FADE TO GOLD
by Loy Carlos
THE AGE OF CERTAINTY
We now live in a world so obsessed with profit, not just profit but exorbitant profit, that nothing we do is simply for the sake of doing it. Medical practices now are run by businesses. It’s no longer about how many patients are healed and diseases cured, it’s about how many are seen and how often. In the U.S., patients spend hours in the waiting room and minutes actually being seen by the doctor. But you always come out with a referral to another doctor in the same practice, and a schedule to see the same doctor again within a few weeks or couple of months.
CEOs are paid not by how well the companies they run actually produce the products or provide the services they are supposed to do. They are rewarded for how much money they make the stockholders who may not live anywhere near where the companies are based or are operating in. No one gets to look the workforce in the eye and feel the responsibility of making sure that they and their families are well cared for. The legacy firms are dying. A new age of entrepreneurship is being heralded, yet no one seems to know what this really means.
We are told that the world is changing. Artificial Intelligence will propel humanity into a future so unimaginable to many except for those within the industry. If you do not quite get the importance of such a giant and consequential leap, alas, you may belong to a generation headed for certain obsolescence. AI will find cures to diseases. It will allow us to travel the universe. It will solve the most complex problems. There is talk that the next generations of humans may never have to work a day in their lives. They will then be able to spend their whole lives doing whatever it is they are passionate about. More TikTok?
Which brings us back to legacy. There is a group of multibillionaires leading all of us into the future obsessed with their own legacy. They are digital colonialists with dreams of conquering the world, not in terms of land, but in terms of our collective minds. The drive is in accumulating as much wealth and power as possible. Regardless of the cost. Regardless of the harm. Their idea of legacy is corrupted. Where people before desired good legacy, these just desire any kind of legacy. For them, it is better to be hated than to be forgotten. Hence, they are doing their best to inscribe their place in human history, even with blood.
Their names are ubiquitous. This is done in order to remind us that our very existence is a favor they grant. Indeed, I have had conversations with people in the field who claim that very soon, the existence of humans as we know it will cease, and that a new kind of half cyborg, half human will more likely be the next evolution of the human race. All of this is said with no hint of sadness or even irony. On the contrary, the cessation of humans as we know it is being embraced with utter glee and excitement.disastrous, potential and practical consequences of their diabolical ambitions.What fools we are! In our animalistic, covetous desire for legacy, we have confused one of the main qualities that makes a human being. It is not passion alone that makes what we do significant. It’s the compassion with which we do it.
When we talk about passionate teachers, what we really mean are compassionate teachers who are dedicated to enriching students’ lives through education. When we speak of passionate doctors, we really refer to physicians and researchers who are committed to healing and curing diseases. When we talk about passionate artists, we mean creators of art that resonate with us. Works that move us. Literature that allows us to see the universality of the human experience.
Sometimes I feel that some people desire to live in a comic book or video game world where villains exercise much power. I am not certain that these titans understand the real, irreversible, disastrous, potential and practical consequences of their diabolical ambitions.
The most dangerous quality they share is their certainty. No one can tell them anything they are not willing to hear, because it doesn’t fit the story they tell themselves. It’s the same danger we face with influencers. Their certainty allows them to sell things and ideas with absolutely no regard for the harm they can do, or even in verifying the truth in any of the claims they make. They believe it, therefore it is so.
At this stage in my life, I know that people probably find my thoughts less coherent. My positions on things are less rigid compared to my youth when I was unmoving. Now I’m preoccupied with nuances and degrees. I find myself constantly challenging concepts I’ve long believed in. I frequently end a thought with, “Is that true or am I making it up?” When you think you’ve done all the right things, but your world gets turned upside down anyway, certainty becomes elusive. I realize there is so much of life and the world I may never know and of which I have no control. The truth is, we are always in the middle of things. And we always have little sense of where things begin and where things may end.
Continue
FADE TO GOLD
by Loy Carlos
THE AGE OF CERTAINTY
We now live in a world so obsessed with profit, not just profit but exorbitant profit, that nothing we do is simply for the sake of doing it. Medical practices now are run by businesses. It’s no longer about how many patients are healed and diseases cured, it’s about how many are seen and how often. In the U.S., patients spend hours in the waiting room and minutes actually being seen by the doctor. But you always come out with a referral to another doctor in the same practice, and a schedule to see the same doctor again within a few weeks or couple of months.
CEOs are paid not by how well the companies they run actually produce the products or provide the services they are supposed to do. They are rewarded for how much money they make the stockholders who may not live anywhere near where the companies are based or are operating in. No one gets to look the workforce in the eye and feel the responsibility of making sure that they and their families are well cared for. The legacy firms are dying. A new age of entrepreneurship is being heralded, yet no one seems to know what this really means.
We are told that the world is changing. Artificial Intelligence will propel humanity into a future so unimaginable to many except for those within the industry. If you do not quite get the importance of such a giant and consequential leap, alas, you may belong to a generation headed for certain obsolescence. AI will find cures to diseases. It will allow us to travel the universe. It will solve the most complex problems. There is talk that the next generations of humans may never have to work a day in their lives. They will then be able to spend their whole lives doing whatever it is they are passionate about. More TikTok?
Which brings us back to legacy. There is a group of multibillionaires leading all of us into the future obsessed with their own legacy. They are digital colonialists with dreams of conquering the world, not in terms of land, but in terms of our collective minds. The drive is in accumulating as much wealth and power as possible. Regardless of the cost. Regardless of the harm. Their idea of legacy is corrupted. Where people before desired good legacy, these just desire any kind of legacy. For them, it is better to be hated than to be forgotten. Hence, they are doing their best to inscribe their place in human history, even with blood.
Their names are ubiquitous. This is done in order to remind us that our very existence is a favor they grant. Indeed, I have had conversations with people in the field who claim that very soon, the existence of humans as we know it will cease, and that a new kind of half cyborg, half human will more likely be the next evolution of the human race. All of this is said with no hint of sadness or even irony. On the contrary, the cessation of humans as we know it is being embraced with utter glee and excitement.disastrous, potential and practical consequences of their diabolical ambitions.What fools we are! In our animalistic, covetous desire for legacy, we have confused one of the main qualities that makes a human being. It is not passion alone that makes what we do significant. It’s the compassion with which we do it.
When we talk about passionate teachers, what we really mean are compassionate teachers who are dedicated to enriching students’ lives through education. When we speak of passionate doctors, we really refer to physicians and researchers who are committed to healing and curing diseases. When we talk about passionate artists, we mean creators of art that resonate with us. Works that move us. Literature that allows us to see the universality of the human experience.
Sometimes I feel that some people desire to live in a comic book or video game world where villains exercise much power. I am not certain that these titans understand the real, irreversible, disastrous, potential and practical consequences of their diabolical ambitions.
The most dangerous quality they share is their certainty. No one can tell them anything they are not willing to hear, because it doesn’t fit the story they tell themselves. It’s the same danger we face with influencers. Their certainty allows them to sell things and ideas with absolutely no regard for the harm they can do, or even in verifying the truth in any of the claims they make. They believe it, therefore it is so.
At this stage in my life, I know that people probably find my thoughts less coherent. My positions on things are less rigid compared to my youth when I was unmoving. Now I’m preoccupied with nuances and degrees. I find myself constantly challenging concepts I’ve long believed in. I frequently end a thought with, “Is that true or am I making it up?” When you think you’ve done all the right things, but your world gets turned upside down anyway, certainty becomes elusive. I realize there is so much of life and the world I may never know and of which I have no control. The truth is, we are always in the middle of things. And we always have little sense of where things begin and where things may end.
Continue
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© Classiques Modernes All Rights Reserved
