Created at 261023 # [Anonymous feedback](https://www.admonymous.co/louis030195) # [[Epistemic status]] #shower-thought Last modified date: 261023 Commit: 0 # Related - [[The Matrix is reality]] - [[Why The Matrix Is Not Worse Than Reality]] # 261023 81810 The Matrix is reality A few years ago, I wrote some notes about the idea that we are already living in a version of 'The Matrix'. My thinking has evolved since then, influenced in part by the algorithms that drive a significant portion of human thought processes. Consider LinkedIn. If you don't block the feed, your brain starts to relinquish its "free will" and goes into autopilot, absorbing the inputs from the feed. I estimate that human brains are now, on average, in this autopilot mode for about 5 hours a day, up from maybe 3 hours a few years ago. Whether this is harmful to society or not depends on your philosophy. I suspect that the content most likely to engage our basic needs will be prioritized by most algorithms. This includes content related to sex, food, politics, and violence. As a result, we're being conditioned to consume more primitive content. If your philosophy is to accelerate humanity's transition to a multi-planetary species, then our current algorithms are far from optimal. On a related note, [[Bryan Johnson]] discusses the concept of the [[Autonomous Body]], which involves putting our [[Health|health]] on autopilot, driven by an algorithm, and removing our free will from all health-related decisions. While this sounds good in theory (especially to optimize the aforementioned philosophy), it's challenging to implement in practice due to cultural factors, evolutionary constraints (eating is primarily a social activity, and our [[Raindrop/Public/Monkey brain|Monkey brain]] presents a significant bottleneck), the high cost of tracking numerous biomarkers, and the question of whether it's a better business model than making people sick and stupid.