>>214924>>214934You need to make the point that the primitive society advocated by Ted is better than what we have now. Again, he was fully aware that millions of people would die and suffer without technology (both during and after a supposed anti-tech revolution). How is this better that what we have now?
Let's take your arguments about antidepressants for example.
First, antidepressant use is a poor proxy for depression rate. Consumption of antidepressant depends of a lot of factors, the first of them is being a first-world country: obviously poorer countries have less healthcare! Yet, when you look at happiness indicators, rich countries always top the charts. This isn't the only factor, but it's a required one. Primitive societes would obviously have a 0% antidepressant use because the tech to make them whould be abolished. This wouldn't be evidence that people are happier in a primitive society.
Second, 40% looks bad (assuming your number is accurate - I couldn't find a source), however it is a stretch to assume those 40% would be better off in a primitive society. It's highly doubtful, actually. If anything, Ted makes the case that these people should die.
The stress created from famine, predators, diseases, rival human groups who also want to survive, and the whims of Nature in general, is a bad recipe for happiness. This is a nirvana fallacy: just because current technological societies have defects doesn't mean eliminating it won't make things worse in other areas.
Third, you also need to take survival bias into account. The 40% depressant users in the US would probably be dead in awful circumstances in a primitive society.
And this is only about the happiness argument. But there are even more fundamental needs like food, health, shelter, etc. which even more people are going to lack in a primitive society.
It is highly hypocritical for a wiz to be a scumabomber fan. Most of us would like to consider ourselves as entirely self-sufficient, but it is thanks to normie society that we are alive today. It is thanks to the Internet, a worldwide infrastructure that takes the effort and coordination of millions of people to maintain, that we can discuss this fucker here. Even he wasn't totally self-sufficient since he used scavenged tools and materials. Only feral children can be called self-sufficient, and this is not an enviable life.
Our societies suck, we all agree on that, but there is still enough room for change in the current paradigm of technological modernity.
>You need to find a way to argue that living in servile dependence is better philosophically and ethically than living in a maximally engaged and vital wayIt is hard to make someone change political leanings, as our values depend of our goals, interests, experiences, and personnality, not high philosophical considerations contrary to what we - and that includes you, me, and Ted - like to tell ourselves.
Therefore I probably can't persuade you. Best I can do is try to offer some arguments which may be appealing to you as a wiz with diabetes, but I probably can't.
What I know however is that I absolutely NEED technology and would be even more suicidal (and likely already dead) without it. My life would suck even more without vidya, anime, etc…
What I also know is YOU still have the freedom to kys when you're ready, while I wouldn't have the freedom to enjoy technology under a primitive society.
In fact, I am at the extreme opposite to scumabomber: I am a transhumanist. I support a radical transformation of the human species itself to make everyone equally strong, intelligent, happy, pretty, etc…