This probably belongs in the Lounge, since no work has been done to answer your own question besides what one might extrapolate from the video you presented (someone else's work).

How would we view ourselves as human beings? — Christoffer

My opinion is that desired properties of cream as presented (fixing anything that easily) would have destroyed human life long before a business cabal would've put a quash on it. That destruction might have taken the form of everyone evaporating into light (which could as well be a metaphor for death: a radical change from state A as a known state to state Z an unknown state).

There is a lot in that video that is hard to parse (to go from metaphor to whatever the manifold formal arguments and well worn questions might entail). Pick an aspect, write an essay, then argue points. You have to do it in the standardized way or else no one is interested.

The real cream is probably a symbol for the totality of life (the slime that weaves the whole dynamic web). Death is what dissembles that may provide avenues for new adaptations. The death of an individual is a little death but he, she, it lives on by others who are all supported by the total system. Any severe disturbance like cream might upset the balance in such a way as to eliminate humans in one fell swoop (that is just saying what the film presents to us). Cream would seep on though, facilitating whatever wills itself to continue, if there is such thing as will ( maybe a property of continuity that the cream responds to) inherent to any non-human creature.

Edit: Cream could likely be a metaphor for any technological application that radically alters the total system and the necessary politics required to conserve or progress a desirable type of life (family, community, nation, world) using some kind of cost and benefit analysis.

"If you are going to allow technologies into the market place that destroy people's jobs, it is your responsibility to find a way of replacing those jobs, or compensating those people." This is a line from Brian Cox on Joe Rogan's podcast talking about the social and economic costs of replacing middle class jobs with AI technologies. Worth thinking about.

My opinion is that desired properties of cream as presented (fixing anything that easily) would have destroyed human life long before a business cabal would've put a quash on it. That destruction might have taken the form of everyone evaporating into light (which could as well be a metaphor for death: a radical change from state A as a known state to state Z an unknown state). — Nils Loc

I think this part brings up the question of: if you had the chance to evolve beyond the existence of being human in an instant, would you do so? Some people choose to do it, but some indulge in the pleasures of being human. If you had the option between becoming evolved past humanity, or have all the pleasures of life infinitely, which path would you choose? I think the metaphor is more about infinite knowledge, the infinite perfection of yourself, in which you become so perfected in everything that there's no reason to have any values left as a human; you "leave humanity".

There is a lot in that video that is hard to parse (to go from metaphor to whatever the manifold formal arguments and well worn questions might entail). Pick an aspect, write an essay, then argue points. You have to do it in the standardized way or else no one is interested. — Nils Loc

I've rarely seen standardized arguments in first posts on this forum. In this case, however, I was more interested in a dissection of the philosophical themes presented in this piece. So it's less about an argument and more an invitation to discussion.

However, if I had to pick one thing, it's mainly the "cream" aspect of it.
If there was something that could "fix everything", what would the consequences for humanity be?

The parameters of this "cream" are:
1. It isn't anything in itself, it cannot be anything without anything else.
2. It improves everything, wherever it's applied. The improvements seem contextual to the will of the one being improved.
3. If you descent and cover yourself fully, you will improve yourself to the point where a human is evolved to its maximum form.
4. It can replicate food and resources infinitely, even itself.

Your conclusion is that it's the end of humanity because everyone would choose to evolve past humanity. I argue that there are far too many who love life as it is, who are too scared or find the pleasures you can have in this life more important.

I would say that the conclusion would be that we lose humanity, even if we are still human. If we didn't have any differences between us, if we didn't have age, ugliness etc. we would essentially lose anything that makes life worth living. We need the pain and suffering in order to be human, without it, we have no struggle, no development, no ambition and so on. We essentially just become "nothing", an existence beyond not having universal meaning, we have no meaning in our own minds, but would still value life because "cream" would make us feel it has value. But is this "cream"-induced sense of value true?

Is our sense of meaning and value in a meaningless world/universe as much of an illusion as something induced by this "cream? Like if you have a pill that would give you a sense of meaning in your life, how is that different from if you invent a meaning to your life when there isn't any external meaning at all? Where is the illusion of meaning and where is the actual meaning?

Edit: Cream could likely be a metaphor for any technological application that radically alters the total system and the necessary politics required to conserve or progress a desirable type of life (family, community, nation, world) using some kind of cost and benefit analysis. — Nils Loc

In the realm of my thoughts too. If we had the technology to almost divinely improve our lives, how would our world change?

"If you are going to allow technologies into the market place that destroy people's jobs, it is your responsibility to find a way of replacing those jobs, or compensating those people." This is a line from Brian Cox on Joe Rogan's podcast talking about the social and economic costs of replacing middle class jobs with AI technologies. Worth thinking about. — Nils Loc

This is actually one of the biggest things we are facing... which has little to no discussion within politics, unfortunately. We will have a massive unemployment-wave around the globe because of advanced automation and it could even lead to war-like scenarios. More likely than not we will see an exponential development when the cocktail-effect of many technological fields kicks in and develops tech together.

It will no longer be a question of class by the economy, but by competence and intellect. If you have a job which automation cannot easily replace you will be able to rise above others. But how would the rest of society act, the unemployed?

I'm thinking about the master/slave argument, but this time, it's the opposite. The master is the competent and the slaves are incompetent. It might create a super-class difference that would be much harder to integrate into a society for both that it may as well be what the film Elysium shows, in which the highest classes in society even leave earth entirely.

Is our sense of meaning and value in a meaningless world/universe as much of an illusion as something induced by this "cream? Like if you have a pill that would give you a sense of meaning in your life, how is that different from if you invent a meaning to your life when there isn't any external meaning at all? Where is the illusion of meaning and where is the actual meaning? — Christoffer

I just re-watched Tarkovsky's "masterpiece", Stalker. It provides nearly the same premise, as the wish-fulfilling Zone corresponds well to David Firth's Cream but is beautifully rendered (though long and meditative) as moving toward a point in space. A more recent film is also a Annihilation, which could be a curious derivative of Stalker (moving toward a point of different kind of annihilation, or revaluation of life). You might like to check them out to help extract more inspiration for working toward the philosophy of the subject.

What appears at first inquiry (curiosity or replusion) becomes on closer inspection a self-transforming or self-identifying paradox (like cream), as if we do not really understand the consequences of our own deep desiring nature (the desire to know the truth, to be or achieve XYZ, the effects of cream on interpreting our desire).

There is a scary aspect to the affirmation or belief that there is no non-human meaning, no transcendent God that is not a projection of our own being in its blind, primordial desire. Cold relativity and the unboundedness of being becomes quite stark. This is possibly what those who associate with nihilism and existentialism dream about, the absence of anything beyond the folly of our species (as ourselves), and associated feeling of despair ("this is it, the grind, sleeping and eating, it is what it is, et cetera). The more we realize the mutability and temporality of our experience the more we might realize how empty (or full) our own current state is.