The fear of disasters
The sun has long risen in the east. Lychee the red-haired cat was lying calmly on the grass, his eyes closed as he happily absorbed the pleasant rays of the sun. Suddenly, he thought he heard a rustling. He opened his eyes and got scared! Kim, the fearsome dog of the neighbors, stood in front of him in a springing position, drool dripping from her jaws and her eyes filled with terror. A deathly panic gripped the cat and in the blink of an eye Lychee jumped from his perch, leaped onto the nearby ficus tree and quickly climbed the highest branch he could reach. The frustrated dog had no choice but to stand under him and bark.
Lichi acted instinctively to save his life. Fear activated the natural survival mechanism inherent in him and without the need for thought or strategic planning, he fled for his life and was thus saved. After a short time, the dog left the place, while Lychee got off the tree and returned to dozing at his feet.
What is the human allowed from the cat?
Humans, unlike cats, prepare and react to dangers differently. Eve's bite of the fruit of the tree of knowledge gave mankind an intelligence that is beyond instinct. Human intelligence allows a person to learn, draw conclusions, predict future dangers and disasters, and take actions to reduce threats and increase survivability.
However, Elia and a thorn in her. Along with the advantages of human wisdom, there is also a small disadvantage - constant existential anxiety. The ability to draw conclusions and predict disasters floods the awareness of the human being with fear and endless existential anxieties from natural disasters, enemies of various kinds, diseases and more.
defensiveness
Existential anxiety invents patents for us. Being active and creative, man never stops thinking about how to defend himself against real and imagined threats. To defend against them, humans, as well as some animals, concluded that a group, headed by a leader, has more power than the individual. Belonging to a band gives an individual higher chances of survival and security. Therefore, the human beings were grouped already in the days of Genesis into families, tribes and finally into nations that created states over many years.
The power of grouping first of all increases the chances of survival but also gives economic, social and other advantages. Using the developed ability to think and their ability to preserve information through the sophisticated language and writing, humans established an army, invented, developed and produced sophisticated weapons and defenses as well as advanced economic and social measures.
A brilliant psychological solution
The fear inherent in man was and remains the main motive for his behavior and the formation of his worldview. Man invented a brilliant psychological solution to allay his fears: the belief in a higher power that can determine our destiny and the belief that that power can be influenced through rituals, prayers and various accessories. This solution is reflected in religious belief in its forms and shades. Religious belief is a very effective anxiety reliever and a means of defense against fear, but it is ethereal and uncertain.
The ruler, on the other hand, is only a person, but the members of the community believe that by virtue of his leadership and decisions, he will lead them on a safe path. Therefore, the leader also serves as a fear-monger, although less effective, but he is definitely an essential element in the conduct of the community in feeling security and minimizing fears.
the ruler
As mentioned, a community must have someone to lead it: a leader-ruler. But there is a problem with a flesh and blood ruler. Like all other human beings, the lust for accumulating power, money and respect is also inherent in a leader. Therefore, the ruler who received the power to govern, may use his power for his own benefit and at the expense of the other members of the community.
In order to curb the power given by the rulers, already in ancient Greece they invented the democratic system of government by means of which they hoped to restrain the ruler from exploiting his power to realize his personal desires at the expense of the other members of the community. The basis of the system is the principle that the ruler is chosen by the members of the community, the people, according to the will of the majority.
However, there is no time period in the election of the ruler to prevent him from taking advantage of the mandate he received from the people, and abusing his power. Therefore, the democratic societies established restraint and control mechanisms that allow limiting the power of the elected ruler in the period between elections. These mechanisms are mainly: the existence of a constitution, separation of powers and more... but mainly a free, investigative and reliable press.
The importance of the press in a democratic society is that it provides the people, the sovereign, with current information about the conduct of the ruler, the government, his achievements and his failures. This information is essential to allow every citizen in the country to make useful decisions on election day.
Mind or emotion?
How do humans tend to make decisions? It makes sense that decision-making should be intellectual and carried out based on information, knowledge of reality, analysis and drawing conclusions, but surprisingly, the studies prove that people make decisions mainly based on emotion.
When it comes to choosing a ruler it may reach a real existential risk. why?
Because unlike deciding which apartment or car to purchase, making a mistake has no lateral consequences. Maybe there will be leaks in the apartment or the car will visit the garage a lot. However, if we made a mistake in our judgment and chose a bad, corrupt ruler, who lacks the ability to manage and make decisions, his damage can be primarily to our physical and economic security, to the point of an existential risk on both the national and personal levels (increasing crime, recklessly going to unnecessary war, corrupt exploitation of the state's resources, etc. ).
Is it possible to learn to make decisions according to reason?
How can this be changed?
by education. If the democratic state invests in the education of its citizens in such a way that everyone will learn how to make informed decisions as much as possible, then the danger of making a wrong choice will be small. But even in this utopian situation where citizens will examine reality based on facts and make decisions based on them, even then, making an informed decision depends on the quality of the information that reaches them. That is, the correct decision-making process of the citizens of the country depends on the existence of a critical, investigative, free and reliable media and press.
In an age where the sources of information are the social networks, where anyone can write without control as much as they like, or the media channels controlled by the capitalists and the government, can each of us understand the reality and know how to distinguish between true information and false information? The answer is: hardly!
Candidates in elections in democratic countries may abuse this bad media reality and motivate people to make decisions based on lies.
Remember the fear? The main motive of humans? Well, in the false media reality, it is extremely easy to scare!
A black mirror - going from freedom to slavery
Now a new problem has fallen on humanity, aka artificial intelligence. It is still difficult to know what is the benefit and what is the harm in this new and fundamental technology, but one thing is clear: its contribution to the creation of a false, virtual reality is dangerous to human society.
In the reality that is emerging before our eyes, the ability to distinguish between truth and lies and virtual reality is getting farther and farther away by giant steps. Artificial intelligence, together with the lack of control over information in social networks and the media and press's obsessions, all of these constitute a real threat to the continued existence of democracies. The reality in which, in free elections, populist candidates, liars and eyewitnesses, will rise to power by the power of the free choice of decent and reasonable citizens, this reality is already here.
Do you know the British TV series "Black Mirror"? Well, all the signs indicate that human society is taking giant steps closer to the horrific reality that the series describes.
Peek - Next week: What is between populism, religious fundamentalism and artificial intelligence?
Computers are smarter than humans.
They let the humans teach them how to think like a human.
and that they will be thought of as better men than men themselves,
will use their control over its resources to exterminate the human race,
And they will create for themselves the physical body that they can use to collect the resources they need to preserve their superior intelligence in computer farms.
This will end the era of the human race and begin the era of computing machines
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The actual description is correct. The conclusions and the way to them are wrong.
Thanks for a fascinating article, indeed food for thought. Not reassuring, not encouraging but definitely laying the truth at our feet. We would like to see her - we will see. We will close our eyes - we will give up the laity
It seems that we learned nothing from October 7, the delusional left on its various branches: some of the former generals, from academia and the media are challenging themselves as to how it will be possible to overthrow a government by artificial means and not by ballot while taking advantage of the difficult situation the country and its citizens are in, especially the families of the bereaved and kidnapped, although they themselves on the left do not take responsibility For their part in the division of the people, the protests, the slander and the hatred up to 7/10, on the contrary - they seem to strengthen this line while presenting trending public opinion polls trying to influence the public and engineer consciousness.
And what exactly are you doing now in your response? The same, slander and incitement against anyone who thinks differently than you. And you…. what did you learn?
The government was elected by way of fraud, while presenting a false representation of democracy, when in reality it is trying to enforce a dictatorship in the style of Russia and Turkey. This is the reason why the government does not work to settle the differences of opinion by bringing elections. Woe to us if we allow the regime to become a dictatorship.