I am a person.
August 29, 2017
Lately I have been struggling with a kind of contradiction and it has been effecting my mental health.
After learning about; cogntive biases, the 2008 finincial collapse, the haves and have-nots in third world countries, Trump, Exxon Mobil’s doubt campaign, homeopathy, … it seems obvious that people are myopic, selfish, and willfully ignorant. Even worse, it seems unlikely we can change this ourselves. It was hardwired into us by evolution.
I love the idea of improving myself and humanity as a whole. Currently, my favourite approach to fixing our thought processes is brain-uploading. After we upload, it could give us the ability to tinker with our own brains; removing out-of-date heuristics and even adding some new capabilities. However, in the mean time the problem remains.
I often find myself lamenting others lack of control over themselves and disliking myself because I am no better. I am just another human, who has inherited all the unfortunate traits of our shared evolutionary past. Over-confidence, irrationality, xenophobia, powerlust, wishful thinking…
Disliking the way we (humans) think is what drives me to want to improve us, but it also means I often dislike myself. I find this hard.