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A review by the_dragon_starback
Capitalism and the Death Drive by Byung-Chul Han
challenging
dark
sad
4.5
This was both super cool and deeply depressing. Like, the main message was "Hey guys, we're in a destructive, hyper-capitalist system and we're heading toward a super-surveillance society that will take away all our freedom and what makes us human." Yay, right? But also there were so many lightbulb moments, so even thought it was depressing, it was nice to have confirmation that these weird things in life are actually societal problems.
This was also a lot easier to read than I thought it was going to be, so that's a plus!
...
Faithfulness and productivity are mutually exclusive. it is unfaithfulness that furthers growth and productivity.
Capitalism dislikes silence.
We live in a survival society that is ultimately based on fear of death. Today survival is absolute, as if we were in a permanent state of war. All the forces of life are being used to prolong life. A society of survival loses all sense of the good life.
Intelligence is the activity of drawing distinctions within a system. Intelligence cannot develop a new system, a new language. The mind is something altogether different from intelligence. I do not believe that a highly intelligent computer could copy the human mind. It is possible to sign a highly intelligent machine, but the machine will never invent a new language, something altogether different--that I do not believe. A machine does not have a mind. No machine can bring forth more than it has taken in. That is exactly the essence of the miracle of life: that it can bring forth more than it has taken in. That is what life is. Life is mind. In that, it differs from the machine. But when it becomes mechanical, when everything comes to be dominated by algorithms, this life comes under threat.
This was also a lot easier to read than I thought it was going to be, so that's a plus!
...
Faithfulness and productivity are mutually exclusive. it is unfaithfulness that furthers growth and productivity.
Capitalism dislikes silence.
We live in a survival society that is ultimately based on fear of death. Today survival is absolute, as if we were in a permanent state of war. All the forces of life are being used to prolong life. A society of survival loses all sense of the good life.
Intelligence is the activity of drawing distinctions within a system. Intelligence cannot develop a new system, a new language. The mind is something altogether different from intelligence. I do not believe that a highly intelligent computer could copy the human mind. It is possible to sign a highly intelligent machine, but the machine will never invent a new language, something altogether different--that I do not believe. A machine does not have a mind. No machine can bring forth more than it has taken in. That is exactly the essence of the miracle of life: that it can bring forth more than it has taken in. That is what life is. Life is mind. In that, it differs from the machine. But when it becomes mechanical, when everything comes to be dominated by algorithms, this life comes under threat.