democracy is based on the idea that we want others to be treated fairly

I think the last few months have more than proven that is not the case.

Democracy, in its most common implementation, is based on the idea of the tyranny of the majority. This often runs counter to the concept of treating others fairly.

People who suffer anxiety are in the minority - and they are forced to navigate a world of people who expect them to conform with their social norms.

We should just live and let live.

The invention of production lines didn’t mean that nobody appreciated hand-built cars any longer - it just meant a cheaper option was now available to more people.

The invention of phonographs, records, cd etc, didn’t mean that nobody appreciated live music anymore - it just meant that there was now a more accessible option available.

Every job in arts and engineering can, has and will be automated to some extent - it doesn’t mean the death of those industries, or a lack of appreciation for the creativity involved.

I think the real benefit comes from when the creatives use the tools to do the heavy lifting. Every new innovation sees a glut of low-effort money-saving cash-ins. After a while, however, these fall to the wayside as the people who actually have the skills take over again.

More than ten years ago, I wrote a song for my daughter. I recorded it, animated a little video, and uploaded it to youTube. I’d written several more songs for her, but had never found the time necessary to actually record the songs and create videos for them. Because of AI tools, I’ve finally been able to make significant headway on a couple of songs/videos that I’ve had rattling around in my head for years.

We’re just in a transition period. Like George Lucas’s over-reliance on CG in the prequels - although it looked pretty great at the time but now looks thoroughly artificial.

I’m not sure if the metaphor of you anthropomorphizing an inanimate object is the best one to criticize the projection of one’s own desires and wills onto a fantasy deity.

I’m not criticising.

People are welcome to follow a religion if they want to.

I know that I can no more disprove the existence of a god than prove the existence of one. I know that anybody doing something bad in the name of a god is either lying or being coerced.

Projection?

I had a car that didn’t like when the weather was cold and damp. It wasn’t too happy about being parked on a slope, either.

Did the car actually have human emotions? No, of course not, but as a human it was both easy and natural to frame and process it that way.

Instead of it simply being “God made made in his own image”, the truth is probably that there’s more than a little of “man made God in his own image” too.