In practical terms, this perspective helps me to disengage from current events that don’t matter much in the long run. At my current age (55), for example, American Presidents come and go subjectively quickly, so I tend to ignore them as much as possible compared with longer-term trends like the demographic social engineering in the U.S. that bloggers like Steve Sailer write about. I also tend to ignore geek fads that will allegedly “change everything,” like Bitcoin, 3D printing and seasteading, until the beta testers beat the hell out of these innovations and we can get a more realistic view of what they can do despite what the hype and propaganda say.
If the relative (dis)value of gains or losses for society at large regress to a mean over time, why wouldn’t this trend extend to what happens to us personally? Why wouldn’t everything we observe or experience not matter as much? In a lifetime of centuries, if I see everything I now love degrade or disappear, I may also have the opportunity to grow a more nuanced love for things or persons that are more robust over time. The sting of pain at losing something loved in our first century of living may fade as its dwarfed by how deeply we feel the loss or gain of love for something greater, something that can only be appreciated in a lifetime spanning centuries.
I’m jumping on this bandwagon.
User advancedatheist wrote:
If the relative (dis)value of gains or losses for society at large regress to a mean over time, why wouldn’t this trend extend to what happens to us personally? Why wouldn’t everything we observe or experience not matter as much? In a lifetime of centuries, if I see everything I now love degrade or disappear, I may also have the opportunity to grow a more nuanced love for things or persons that are more robust over time. The sting of pain at losing something loved in our first century of living may fade as its dwarfed by how deeply we feel the loss or gain of love for something greater, something that can only be appreciated in a lifetime spanning centuries.