Thread by @NomeDaBarbarian

Dreaming of a transhumanist future where my brain can be augmented, where I can have extra processing power, and where my executive function could be a program that talks to me.

An accessible transhumanist future. Something that becomes as common as glasses.

I've got no interoception - so if my augment keeps track of my caloric needs, and tells me "hey, two more bites and you're good," and I can just trust it?

If it lets me know when I should sleep?

Wakes me with an alarm I can't snooze?

God, the fantasy.

I'd name mine Hugin.

"what if someone hacks your brain"

yeah, that's the point

me

i want to hack my brain

this shit isn't optimized

w i r e m e u p

Oh, exactly, yeah. That's the thing - money lets you buy the hours of another person's life.

If you can pay someone to do X for you that you would otherwise have to do yourself, it means that you have extra time in your day. Extra energy. Extra ability.

https://twitter.com/CraniumSquirrel/status/1348892047407771648

One of the biggest lies we get told is that everyone has the same 24 hours in a day.

If you have... let's say, a maid, who comes over and cleans - you're not only buying more time in your own day, you're taking it out of hers.

It's not like you pay for her bus ride, after all.

If money was just serving as a third good - you had put in X labor at this point, and you were exchanging it for equivalent labor at this other point - it wouldn't be a problem.

But in the system as we have it, rich folks' money makes money.

They brag about it.

That means that they labor far less, AND are able to buy our labor to augment their days.

They have more hours in the day. More days in the year.

Part of my fantasy is everyone having that. Automation, in everyone's hands.

Let's automate my executive function. Fuck yeah.

Imagine having a brain that told you what project to work on next.

I have no problem with us organizing our labor as a society - I'd rather cook than do most other jobs, and if I'm cooking for fifty people, then I'm doing useful labor and nobody else has to spend their time cooking.

The problem isn't having a cleaner;

https://twitter.com/PollyAndry/status/1348894994229207041?s=20

It's when someone has enough wealth (which isn't tied to their labor, but to their wealth making more wealth) to afford a lifestyle that the people they're relying on can't maintain.

Cleaners, cooks, gardeners, au pairs - if they're able to live a quality life, great.

If they're servants in all but name, though - less great.

And the divide isn't that high up the chain, either.

When I compare my own work in a kitchen vs. an office, in a kitchen I worked easily twice as hard, for about half the pay and none of the benefits.

I'm not okay with us having folks working full time and still in poverty.

(I'm also broadly not okay with us having poverty, but that's a bigger issue)

That means that an office worker who stops by Burger King on their way home is taking part in that tradeoff - they're relying on someone else being unable to trade their labor for anything like equivalent value, to get extra time in their own day.

Participation is culpability.

That's what makes it our collective responsibility to fix this, because we're collectively benefiting.

anyway i want a brain robot