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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 06/14/2014 02:39 PM, Anders Sandberg
wrote:<br>
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<blockquote cite="mid:2622074498-15648@secure.ericade.net"
type="cite">
<div><span data-mailaddress="pharos@gmail.com"
data-contactname="BillK" class="clickable"><span
title="pharos@gmail.com">BillK</span><span class="detail">
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:pharos@gmail.com"><pharos@gmail.com></a></span></span> , 14/6/2014 4:49 PM:<br>
<blockquote class="mori" style="margin:0 0 0
.8ex;border-left:2px blue solid;padding-left:1ex;">How much of
life is housekeeping?
<br>
i.e. just surviving can take up a lot of time and resources.
<br>
<br>
Possibly it is only in fairly recent times that humans have
had the
<br>
luxury of spare time to wonder about the meaning of life. Even
now I
<br>
suspect a quite small percentage have this luxury.
</blockquote>
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<div><br>
</div>
<div>Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a good approximation:
meaning-searching mainly happens when we got survival, safety,
and social network fixed. We certainly have moments when we
think even when scrounging for food or trying to impress people,
but active pursuit of deep meaning is a bit of a luxury. Of
course, really religious people actually skip the other parts to
focus on the things they think are important, becoming monks and
whatnot. <br>
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</blockquote>
<br>
What worries me is being given or driven by externalities for too
long, so long one forgets or never really knows what one *really*
wants or doesn't believe it is remotely possible to get any such
thing. We are told to "be sensible", to "go along to get along".
We get stuck in our routines and "responsibilities" or what we feel
we "have to" do for so many years that we forget what we want to do
or even what that might be or how to find it. <br>
<br>
You see it in retirees a lot. The routines of education, family,
job have kept them busy for decades. When the job is done and the
children have grown up and perhaps the life partner died or has
left, many a person feels utterly lost. They have forgotten what it
is to want to do anything just because they want to do it. <br>
<br>
As and if we reach ever greater abundance, more than enough to
fulfill all the needs and many of the desires of everyone with a
fraction of productive capacity regardless of where they have a job
or not, more and more people will be in the situation of the
retiree. Left with very little they have to do, little routine they
need to follow. They will need to find what they want to do and
enjoy doing - perhaps for the first time in their adult lives.<br>
<br>
I worry a bit about the scene in the Matrix when Agent Smith says
that the first matrix was a paradise of everything humans had said
they wanted from a utopia. Humans suicided by the hundreds of
millions. <br>
<br>
- samantha<br>
<br>
<br>
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