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Comment by chickenfries | Hacker News Reader

> Fifty years on, the last man is here, placidly enjoying his lockdown thanks to Zoom, Netflix and Uber Eats, totally comfortable with the prospect of a future controlled by artificial intelligence and big data. Perhaps we need a modern day Mishima to shock us out of our complacency.

Is this a real person? I don’t think I know anyone unconcerned by the future, no matter how much they may distract themselves with modern convenience, as the author describes. But maybe there are people who think everything is going just fine, and I don’t know them.

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the use of the phrase 'the last man' is a nod to Nietzsche's concept: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_man . we see similar sentiments echoed elsewhere in culture, for example: the masses placated by soma in Huxley's 'Brave New World', the blue pill in the matrix, or the public medicated by cheap conveniences in Idiocracy.

the author is pointing towards a decadent and impotent cultural milieu -- "Nietzsche warned that the society of the last man could be too barren and decadent to support the growth of healthy human life or great individuals."

Search for the text "blink" on this page https://praxeology.net/zara.htm for a fuller picture. "We have discovered happiness," -- say the Last Men, and they blink.

Kind of funny, as the author is an investment banker, and therefore probably a lot more like Nietsche's Last Man than any Ubermensch, however much those self-proclaimed alphas love to see themselves as such.

It's an appropriate perspective for Japan. The country is slowly dying off as the population shrinks. Outside of Tokyo and Osaka, cities and towns are emptying out. On the way down, life is good.

I don't think we're remotely at that point yet. Anyone who has paid attention to US news at all last year can see that we've still got some ways to go before the society of the last man is realized. That said, the conditions for another Mishima to arise just aren't there despite the rise in right-wing rhetoric and violence in the past few years.

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