Musings #1: We Fear What We Do Not Know-Part 1

Even if we do know about it

This post falls under the Cultural Anthropology field

Fear. It’s a complex motherfucker, fo’ sure. It can drive us to create, destroy, help, and abandon anything and everything.

Fear can make us believe that something is beautiful out of a sense of survival. Fear can make us hate that same thing for whatever reasons. Fear is a powerful, powerful tool that humans have harnessed in various ways.

Fear is a powerful tool for propaganda. Fear can also inspire a work of art-whether it be writing, song, painting, drawing (traditional, digital, combo), weaving a tapestry, etc.

Our non-humanoid friends that we share this planet with are quite adept to fleeing out of fear first, only to turn around and attack to protect themselves. The opposite is also true: They will attack first and then if they’re not dead, they’ll run away. If they’re cats, some will be sure to add a hiss before running off.

I was partly inspired to write this piece about fear from a late-night conversation with my partner, and also from seeing comments in Notes about A.I., as well as thinking about what I’ve seen and experienced by being on other socials (Facebook, That Former Twitter Site, Instagram, etc.). At multiple points in our lives, we’ve all witnessed fear being brought out on these platforms.

In addition to my internal reaction of, “Motherfuckers, what the hell?!?” and “Good lord, people!” as well as “What if it’s true and the robots really do take over?” to “Time to get off of this site for a while!”, I found myself asking, “Why?”

Why are we so prone to fear even in this modern age? What makes us fearful? How, despite all of our achievements as a species, are we still afraid? Afraid of what, of whom?

Afraid that everything we’ve worked so hard to build will come crashing down on us? My friends, you can sleep well remembering this: We do this shit everyday/month/year/century/millenium. Some people would call it self-sabatoge on both an epic and individual scale.

We can’t seem to help ourselves.

Here are some posts that I’ve seen on this marvelous platform about A.I.:
First up, we have our resident and fantabulous Sneaky Artist,

Nishant Jain

, who wrote this insightful jewel about A.I. and art:

Art and Artificial Intelligence

Then there is this entertaining jewel written by the fantabulous

Alex Dobrenko`

(who, if it isn’t obvious enough, clearly has had enough of the fearmongering. Also, R.I.P. Jeaves! /cry. Also, the term Hysteria¹ can go fuck itself!). Also, I would encourage the listening of Enya’s classic song, Only Time, to be played while reading this:

can everyone kindly shut the fuck up about AI

Now, we also can’t leave out the voices that can show how A.I. (there, Alex, happy?) would also be good for humanity and helpful. For that voice, we have

Jagger Waters

who wrote this thought-provoking jewel-so thought provoking that at the time I read her article, I was inspired to write my own thoughts in a note-tice:

What We Fear: There are many worries that A.I. “art” will take over from human art. I admit, that I actually like some of the A.I. art that I’ve seen…but I also know that it cannot replace the creative spirit of an artist, whether they are traditional (as I tend to be), digital (something that I would like to dabble in one day), or both…

What We Know: …but we must remember that A.I. is still generated by a computer built by humans. Do some of these humans think that A.I. is the next “evolution” of humanity? Yes. Does Hollywood like to make it seem like this will be a reality in the near future? Yes. But so far, we’ve gone past many of the years that apparently people thought we’d be taken over by artificial intelligence, a species from another planet, and robots.

My Thoughts of Zen: I remember one of my Junior High teachers saying that back when she was growing up, everyone thought we would be living like The Jetsons by the time it was the Year 2000. I remember her saying this around Year 2002, two-ish years into the New Millenium. We weren’t living like The Jetsons then, and we certainly aren’t living like them now, although those Smart Watches sure are bringing us closer! And as far as we all know, time travel hasn’t been invented yet in the future (in either the traditional form as we know it or the Warehouse 13 form), or if it has been invented in the future already, there are many limitation and consequences so severe that not even the most insane person/evolved being would break them, which is why our fears about A.I. and other things that our wonderful imaginations like to think into existence have not come to pass currently, yet, or possibly ever.

Who knows? Only time.²

I will leave you with this:

I don’t know if Sir Newton actually said this, but I think it’s still a good saying

---

Dear Fellow Musers:

I wanted to make this post a bit longer, but due to exhaustion from having no a/c at my day job (we do have fans but it’s not the same), doing UberEats, and just feeling tired, I have not been able to give this article-essay the attention that it deserves for a 10 minute read. So I will be releasing it in three parts, with the intention of keeping the other two parts short as well. It’s also been an adjustment for me to write shorter pieces that aren’t going into Artist’s Corner.

Part 1: A.I. I wanted it to be the first topic mainly because it’s been a hot topic lately. Part 2 will be about social media, while Part 3 will be about general fears (such as change-moving to a new place away from what and who one knows comes to mind for me, or how people may perceive each other).

As far as my day job is concerned, I’m told that the a/c should hopefully be fixed by September. To be clear, I’m not suffering heat exhaustion, I’m just tired each day from working in the building I’m in and have to rest before getting other things done. And I’m sure my co-workers also feel the same for themselves. Once the a/c problem is fixed, or the weather gets cooler to where we don’t have to worry about the a/c at work, I will be able to make time to get Eats done sooner, some studying done, and also be able to be back in my happy mind space of writing here on Substack and interacting more with the lovely humans on this platform much more often because I will not be tired from heat.

Lastly, there will be a new Shout Out post on Saturday with two exciting announcements!

As always, thank you Fellow Musers for your patience. I truly appreciate all of you!

Carpe Diem and Huzzah!
~Kimber, Salem, and Nalia

Happy with your free sub, and monthly/yearly really isn’t in the budget but you’d still like to give a monetary tip? Clickety-tappity-samashty on the link below to my Ko-Fi page, where you can give a tip starting at $5-it can be one time or as many times as you’d like to come back to! Either way

1. I was in the E.R. a few years ago and accused of being hysterical by a female nurse. Mind you, I was having severe back pain and could barely put together any sentences, let alone FUCKING BREATHE. I’ll write about it one day, but my point is: the word Hysteria (and hysterical in the Hysteria sense) needs to be put in the Museum of No Longer Relevant Words, and done away with. I’m sure that we can come up with a better description of a female person when they’re crying out in pain and need medical attention sometime before the 22nd century!

2. Artist: Enya, Song: Only Time