuman.

Stealing knowledge

It doesn't matter if they want to put chips in us or send us to Mars, what matters is that many of our brothers and sisters in the human race have unfortunately bought into the idea of Orwell's 1984 world.

If you ask a child in Brazil, where I live, or anywhere in the world, who Prometheus was, or about the myth of stealing fire to give knowledge to mankind, they might give a sad answer. It would, I don't know.

We know that the modern world is very connected to technology, but between the knowledge of artificial intelligence, with very fast calculations and any answer to our questions, there is a living desert around human beings. They don't bother to sell that the machine will solve our problems, problems created by humans themselves. Maybe, if we don't believe in human beings, the solution will be to colonize another planet. 

Stupidly programmed

There are many examples. Let's take events around the world. When the United Kingdom left the European Union, Brexit, people had to vote. In a world dominated by technology, Cambridge Analytica influenced the outcome. The example is simple: algorithms control and monitor our every move, and we live as if it doesn't matter.

“Neanderthal man was hardly what we should call human today but he was capable of shaping stone, and that makes us count him among the true hominids. What distinguished the early types was their upright stance. It led to the greater importance of sight over smell. The last of these man-like creatures, the Neanderthalers, were everywhere in Europe and western Asia”. JAMES K. FEIBLEMAN

To understand civilizations in the form of history, Feibleman looked to the history of civilizations to provide a rationale for understanding our history. In the book he writes about Hesiod, Plato, St. Augustine, Vico, Hegel, Marx, and others. And the philosophy or history book simply represents the very meaning of philosophy, the art of knowing.

It doesn't matter if you know these authors, because now the programmed system offers you the possibility in the market not to think, the system thinks for you. There is a real problem in the virtual world. We forget our humanity. There is no empathy on the web, what they want is to level everyone down to mediocrity. 

It doesn't matter what the market says about machines replacing humans. They can fool the majority with the illusion that they can think for you and thus choose the best for your life. They can sell the best of the human condition in the life of immediate desire, of momentary pleasure, but they can't paint the picture of a happy life. Our society is anxious, it is depressed, our society is sick. And the machine asks you on social media, what are you thinking?

So I would say nothing, thank you very much!