Last weekend I received a series of death threats from a very old friend. Some of you may remember a post I made a few months ago about Elon Musk’s Neuralink. Well, that post scared him pretty bad, because of Skynet and stuff, and I did not realize how it had affected him. Then last week I made a joke in favor of certain artificial intelligence technologies and he sent me the death threats in audio form that you can watch in this YouTube video.
There’s three things I want to talk about:
- This is real hate. He is talking about a war between technology enthusiasts and naturalists. This is reminding me that we should be addressing hateful attitudes at their core, and treating all of it equally, instead of only addressing it for protected categories. Technology enthusiasts and space-nerds are people too. This kind of hate can ultimately be just as hurtful as race and gender based hate.
- I’ve decided to make a commitment to myself that I meet these kinds of things head on. I will not give in to bullies and I will call them out when I see them. I have been doing a very poor job of this the last year or so and need to make a change. That’s why I’m posting this instead of letting it fester.
- I have been saying for a long time that the mental health consequences of the lockdown will outweigh the disease-preventing benefits. There is a serious mental health crisis that is causing more actual human suffering than the coronavirus. This is how this guy chose to end a nearly quarter-century of friendship. What’s even crazier is that this event doesn’t even make the top 3 craziest and most upsetting things that’s happened to me this last month.