The Thoughts of We

Is the current trend of creating virtual worlds that are populated by millions of people all operating at the same speed, do computers experience burnout? In a world of constant change Barbara Benagh contends that everyone is living in an illusion and is slowly shrinking away. This is not just a matter of personal opinion; she has conducted extensive research on over one hundred thousand people and a half hundred burnout cases. Barbara Benagh studied the effects of this trend on work and relationships among professionals. What she found is that while we think we are in control, in fact we are actually very much out of sync with our personal and professional lives.

With technology constantly growing and advancing, many people are left wondering, do computers experience burnout? Barbara Benagh suggests that we look at things from a different perspective and that we realize that it’s not just the programmers and designers that are changing the way we live, but that we’re all changing the way we perceive life through what we choose to do and experience. One of the ways we do this, as suggested by Barbara Benagh is that we all tend to become isolated, and our world shrinks as we go further away from others.

The Singularity Institute believes that the Singularity is already here and will be here longer than our human lifetimes. Many people are afraid of being left behind, but according to Barbara Benagh “by leaving ourselves behind, we leave behind a whole language and culture, a whole set of memories and experiences, which make us what we are”. As humans move closer to the singularity, we begin to lose our sense of self. We become more one with everything, and everything in us and on us. This process accelerates as we move away from this stage, but Barbara Benagh cautions “We can’t slow down, we can’t stop the expansion. It’s in all of us.”