Once upon a time, is how great stories begin. You heard this one, many years ago. Rest awhile and I will remind you of the path of the hearth
fire. The hearth fire is the place where great stories are told and
heard. Grandparents and the very young ones get to sit closest to
the fire because that is fair and proper and that is where they were when the
first heard about the path of the hearth fire. You remember Pythagoras. He was a school teacher. He learned
at the hearth fire, back in the day. He also saw that three joined lines could
make a triangle and the triangle was a thing of divine beauty. Socrates sat the feet of Pythagoras and learned of that
divine beauty while looking into the blazing warmth of that hearth fire. Plato sat as the feet of Socrates and the blazing hearth
fire warmed them on their coldest and darkest nights. Aristotle sat at the feet of Socrates and saw, in the blazing
fire, the coarse wood transmogrify to the brightest light. And Aristotle felt
his soul in that light. Aristotle watched the blazing light of the hearth fire warm
the souls around him. Aristotle watched how each and every soul around the hearth
fire glowed warmly from the blazing light. The old souls, the tiny souls, the
black, brown, white and yellow souls,
all warmed by the hearth fire. Later on, when declarations and constitutions were being
written around the world, Aristotle’s astute and kindly observations about all
souls informed the words of those writing founders. From time to time, sitting regally close to the hearth fire,
were beautiful women from the town of Delphi. The women were the Oracle. The
Oracle learned about souls from Aristotle and prophesised about every aspect of
civic life. The counsel of the Oracle was valued so highly that no important
decision was ever made without her. The declarations and the constitutions recognised that each
and every soul was divine and that in the same way that the coarse and often gnarled
logs would turn to useful blazing warmth and light and to fine ashes and dust,
so too all souls would transform around the hearth fire. Today the hearth fire is still blazing. Come and sit with me
and I will show you where Pythagoras was when he studied the triangle and where
Aristotle was when he saw all the souls. You get to sit at the hearth for only
a short time but you get to sit right where those great ones sat. The light of the hearth fire is a great place to study the wise
ones. Learn about the divine beauty of geometry and see that divine beauty in
all souls around you. Be inspired by the great ones and the wise ones. They have spent
more time around the hearth fire than you. Gather your own wood to put on the hearth fire so that you
can warm the young ones and the old ones, the black, brown, white and yellow
ones. Every time the hearth fire was blazing, the wise ones spoke
about the Tree of Life. Have you seen the way the tail of a horse is plaited ?
There are three strands and they fold over each other. The Tree of Life is like
that. It’s a very old Tree that has three branches. Learn about that Tree of Life because the wise ones have
stored their knowledge there. Learn about the branches on that Tree of Life.
There is a left branch and a right branch and a middle branch. Uncle Jordan speaks of chaos and order. The Tree uses the
words mercy and severity to describe the same realms. Uncle Iain McGilchrist speaks of the Master and the Emissary.
Uncle Iain speaks of your corpus callosum. Learn about that. It is the middle branch.
The Tree of Life calls the middle one Equilibrium. It is between the left and
the right. The wise ones at the hearth fire speak of walking the path
of the hearth fire. The path is the middle branch. A bit like Goldilock’s
porridge. Not too hot and not too cold. Not too much Mercy and not too much
Severity. Not too much chaos and not too much order. Not too much Emissary and not
too much Master. Not too much of the left and not too much of the right. The wise ones say that the Tree of Life is inside of you and
inside of your head and all around you and above you and below you. Learn from the
wise ones how the left and the right and the middle branches need each other
and have always needed each other and will always need each other. For ever and
ever.
If you pay attention to current events, then you already know that former NFL running back and actor O.J. Simpson died yesterday. After hearing about his passing, I immediately reflected upon the 'Trial of the Century' that occurred during the 1990's in which Simpson was found to be not guilty of murdering his wife Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman. I remember how divided America was at that time between those who thought that he was guilty and those who thought that he was innocent. The polls at that time encapsulated how this trial caught the attention of the country and how this trial caused everyone to see how different aspects of society affected the entire culture. If this trial caused so much division throughout the country, then imagine how much conflict will occur in the hush money trial against former US President Donald Trump that will begin on Monday, April 15. This trial will be the first trial in American history in which a former President will be the defendant in a criminal trial. This trial will be ongoing while former President Trump will be campaigning in an attempt to be elected again in the General Election in November. This hush money trial is happening because the money paid to adult film star Stormy Daniels allowed for Trump to become President in 2016. Almost 2 out of every 3 registered voters view this trial as being somewhat serious. Trump's ardent supporters could be driven off of the deep end once again if he is convicted in this trial. We all remember how his supporters fervently showed up at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. If his supporters had better organization, then members of Congress could have been killed on that day. Better organization from his supporters has the country on edge if Trump is convicted or if Trump loses the General Election in November because many people could die if another Civil War breaks out later this year. Around 620,000 people died in the first and only Civil War from 1861-1865. Hollywood is already capitalizing on this possible scenario with the movie 'Civil War' showing in theaters all over the country now. However, there is one scenario that the masses are not even thinking about the possibility that the stress of the hush money trial will put a tremendous toll upon the health of former President Trump. His health is sort of an issue now because during His Presidency he almost lost his eyesight when he stared at the eclipse in 2017, he had a colonoscopy done in 2019, and he was hospitalized for several days due to COVID complications in 2020. The stress of this trial could put Trump in a state of health in which he would have to suspend his Presidential campaign. If he has to suspend his campaign, then Trump supporters would riot. The events of this impending Civil War would ensure that we would not able to pass down the excellency of this nation to those that will be around towards the end of this century.
The 19th century was that in which leading intellectuals proclaimed the death of God, and the 20th that in which the common man lived out this proclamation. At the first quarter mark of the 21st, it is now clear that ours will be the century in which God arises from the grave once more. From Elon Musk to Joe Rogan, Jordan Peterson to Russel Brand, thoughtful leaders of today, even if often unable to personally find faith in the traditional sense, have yet remarked with striking frequency on the apparent necessity of Christianity for no less than the sustenance of civilization. With this trend extending now even to Richard Dawkins, it seems that it is the new atheism which is, in fact, dead. But what will take its place, and how and to what extent will the concerns it embodied be answered? Need they be answered, or will traditional religion somehow suffice? God has died and begun to appear again, but the form in which this reappearance occurs has largely yet to be determined. How God reveals himself and how man responds will be the story of the present century. It need hardly be said that this essay would have been easier to write had it been able to focus entirely on other, more agreeable topics: technological developments like AI and blockchain and social networks and cures for cancer, or "human" concerns like the need for a more caring world or even the importance of myth. Things which can be resolved back to empirical data, to fact, study, and repeatable experiment, or universal concerns in which (apparently at least) everyone wins -- in other words things about which only an insane person could finally disagree. Talk of religion, on the other hand, runs the tremendous risk of falling into old and all too familiar ruts: overzealous ("bible thumping") holier-than-though proselytizing fighting against hard cynical disbelief. Miracles and conversions butting up against scientific facts. The terrible territory of wars and persecutions and dogmatic disputes. Born of parents and grandparents who survived two world wars and the constant threat of nuclear annihilation, 21st century man longs to get along. This makes religion a difficult topic, because at the heart of religion is faith and faith involves more than mere fact, more than what can be laid out on the table and made clear to all; at its core, "the evidence of things not seen" fundamentally requires the assent of the human will. The will is by definition finally determined at the heart of the individual, and therefore varies from one individual to another. When two wills diverge, one may sway the other by its sheer goodness, but failing this the two wills are now in conflict. Religion, therefore, leads either to conversion or to war. Having seen (or at least heard about) more than enough war, we find ourselves surrounded by an urge to delve deeper and deeper into the things about which we can all agree, and hence into greater and greater technological development, finally an urge to progress past war itself. But this state of things cannot hold. Any illusions that 21st century man is too mature to allow the horrors of war have now been shattered by the advent of full-blown conventional warfare in Ukraine, funded and supplied on the Ukrainian side almost entirely by the United States, and thus at least a proxy war between the two great powers of the last century's great standoff. Simply calling Vladimir Putin a madman will not suffice to quiet the uneasy stirrings of conscience; perhaps we are not so advanced as we had thought. The problem rears its head on the technology front as well: with nothing short of religious vigor we hear voices clamoring in alleged defense of "the global environment" that we must learn to consume less energy, not more, that we must travel less, not more, that we must procreate less, not more. One can only pursue means to assumed common ends for so long, and we are now past due to discuss the ends themselves. But the discussion of final ends is the discussion of God and religion, no matter how we may try to avoid it. Shall we have conversion, or shall we have war? I suspect, unfortunately, we will continue to have both. But with nothing short of global nuclear death hanging in the balance, we would do well to steer towards conversion. Conversion to what, exactly, and by what means? This is the question too large to answer here, but it is the question which will be answered this century. The (important) answers to the technology questions will flow from it. The answer must necessarily involve a healing of the rift between science and religion, between fact and myth. What is truth? And how do we attain truth as a society and not as mere isolated individuals, without losing access to all but the coldly scientific? We would do well to ponder these question, to dwell on them with the fullness of our hearts as well as our minds. Whatever (or whomever) truth is, it will violate neither fact nor love. It will spring from gratitude, not bitterness. It will lead to self gift over selfishness, humility over pride, strength and courage over weakness and inconstancy, hope over despair. Let us then (and I know this is a lot to ask) pray. Pray together, in a spirit of gratitude to whomever has put us all here in this beautiful world of ours. Pray for grace, the unearned blessings of the favor of God, a God in union with whose will we may glimpse the slightest rays of the light of wisdom, a God whose omnipotence brought about all, and can therefore enable all. Let us pray for the grace to give of ourselves without reservation, to love others without selfishness, to speak words in accord with reality. The grace to bear the weight of all, for the salvation of all. Amen.
One podcaster I regularly listen to has a saying: “The more things change, the more we must depend on those things that never change.” When thinking about the last three quarters of this century (and beyond), I intentionally anchor this statement at the forefront of my mind. Before looking forward, while reflecting on the last hundred years, we’ve witnessed technology advances shifting and reshaping our lives at an ever-increasing pace. Worldwide events like COVID, or politically charged events like October 7, 2023 and September 11, 2001, act like markers in time—like chapter breaks in the story of history. Events like this can easily change the trajectory of our lives. All this draws attention to the big truth that predicting what will happen next may be a fun exercise, but it is not our most important task. Instead, developing ourselves and our characters is significantly more important. Looking forward, I see the last portion of this century being a mix of technology leapfrogging and ideologies clashing. As technology becomes the materialist’s god, those without a traditional religion will become more “religious” in their view, actions, and attitudes towards the god they helped create. However, this is nothing new, as it is simply a technological upgrade to a primitive person carving an idol out of stone, metal, or wood prior to worshiping it. As robotics technology advances and “artificial” intelligence expands into these machines, the lines will blur regarding what it means to be human. On the positive side, these technologies will solve many diseases, disabilities, and challenges facing our world. On the negative side, the value of human life will decrease because robots will appear to be more human-like, but “better”—challenging what makes humans worth preserving. While it’s easy to imagine what those with power, influence, or status should do, the usefulness of this is not as beneficial as one might think. A long time ago, I heard a saying that stuck with me: “Power attracts the corruptible.” This idea is more nuanced than the cliche that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. It is my observation that there are some people who live with levels of integrity that it would be difficult to imagine them becoming corrupted by power or bending to the winds of culture; having/gaining power is not a motivation for them. Imagining us with the power to influence the course of the world flirts with this power and the corrupting attractiveness of it. It also is a distraction from developing our own character or fixing our own flaws. Two thousand years ago, Jesus challenged those present along these lines: “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? … First take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” (Luke 6:41-42 NIV) In this statement, Jesus doesn’t challenge us to avoid correcting others. Instead, Jesus challenges us to correct the flaws in our own lives first. Many of the issues faced over the past centuries have been at the hands of people who focused on “fixing” others while they were even more flawed. Some might even describe our world today as a cultural war over who must change (i.e. be fixed) first. However, there is only one answer that can solve this problem: Remove your own plank first. It is possible that once you have removed the plank from your own eye, the spec in the other person’s eye will also be gone. That speck might have been a shadow cast by your own plank. However, even if the spec is still there, we will be more credible without a plank sticking out of our own eye. If the question of who must change first remains unresolved, our future will continue moving towards societal chaos, inviting totalitarianism—both less-than-ideal outcomes. I suspect we face this problem now because of decades (and generations) focused on fixing problems (especially mental/emotional/spiritual problems) through external means. Popping a pill is a band-aid, not a solution—and a risky one at that. Setting aside the side-effects that come alongside medications, we find the monetary incentive of those making the medication to develop dependence. There is no lasting incentive for anyone to make a one-dose solution—or to even try. Equally challenging and questioningly better is paying someone to listen to you vent your problems. This can help, but when the one you are paying has a financial incentive to keep you returning, be wary that resolution may not be a mutual goal. Focusing on our problems may cause our problems to multiply, rather than resolve. We see more of what we focus on. Focusing on life’s problems may not be the way to resolve them. Also, expanding our focus onto others prompts our minds to see an ever-expanding number of ways that other people are our problem. This leads nowhere good. If we want a solid foundation to build on for the last three quarters of this century, we must take steps today to grow ourselves. We must put aside blaming others and seeing other people as responsible for us. While we cannot control everything that happens to us, we can control how we respond. How we respond directly affects what happens next. Our response can bring positive resolution or a descent into chaos. As I think about the last three quarters of this century, while dreaming of the possibilities is more fun, the challenge I have for you and I is this: “To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” (Micah 6:8b NIV) Let’s seek to keep the first things first and work on strengthening our own character as we step forward into the future together.
"The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament sheweth His handiwork." Psalm 19:1 There are two ways of viewing the cosmos. Some view it as the splendid work of a benevolent Being, abundant with resources that are to be carefully cultivated for mankind's benefit and blessing. Some view it as a fragile accident of time and chance, with limited resources that must be rationed by those who deem themselves superior to the masses (and obtain for themselves the means & power to enforce their rationing.) Each viewpoint requires a certain amount of faith because, whether we acknowledge it or not, faith is the primary influence on behavior. One view, therefore, produces behavior that is optimistic, grateful, careful, inventive, orderly and humble. The other view produces behavior that is marked by envy, suspicion, jealousy, coveting, chaos, coercion, hoarding and general rancor. In terms of which view produces a culture worth living in, that seems to me to be self evident because history has demonstrated that those cultures founded on the Benevolent Being faith have been the greatest blessing for mankind. The other has produced the most heinous and destructive events known to man. So the real question that has daunted mankind since the days of the great flood is: which view will eventually win the hearts and minds of mankind? In my mind, righteousness wins the day. This Benevolent Being who created an environment that is precise and perfect for sustaining billions of life forms, especially human life, had a plan to develop the eternal choosing of goodness, rightness, fair play and loving concern for others in every human being. The Bible tells the story of Noah who, God concluded, was the only human of his generation capable of right action in relation to his kind and his God. (Mathematicians have calculated that given the recorded longevity of earthlings of the day and normal reproduction, there should have been billions of people on the earth, but like modern Amazonian tribes, murdered each other at astonishing rates.) Fast forward to the prophet Elijah fighting the depression of the aftereffects of an exhilarating victory over Baal's priests, was comforted by God with the knowledge that "7,000 have not bowed the knee to Baal." In other words, those choosing righteousness is expanding on the earth! Fast forward to Jesus Christ's ministry and promise to inject his followers with the added provision and power of His Spirit to make righteous and courageous life decisions in the face of growing hostility from both human and spiritual enemies. Today, that number is in the millions of people who believe and live their lives as if they believe in the Benevolent One, choosing to be right, and good, and loving as an expression of their devotion to Him! The more hostility these people receive for their choices, the more difficult it is to make those choices, the greater they shine through the darkness. So, as long as mankind is on the earth, that battle for the hearts and minds, namely which view of the planet we call home will people adopt, will rage on. The tools of influence will certainly continue to become more sophisticated throughout the coming century, but the question will remain. As Scottish writer George MacDonald observed, "Progress gives hope for change!"
Are the machines running us? The future might elicit thoughts of fear and dread or bring about excitement and the very best from our imaginations and creativity. Questioning where we are going is a touchstone. Where are we now? How did we arrive here and how do we get where we want to go? My mind rushes to technology and social media. We take a lot of technology for granted. Our knowledge of the machines we use hasn’t, on average evolved in tandem with their complexity. It seems we are going through a stage of adjustment. It has been trial and error. Like parents handed tablets to toddlers instead of interacting, there are some valid concerns. I was born in 1990. Seems both like yesterday and a different world. During my first decade the world seemed more directly integrated and yet also distances seemed more distant. Without GPS, social media, texting, human beings needed to tell each other where they were going to be, needed to have a routine they set. It was rare to own a cellular device. Shouting distance was the default if they weren't by a land line. You had to use networking skills. I remember being astounded by my mom and dad's ability to memorize directions. Even though texting came after voice, just like writing came after language we associate the latest with the more evolved. If you think back, body language was reading, still is. The symbols are facial expressions and stances, more direct rather than a drawn symbol. The spoken word also conveys tone, emotion, emphasis and stress. Somewhere along the way we branched off into writing and speaking having more of a divide. Now writing is often used to distance. Many opt to ignore a call and respond with a text as they don’t know how to talk to others. Though the ubiquity of podcasts and other radio serves to show the spoken word is still desired. I vividly remember my first cell phone. It was 2004. A silver Samsung, a network that doesn’t exist anymore. I thought, “I don’t know if I like the fact I am always reachable now.” I read a quote once I was unable to find expressing sympathy for those who would never know a world without mechanical clocks arbitrarily dictating days rather than work done or being driven by our whims and desires. It's funny because I did a bunch of searching trying to find the quote and Google failed me. Don’t get me started about telling someone to “just Google it” when they ask you a question! Anyways… I asked the Snapchat AI who matter of factly reported it was a quote from “The Timekeeper” by Mitch Albom. It wasn’t. I said, “No it isn’t.” It apologized saying it was actually from H.G. Wells’s, “The Time Machine”. Also wrong. I asked the AI, “did you take my question and attribute it to someone else?” It said “Sorry! Yes I did.” The result of this search is more emblematic of our time than if I simply found the quote. Social media creates echo chambers. You might think the internet exposes you to a diverse environment, yet algorithms will funnel whatever you engage with, good or bad. If you examine our roots, we archaically associated solely with our tribes, now we have access to these virtual meeting grounds more numerous than our brains are able to account for. The internet enables distant networking, finding lost family and establishes a digital archive. It doesn’t seem to alter us though. I remember a study saying we only have so many “slots” so to speak for close relationships. It was maybe this one: Your Brain Limits You to Just Five BFFs | MIT Technology Review I have known people who genuinely wonder if we are in a simulation like the movie “The Matrix”. They refer to anyone not socially cohesive as an “NPC” or non-playable character. When we gather hundreds of “friends” on social media it starts to make our definition of friendships very thin and superficial, and it erodes our sense of reality. If one is exposed to what celebrities share more than family, it starts to make them overvalue the opinions of the famous. Maybe people associate a louder imprint online with survival success. We developed based on our memory limits and time constraints. Even if we could memorize thousands of relationships, there’re only so many hours in a day. When we try so hard to expand this number, it waters down our experience. My solutions are simple. We need to affirm the value of freedom, so we are able to take responsibility for our own wellness. We need to think for ourselves. We need less input and more examination and creative works. We shouldn't overuse screens. The virtual will never replace the actual until it becomes indiscernible and then we wouldn’t know the difference. Our technology should enable us to work on the arts but we should revere the segment of society who is able to fully understand the way modern technology and engineering works. Martial arts and philosophy are needed. We should teach nutrition and self-sufficiency. When one is able to take care of themselves, only then are they able to do anything for anyone else. Gym classes should have martial arts lessons and meditation. Virtue is not defined from being helpless but by using your strength morally. We should take more responsibility for teaching the future generation. Debating with respect needs a revival. We need to relearn the ability to have spirited discourse! We should teach philosophy and psychology earlier than high school or university. Ultimately the future is set through how well we learn lessons. Our lessons are best learned when we digest them for ourselves, so above all free thought is vital.
I was born in the middle of the last century so will not be around for the end of the current one. But my grandchildren will be and, like most people with grandchildren, I hope their world will be one in which they flourish. In the middle of the last century, economist Friedrich Hayak published The Road to Serfdom, which was met with scorn by some, but perceived as a wake-up call by others. My grandchildren's lives will depend on where we are along that road at the end of this century. Will we be subjects of a centralized realm, or will we be free to pursue individual paths in a society that depends on voluntary participation in group endeavors? No matter what wonderful and terrible stuff we develop, the type of society in which we live remains the foundation for how our inventions and ideas play out. So my thoughts about the end of the century turn to the type of society we inhabit at the moment, just shy of a quarter of the way into the 21st century. Human nature did not change while the world we made careened from caves to high-rise, digital cities. We have the same frailties that plagued our ancestors, even though we have made life far easier, safer and longer with all our inventions, and will probably continue to do so. One of our frailties is our social nature. We must live in groups, and to function constructively we must be able to trust each other. The biggest failures of our society come from breakdown in trust, which in turn comes from dishonesty - or, more plainly, lying. And here in the waxing days of the 21st century we are wallowing in lies. I need not elaborate when we can no longer be certain whether or not a video image and recording is real. No one is immune from lying, though some do it with breath-taking ease in positions that matter to millions, while other simply lie to themselves about how much sleep they really need, how much time something really takes, or how buying something on credit is not really the same thing as having enough money in the first place. In our cyber society, set in a world that has been busy abandoning the old superstitions that included the Ten Commandments, lying proliferates as easily as microorganisms reproduce. Lying becomes a necessary tool of the people in charge as they discover how easy it is to sway the thinking of large numbers of people. Theodore Dalrymple, in The Wilder Shores of Marx: Journeys in a Vanishing World, described the results of institutional lying well: "...the worst thing about the system was the official lying...the less it was true, the less it corresponded in anyway to reality, the better; the more it contradicted the experience of the persons to whom it was directed, the more docile, self-despising for their failure to protest and impotent they became." This is where we are headed unless we rediscover and champion the value of truth-telling. And admit that there are many things that we think we know, that we think we are in the position to manipulate for our own purposes, that are still cloaked in mystery requiring humility and caution. No small tasks, these. They will not be solved from the top down because the top layer controlling society is simply more of us, and getting to the top is a process that, in our current culture, rewards those best able to skirt the truth. So for my grandchildren I hope that by the end of the century we have grounded our society in truth and beauty and turned away from lies and ugliness, and that trust under-girds our interactions. Getting there is not a science project. It is an ethical and moral one, and all of us need to participate. We need to reject stories that go against what we know to be true. We need the courage to confront lies - those we tell ourselves as well as those told to us. And we need to stand with the courageous ones who confront the lies used to manipulate us by those in power. Ever since humans became self-aware they have grappled with the the question of how best to live in this world, and left a rich record of their ideas. It is time to study these as much as we study science, because we all bear responsibility for how this century ends.
After
a series of unknown events in the hands of the Divine Author, a new
century is born. In this world, humanity
aims to
become humble
stewards
of prosperity. Suffering
takes on many forms:
locally grown food became
a luxury; the choice of visiting
family became
a
security
and safety
risk due to rising gas prices and deteriorating air-bound
transporters;
and
where
the endless online echo chamber of half-alive minds perfect
their pouty faces rather
than sharing their vulnerable truths. These
events were fated, much like many other ends of the world as it once
was known. The Industrial Revolution brought the end of delicate
handiwork and ushered in mass machine manufacturing. This still plays
out in our present society, as cheaply made toys and garments forged
from the trembling and sweaty hands of slaves are advertised online,
luring in victims for a quick dopamine hit with coupons for 25% off
with free 2-day shipping. Whereas products made by the hands of
craftsmen and artisans are overlooked until the holidays roll around
and all are encouraged to support small businesses. The end of World
War I and the years leading up to World War II birthed the 'American
Dream', a phrase originally crafted by James Truslow Adams to
describe the attraction America presented to visionaries from other
foreign lands. The descending greed and the rising power plays
brought the end to the creative mind as a hobby and instead made
hustling a requirement for providing for oneself, let alone a family
of four.
We
venture to gigantic warehouses with stocked shelves of mostly
processed food and pile our carts as we exit to concrete lots where
forests once grew. Supermarkets and membership-only stores didn’t
end the careers of fresh fruit or vegetable vendors, yet has greatly
impacted the origin of where society chooses to consume its meals. We
wonder why the mental health crisis and obesity percentile have
skyrocketed over the years, yet
the answer lies in front of our faces. We have become a society
focused on consumption rather than creation, valuing great deals and
greed over gratitude or getting our own needs met through hard work.
This
is God’s green earth, yet
we spend more time in white walled corridors rather than being more
in touch with the gifts from our Creator. This
end of present the 'world as we know it' approaches like a thief in
the night with unsteady footsteps. Its path remains clear to those
with Eyes to See.
Those
who Seek have become privy to the spiritual warfare playing out for
decades. They have been bracing themselves for the onslaught of
degenerative false narratives, a process that has been cracking the
minds of many in its wake. In this present state, the collective is
undergoing a breakdown to breakthrough cycle. We are witnessing the
destruction of old systems after recognizing the monster in the
basement was the basement itself. The narcissistic parasite and
plague of self-worship that has left a trail of bite marks visible on
every big head that takes up the screens on our mass media networks
cannot be unSeen. For a time the revolution was frail, like a
caterpillar caught up in a
gooey chrysalis.
In the pursuit of spreading our wings and taking flight, humanity’s
highest potential is unlocked through the process of transferring
power back to the people. As
a collective, we hold many talents. Our ancestors stand behind us as
pillars of light, illuminating our inherited aptitudes. Some use
these talents secretly, too fearful of what they'll be deemed as by
shining so brightly. Perhaps in another life, they were burned at the
stake for speaking the truth or participating in an uprising.
Thankfully, warrior spirits live within the hearts of many, and there
has never been a better time to activate them for the sake of
securing a higher universal map and navigation system for all those
souls who have yet to arrive. The
power transfer process has begun. This can be seen through the rise
of free speech platforms where the public chooses to
access
information.
The parasite-infested elite will fight to preserve what they still
hold, only exposing themselves further. As we progress through the
next several decades of the 21st century, fortune favors the bold.
The ones who remain tenderhearted in the face of mass tragedy and
organized terror will become the architects of these maps and new
navigation
systems. Those
who
offer up their authenticity and talents will become the new teachers
and wise ones. The ones who cherish the life they’ve been
designated by the hand of the Divine Author will be preservers of the
heart, the one organ that is being attacked more than others at
present during the aftermath of the Experiment many injected into
their bloodstreams. That unfortunate part of the story was part of
the Divine Author’s timeline, it served as a turbocharged awareness
activator to awaken the masses. All those with Eyes to See are aware
that what is to come is unlike anything we’ve seen, yet the future
parallels with patterns of history.
To
all writers, creators, thinkers, dreamers, and doers: you have never
been more essential. Stay sound of mind. Preserve your Light.
Prioritize your health and well-being. By embracing the art of faith
you become shielded within the ultimate suit of armor. The future
souls who have yet to arrive need to experience the residue of your
fated gifts. A resurgence of shamans and healers is necessary, but
not the kind that sell online courses on manifestation or twin flame
love potions. Bringing
out the best in yourself is difficult to do during the worst of
times, yet there has never been a more vital occasion than now to
humbly offer your service. You might not receive an audible thank you
from the upcoming generations, yet their prayers of gratitude and
expressions of wonderment will reach you from the Heavens later on.
Make the most of this
epoch,
the best is yet to come.
The
transforming accomplishment of the end of the 21st
Century will be the global adoption of truly democratic government:
that is, a purely democratic political structure that ensures equal
participation in government by people with very little money. The
mechanism that will be discovered for this radically new kind of
democratic governance will actually prove to be rather simple. The
government will be based on a bicameral (two house) legislature. The
so-called “lower” house will be selected based on the model of
the current German constitution. Each voter will vote in each
national election both for the local candidate that voter prefers,
and for the political party that voter prefers. All the locally
elected representatives will be seated in the “lower” house. If
the proportional representation by parties in the “lower” house
matches the overall vote in the nation, nothing further will be done.
If one party or another needs additional legislators to bring its
proportion in the “lower” house up to its national proportion,
that party gets to seat additional at-large legislators. Thus, every
region has its voice; but the policies of the national government are
controlled by the party or parties who represent the majority of the
nation. There is no temptation to gerrymander such a legislature, as
the policies enacted always remain under the control of the majority
parties. The most successful gerrymander can only increase the
number of “at-large” seats assigned to
the most popular party. It
is the second, “upper” house that will represent the innovative
part of this new arrangement. The electorate will be divided into
percentiles by personal wealth. Each percentile will thus include
1/100th of the voting population, from the poorest percentile to the
richest. Each percentile will freely elect a representative to the
second house of the legislature, which will have exactly 100 seats. Legislation
will require the approval of both houses of the legislature. So all
legislation will be endorsed both
by the dominant political party or parties, and by least 51 of the
percentiles by personal wealth. No policy that impacts that poorest
51% of the country can become law unless the poorest 51% gives their
permission. There is no possibility of gerrymandering the “upper”
house, of course, because the mathematical distribution of voters
into the various percentiles is not subject to manipulation by the
current government. This
new form of government will preserve, in the “lower” house, all
the traditional advantages of geographic representation. The
political interests of geographic
regions
may clash based on how each region makes its living, and it’s
advantageous for each of these interests to have a spokesperson.
Furthermore,
the voters of each region are also familiar
with whatever new leadership and
successful policies
have
emerged in each region.
Lastly, since
every geographic area of the country is guaranteed its spokesperson
in the national legislature, each region that might
possibly
one
day
contemplate
secession will know that that
it has not been cut out of the governing
process.
But
since all these advantages have been secured in the “lower”
house, there is no need for the “upper” house to be based upon
geographic representation. Selecting
the “upper” house will require a
formula for considering what your land, if you have any, is worth;
for considering the value of your home, if you own one; and for
evaluating the worth of your investments. These evaluations will
be added to whatever cash you currently have
on hand. Money
and property held in common will put each of the owners in the same
percentile.
Each voter will be legally required to fill out a simple
confidential form allowing that voter’s personal wealth to be
calculated under the national formula. Once the personal wealth of
all voters was determined, the list would be divided into one hundred
groups of equal population. Each voter would then receive a
confidential note from the government, informing that voter which
percentile that voter was currently in. (The sheer educational
benefit of getting that card should not be underestimated.) To the
extent that rich people sought to hide their wealth from the
government, it would only minimize the political clout of the richest
voters. Then, on each election day, each voter would vote for a local
geographic representative, for a political party, and for a
representative for that voter’s percentile by personal wealth. Religious
sects often create political divisions.
We
often
vote
for the candidate who shares our religion. To the extent that the
country includes
regions in which particular religions predominate, this geographic
division is
reinforced
in the national legislature. If we are given the opportunity to
participate in elections by proportional representation, we often
vote
for a
party that represents our religion. But if we were also asked to
vote by percentiles of personal wealth, we might begin to see what we
had in common with citizens of other faiths. We would realize that
we share similar economic interests with everyone else in our
percentile, regardless of religious affiliation. That, by itself,
will
create positive breakthroughs
in many nations.
In the contemporary internet age, it will prove a trivial matter to
arrange for candidates to be able to reach out to the particular
percentile that candidate wishes to represent. Certainly, this might
require us to provide basic computer services even to the poorest
among us: but we should be doing that, anyway.
Each percentile will be allowed to elect a representative who was
not personally a member of that percentile. Salary and benefits
received as an elected member of the “upper” house will not be
counted in assigning people to percentiles by personal wealth – so
being elected to represent a poorer percentile will not result in
your being moved to a different percentile.
The practical possibilities for true economic justice will be
immeasurably greater as each nation adopts this form of governance,
towards the end of the 21st Century.
(alternate subtitle: The Fight of Our Lives) Our century is going to be defined by the victor of the current battle between our immoral self-serving leaders, and the moral self-sacrificial ones. Each group that emerges from the war will have made the bed that their future generations will be forced to sleep in, and the character of those societies will also be strongly characterized by their stance on free speech, thought, and expression. We will have either missed our last chance to preserve these fundamental rights or succeeded in defending it for future generations. The reason I say it is the last chance is because our tools for control have given us the kind of power that, previously, our societies could only dream about. With the specter of AGI looming over us, and the ghost of nuclear weapons haunting us, we have made the entire world more vulnerable to a very small group of powerful and evil people. There are ways to fight back. These evil people are wolves in sheep's clothing, characterized by their clever use of language, hiding within moral words and phrases. This is a mental variation on the Trojan horse tactic. Once you accept it inside of your heart, you will suffer a great loss, even if you later discover the treachery. We find it hard to change our minds because whenever we have committed to ideas in writing via social media, or in passionate conversations amongst our friends and coworkers, we have set up our own trenches. People want to be consistent, even if they are wrong, and this feature of humanity is regularly exploited. If only the citizens of Troy had more carefully examined the gift before accepting it. Instead, large parts of society have already committed themselves to very bad ideas. The world is wading deeper into confusion with the intentional destruction of meaning in culture, government sanctioned lies, and the increasing levels of distraction. Public debate, mainstream news, and politics are, with the exception of a few places, of abysmal quality. Good information is getting harder to find. Junk information is accumulating at exponential rates. Internet bots were already producing confusion, and superpowered LLM AI bots will only exacerbate the issues. This new technology makes it easier to both hide the truth and bury it in noise. Unfortunately for us, Orwell and Huxley were both right. Confusion breeds conflict because it destroys the best mechanism for making sense of the world, and broader cooperation among larger groups of people. Language is not the only confusion we are facing. Sex, family, money, economic systems, political systems, every single foundational requirement for stable societies is suffering from confusion. Underneath all of this is the simple, but deep idea of Truth. Objective truths are the solid foundation for which to build any structures upon. The West has made the mistake in my lifetime of trading hard solid rock for shifting sands. Bad leaders will exploit this confusion for their personal gain, and prefer conflicts with external groups as a last ditch effort to maintain their power, though they will not hesitate to mobilize internal groups against each other. Now, we do have a brief window to pull ourselves out of this mess, but time is of utmost importance. Prolonged confusion only leads to bad things. Conflict, internal and external, will plunge societies into chaos. Longtime neighbors have already started killing each other, mostly across nation-state lines, but there is growing civil unrest within countries too. Tribalism looks to be getting stronger, and racial lines are easily exploited, especially when the tensions are being ratcheted up. Chaos is unpredictable, and there is no reliable way to know what will happen or when it will happen. Mob violence and large scale global conflict do not often come from telegraphed actions. Like a wildfire there is a spark on a dry day where the winds happen to be strong. If we fail to reclaim our institutions, and fail to replace bad leaders with good ones, this is all but inevitable. Things are too far gone at the top of the most powerful places, and the masses feel it in their bones. Majorities in all societies are sick of corruption, but we are being kept divided through distractions and red herrings. We are in a time of extreme complexity with mostly poor leadership that does not know how to navigate ambiguity. The big problem with best practice leadership today is that an oversimplified, and prideful approach that assumes to know the answers to everything already. You see this habit in corporations and governments alike. What we should do instead is to admit we do not know the answers, and run parallel experiments with a strict commitment to the truth in our observations, and accountability for lying and negligence. Willful lies should disqualify anyone from the top positions in government. I did not include project failure because emergent issues require a certain amount of failure for innovation. A good experiment may very well fail. If we take climate change as an example, notice that there is an extreme focus on one variable, which means that the average climate activist is not treating the problem with as much seriousness as it deserves. Serious attempts to solve problems come with a serious commitment to understand the nature of the problem in as much detail as possible. Otherwise, you could be prescribing the wrong actions. What also need improvements to election and governing systems that favor moral leaders, who will naturally be reluctant to lead, and disqualify immoral leaders from continued participation. There should be a series of monitored tests and public interviews that help us understand their intelligence, competence, courage, integrity, and morality. All of the data must be public, and beyond doubt. Pay should be increased, especially for the top positions, and their financial life should be completely public. If you want to lead, you must sacrifice yourself. Our systems should demand that one be squeaky clean, and immediately eject what is rotten as soon as it is discovered with no possibility of preventing public trial. You could replicate similar systems for corporate governance. Societies must protect themselves against the abuse of power. The tools tyrants want to use for control can be turned against them. Truth, again, comes into play as a fundamental requirement for human problem solving, and prosperity. We divorce it at our peril, and without it we have no hope of getting out of our various messes.This is the fight of our lives. *Ideas for navigating complexity are derivative of Dave Snowden’s work, particularly the Cynefin Framework - https://thecynefin.co/about-us/about-cynefin-framework/
If there is anything at all to be said about our time, it is chiefly that we are living through an age of hyper connectivity. Everything, for the connivence of rapid data collection and analyzation has been made connected, linked in impossible ways that could have never been imagined just twenty five years before. An example that one can offer to explain such a phenomena is simply the way our search engines have been designed to provide information based on existing biases, or produce advertising for what an algorithm thinks we may like to purchase next. People too, have become hyperlinked to one another through social media platforms, and in some cases people’s online bios are becoming treated as spitting images of who they are in reality-And now we live in such a time that grants anyone who has access to any given platform, a window, so anyone who wants to, can watch whole swaths of people display their personal lives online. It should be dually noted too, that because of the internet and smart devices the whole world rests at each of our finger tips, but this is a completely new reality for the average person. Kids now grow up in a world that allows them to witness material and subjects that otherwise would have been impossible to see, or had to be sought out and learned by way of personal experience. This is all to say, that there is so much information available all the time, that any one person or organization can become easily overwhelmed by the ocean of information stirring around us, as most of us have. If we consider this massive influx of information as paralyzing or frightening, it is truly no wonder how or why a sort of hysterical polarization would begin to emerge as a consequence of overwhelming information. Throughout the past twenty five years we have been left with so much uncertainty about the nature of this modern world, that most people have began to clamor for that of leaders, ruling forces, and more recently, emerging thinkers that have created these new platforms to help explain all the complexities of this new online world. And after all, when unerring complexity stares people in the face, it is no wonder that they would feel forced to clamp down on a one size fits all way to explain their existence, as well as the existence of everyone and everything changing around them. But, as a consequence of locking down on one narrow way of perceiving the world (for the purpose of yearned for simplicity), an over abundance of general categorizations have been made, and made the genuine exchange of dialogue to broach such issues near impossible, thus creating a majority of people who have been molded to think like AI, who decide that they already know what is to be expected in certain situations from the beginning, instead of allowing for open discovery. The loss of meaning, along with the mass feeling of hopelessness has followed, for most do not consider themselves individuals capable of experiencing new forms of participation in the world anymore. Instead, we have become our thoughts, a number in a category of like minded thinkers with odd quirks that serve to make us feel different. This way of thinking about one’s self has confined a great many and keeps them from experiencing new ways of thinking, and subsequently, prevents them from finding a new avenue to embodied experience, with the added disadvantage that if someone considers themselves irrelevant and unable to transcend their current identity or situation, then the individual will experience the increasing feeling of worthlessness. It should be stated too, over-generalizations certainly serve to separate and divide us, but it is not this tendency alone that has produced terrible amounts of isolation. The mere existence of a phone, that can hold a thousand contacts at a time has served as the beginning hyperlink for personal communications, but also has dealt a massive blow upon that of the modern psyche. In a world where you can be connected to everyone; Anyone who does not have a single person to contact, (call, text, etc) will ultimately fall into a state of abnormal isolation, for the mere potential of interaction rests right in front of their face, yet they still have none. So it is precisely the interplay of these two, hyper connectivity, and no connection at all, with the added problems of being hyper connected in ways that we cannot fully understand, or have much control over, that severely damages the harmony between an individuals personal navigation through life, and a healthy approach towards broader society. To conclude, over the course of the past twenty five years a technological rift has been opened that separates people from others in this extremely complex way, leaving the door open for anyone, including companies, to create more technology that fills the gaps and succeeds in making us more connected in the ways that are, and always have been necessary for human flourishing, because if we lack human connections as the majority of us have, then something will take their place to fill the void. The question that then becomes is: Do we need technology to continue to do that for us? ie, Connect and guide us by aiding our personal endeavors and adjusting our perspectives? Or, can humanity mature enough to the point that we can create better connected and organic relationships that will lead us into The Future on our own?
The world is changing too quickly to keep up with. In the past it was possible to feel that you had a general understanding of what's happening in the world (and be wrong, but at least you could pretend from the comfort of your own home). Now, anyone can broadcast their wrongness, live. Is it any wonder? If you wanted, you could pull up a new random fact every fraction of a second to learn (and then immediately forget). It's an unwinnable game. If a fact can be replaced or forgotten without a second thought, it was never valuable. An infinite commodity, and the currency it can be exchanged for is a mirage. "Friends" you've never met. "Subscribers" that may be bots bought in bulk. And maybe this is just me, but I don't particularly want strangers to follow me. The things that really matter change slowly. Survival, friends (original flavor), family, purpose - meaningful things. Things you can't replace on a whim. Everything else is either related to what matters, or noise. The internet has made it impossible for anything to be heard at the volume it was said. It has to be amplified, multiplied, shared, before it even enters your awareness. So in some sense the internet is "about" feedback loops. Creators become more and more attention-grabbing, forcing their competitors to do the same to stay on top, until everyone is shouting over each other. But to be loud is to resonate with what the audience is listening for. You can't binge watch the internet. But it can binge watch you. The companies running the sites are watching. They want you to use their site. They need people in their loop to survive. They WILL bring people something that resonates or slowly fade into nothingness. Well, everyone with any sense listens the most attentively for meaningful things. The feedback loop for meaning is slow; it takes time for each person in the chain to digest. But infinite shouting makes it impossible to hear anything, while infinite meaning could spread without a word being spoken. Too much is happening to follow all of it. So don't. Set parameters. Prioritize what resonates. The internet can be a trap or a tool, but both are missing something essential: the internet is an instrument. Practice, and pay attention to the results. Not just what's measurable, but the tone. How does it make you feel? Pick a key and a tempo, but allow room for improvisation, transitions, and fun little flourishes. Try to pick notes that flow together into a cohesive, beautiful whole. End on a note that fits a major chord in your life. Then remember to leave some silence between phrases. And consider your part. You probably don't need a complicated solo for decades straight, but I bet you do have some part to play. So to those who need to hear it (myself included): quit binge watching an infinite symphony, as if you need to know every note of every part from everyone in the band. You're supposed to be listening for your cue.
In an era of unprecedented technological advancements, the future of human civilization has become increasingly unpredictable. In the 21st century alone, there has been a rapid growth of innovations that would have been deemed impossible mere decades ago. In particular, this essay will focus on two technological innovations: Artificial intelligence (AI) and cryptocurrency. I believe that these two innovations have significant positive and negative implications for the future. Concerning the topic of cryptocurrency, the potential future of the financial stability of the United States will be discussed too. It's hard to tell what may lie by the end of this century, but we can still speculate.Artificial Intelligence Let's begin with AI. AI has become significantly more sophisticated, resulting in widespread concern that AI will replace many jobs and put a significant number of people without work. This is certainly a valid concern (Believe me, I am a computer science student worried about being replaced by AI programmers), but due to the fact that this has been discussed many times prior (it's almost a cliché at this point), I would like to highlight another concern that we should call attention to, and that is the potential for AI bots invading and infiltrating online spaces. The phenomenon of bots flourishing in online spaces is not new, but before the existence of advanced large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, spotting these bots was relatively easy. But now that we have powerful LLMs which can be used by virtually anyone with minimal cost, detecting bots is harder than ever. If LLMs can generate text that is indistinguishable from text made by humans, then how can one determine if a post or comment is the result of a human or AI? Can we trust anything? There are methods of determining whether text is AI-generated or not, but these methods are not always reliable and may become increasingly less reliable as AI gets more powerful. Even now, the effects of sophisticated AI bots infiltrating online spaces are present in certain places, notably X (formerly Twitter). On X, there have been many posts and comments that begin with "I'm sorry, but I cannot provide a response..." and there have been many posts that contain eerily similar keywords to one another, and are written in a way that one may consider to be "robotic". See my list of resources below to learn more. The impacts of AI could be realized in mediums beyond just text. What if AI is used to create harmful and misleading videos? For example, videos that frame individuals for crimes they didn't commit, or realistic-looking videos of politicians declaring nuclear war. So, what could be done about it? One may suggest that governments could implement regulations mandating restrictions on all AI to mitigate the spread of harm and misinformation. However, regulations won't make non-compliant AI models vanish into thin air. Even with strong efforts from governments to stamp out or curb the spread of non-compliant AI models, the inherent nature of digital technology and the internet may pose challenges to their eradication. There will always be people archiving and circulating such works, often leveraging encrypted services to safeguard their activities. Cryptocurrency: Will it be Necessary? Another important innovation is cryptocurrency (albeit, not discussed to the same extent as AI). Many crypto enthusiasts claim that cryptocurrency is the future, but is this true? Let's assess this claim. Presently, I view cryptocurrencies to not be an effective medium of exchange. This is due to the current extreme volatility in many cryptocurrencies, most likely because cryptocurrency is a relatively new innovation and thus there is a lot of speculation around it. Additionally, there are criticisms that certain cryptocurrencies (like Bitcoin) are too computationally expensive to use. That said, cryptocurrency may become a more serious option in the far future. To elaborate, I think there is a possibility of the collapse of the United States by the end of this century, either a partial or total collapse. As I am writing this, the total debt of the United States is over 34 trillion dollars, and that figure may become quickly outdated. I find it uncertain that this amount of debt is sustainable for this country in the long run. Whether or not it can sustain the next century is a proposition that is hard to assess. The global prominence of the USD is mainly a result of how it is backed by the most powerful nation on the planet. The value of the USD may drop significantly should the nation ever find itself in a crisis that it cannot fully recover from, or in an extreme case, should the nation collapse entirely. The USD is already losing much of its value from excessive inflation, resulting in more loss of confidence in this currency. Cryptocurrency may be very relevant in the event of a weakened or destroyed United States. Remember, the USD is a fiat currency that is managed by a central bank. Its supply is primarily determined by economic policies. Many cryptocurrencies are decentralized, so theoretically they should be immune from government control (and incompetence). Should there ever be a collapse or merely widespread distrust in the USD, cryptocurrency is a valid option. It is not the only option (far from it, other currencies, including existing ones, can be used), but may be a popular choice given how integrated digital technology has become with human civilization. Conclusion These projections for the future seem very grim, but there is always hope. Despite the potential upcoming challenges that arise with artificial intelligence, it remains plausible that the benefits of advanced AI will overshadow any negative repercussions. Perhaps AI will discover cures to various diseases including cancer, or serve as a cost-effective means to educate millions, with the benefits of education far outweighing any misinformation it might propagate. Perhaps in this century, there’s the possibility of the United States improving its financial stability, avoiding collapse and therefore diminishing the perceived necessity of cryptocurrencies. The only thing certain of the future is that it is uncertain. Regardless, let's strive for a better and brighter tomorrow no matter what occurs in this century. Resources to consider
A 'great flood' of AI noise is coming for the internet and it's swallowing Twitter first
The internet is filling up with machine-generated "zombie content" designed to game algorithms and scam humans. Experts call it the "great AI flood".
www.abc.net.au Here is a study that says that we need better tools for determining whether text is AI generated or not: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03007995.2024.2310086
US national debt hits record $34 trillion as Congress gears up for funding fight
The record high comes after Republican lawmakers and the White House agreed to temporarily lift the nation’s $31.4 trillion debt limit last year.
apnews.com Below is a source that goes into the pitfalls of certain blockchain based technologies, especially when it comes to the expensiveness of computation of these technologies. Its focus is NFTs, but the concerns mentioned in the article are applicable to cryptocurrencies as well because cryptocurrencies are dependent on blockchains.
NFTs and the Environment: What You Need to Know
Are you interested in buying NFTs but concerned about the environmental impact? Find out why minting and trading NFTs is energy-intensive.
www.investopedia.com
As we progress into the second quarter of the 21st century, two of the most powerful “buzzwords” that continue to make themselves heard are “liberty” and “equality.” It is hard to go a long time in the world of political discussion and commentary without encountering these loaded terms. The former may be utilised in situations such as the defence of gun rights, or the debate over freedom of speech, while the latter would perhaps be used to promote tax changes that will “benefit the disadvantaged” and thus “increase equality.” These terms are inevitably broad in meaning, and even more so in their current application. It has indeed become increasingly clear that they must be elaborated upon, and their meaning defined. Overall, I argue that the term liberty, or freedom, pertains to the removal of unnecessary hindrances on the free expression of one’s will, which begets no natural assurance of equal outcomes. The term equality could, however, hold any number of possible meanings, though chief among these being equality of opportunity and equality of outcome, the former promoting liberty as a principle, while the latter promoting control and the subjugation of individual expression. Furthermore, I contend that, if we are to advance as a society in the coming decades, it is imperative that we properly understand these two powerful words. Both “liberty” and “equality” have, historically, made for wonderful rallying cries, often when used together as a call for change to an established system. However, they have been today employed in conflicting situations, and many would contend that liberty and equality do not naturally go hand in hand. There appears to be a broad consensus in the modern West that equality of opportunity is an end worth striving for, and while, historically, all would agree the common people were severely limited in their access to opportunity, today it would appear to many that we are all given a decent chance. However, the socialist-inclined members of society believe that our modern, globalist and capitalist society has not provided opportunity to vast swathes of the population, and that difficulty in life and limited success is the result of systemic “oppression.” On the other hand, many hold that it is not through such oppression that the outcomes of success in life differ so vastly, and that human beings, through their varying abilities and, sometimes too through the capricious hand of fate, do not achieve equal status. Liberty must, I contend, be recognised as the ending of the restriction of one’s ability to express individual desire over the course of his life and decisions, so long as they do not materially harm another. Such a concept does not ensure universal happiness and fulfilment, as it entails an exceptional amount of personal responsibility that would certainly not have been seen for most of human history. However, the overwhelming complexity of the modern world and the plethora of potential pathways are the challenge that inevitably faces the modern person, and it is essentially impractical to expect otherwise. Although such an understanding of liberty may not lead to the achievement of a utopian outcome, likely no other method will either. Equality is, I believe, even more problematic a term than liberty. What cannot be more thoroughly emphasised with this term is its inherent difference from “sameness.” Equality of opportunity, which the West has long worked incredibly hard to achieve, gives no assurance that men and women will earn entirely equal wages, or that different ethnic groups will achieve equal representation in higher education. Equality, when understood as sameness, will inevitably lead to contradiction and utterly defective argumentation. The only sensible use of the word is to apply to equal opportunity. Whether or not society has achieved this is another matter altogether, one that will be more easily answerable once this definition is adopted.It is certainly desirable to live in a society that promotes both liberty and equality, and should the terms be used according to the definitions I have hitherto provided, it would be possible. However, liberty with the expectation of equal outcomes is not liberty ay all, as this presupposes that all human beings possess exactly the same abilities, that being a total and nonsensical rejection of individual difference. Overall, if liberty, as a term, held strongly to the definition of: “the removal of social hindrance as far as naturally possible to allow the greatest level of individual expression of talent and personality,” and equality: “the promotion of a common, basic level of access to opportunity in order to allow for the greatest natural level of personal achievement and expression” the two concepts would no longer clash, and productive discourse could finally be achieved. Perhaps controversial is my use of the term “natural” in the above definitions. Such a word may lend itself to further consideration, and possibly debate, though it ultimately means: “without any manipulation of the basic order of things that are beyond the man-made sphere.” Liberty and equality are both lovely terms, as they are concepts. This is perhaps why so much blood has been spilled over the centuries fighting under their banners, and why today they remain widely featured in political discourse and used as personal labels. What is truly great is that we, in the West, are blessed with the ability to attain both, though to do this they must be properly understood as part of a system of equal opportunity with free choice of pursuits. As with every other aspect of life, a utopian outcome will likely never be achieved, and it is essentially paradoxical to expect that we may one day have a “perfectly free” and “perfectly equal” society. Nonetheless, the two can go hand in hand and, when understood correctly, one naturally entails the other. If we are to advance culturally in the coming decades, it is critical that these terms are not only distinctly defined, but also widely understood.
As a kid growing up in the 1970’s, the Cold War dangled the
threat of nuclear war every chance it could find in our little minds. We were, at times, paralyzed by the thought
of a nuclear bomb being dropped on our neighborhood. Our playground battles with the Russians were
almost a daily occurrence. Today, a new threat by Communist China and the Russians has
again brought the discussion of nuclear threat to the forefront. Russia’s President Putin has released a
target map of potential sites he would focus on should he resort to nuclear
arms. Prominent cities include Washington DC, New York City, Chicago, and Los
Angeles, as well as various military bases and critical targets around the
country. Total casualties in those combined
cities would approach 10 million people, according to NUKEMAP (https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/). Infrastructure within a 4.5-mile radius of
the blast would be decimated. The
long-term effects of nuclear fallout would render those areas uninhabitable for
years to come. So, what would the future
hold for these areas, and how would it affect the rest of the country? Shelter Of the survivors that remained in the nuclear zones of destruction,
one would imagine that many people would seek greener pastures. They would move towards areas with more
resources. Better water for consumption,
food, and shelter resources would be sought.
This migration would be unprecedented within the US and lead to new
cities and infrastructure. They would
follow routes of least resistance, such as along interstate routes. New York City survivors might travel north
via Interstate 95 into New Hampshire or Maine.
Those in Washington, DC, might take I95 south into the Carolinas. Chicagoans could take Interstate 80 west into
Iowa or I94 north into Wisconsin. Those
on the West Coast could take Interstate 5 north into northern California or
Oregon. Small cities would grow
exponentially with the influx of migrants.
Cities like Portsmouth, NH, Davenport, IA, and Kenosha, WI, with access
to air, rail, water, and the interstate nearby, would flourish during these
growth periods. Infrastructure in these areas would be insufficient to meet
the demands initially. Larger airports
would take time to build; however, the interstate and rail systems could move
building materials to spark the construction.
Immigrants to these areas would be put to work in all phases of the projects. Federal monies, if available, would need to be
allocated to these projects to ensure success.
Water With the Potomac River feeding Washington, DC, and the
Hudson River feeding New York City, these water resources may be contaminated
and render the water unusable. Chicago
provides a more devastating scenario as the city is upstream from the watershed
region. This watershed region supplies
much of the downstate Illinois region and would lead to undrinkable water for
many people. Los Angeles is similar to
the cities on the East Coast in that the city lies downstream from the
watershed region. Let us not forget
about the Colorado River, Lake Mead, and the Hoover Dam, which supplies water
to seven states. If that were destroyed,
it would be devastating to the country's southwest region. The Hoover Dam also supplies electricity to
California, Nevada, and Arizona. This
lack of resources would likely cause migration to the east along Interstate 10. Fire/Electricity Our electrical grid is outdated. The Hoover Dam was built to
help with the demand due to the growth in the southeast region. However, the
rest of the country is divided into four electrical grid regions: the West, the
Midwest, the Southeast and Eastern seaboard, and Texas. A targeted missile to
vulnerable sections of the grid could mean no power for millions of people in
these regions. The reality would be that
the damage done to the infrastructure would take years to repair or replace due
to limitations in the manufacture of parts.
With nuclear damage being done on the east and west coasts, the best-case
scenario would leave intact the Midwest and Texas. This would enable the rebirth of these two
regions as it takes in the migrants from other parts of the US. Food The food contamination would affect resources as some animals
would die initially. If some of the
nuclear silos were bombed in the upper Great Plains regions, this would lead to
contamination in the Midwest as the nuclear fallout would drift eastward. The cattle and hog farms would be
devastated. Inflation on those two
commodities would skyrocket, and any safe meat to be consumed would be priced
out of reach for most Americans. Massive population shifts would create food shortages in the
region. Supply chains would be disrupted and inadequate to meet the demands.
Inflation would become prominent and force many to live off limited resources
from what nature could provide. People may be willing to eat contaminated beef
and pork, which would lead to delayed mortality for those willing to take the
risk. In conclusion The population shift to the Midwest and Southeast would
cause problems with existing infrastructure and supply chain management. It would take decades for the balance to
settle. A nuclear attack would affect
the four basic needs in a survival situation (shelter, fire/electricity, water,
and food). Our country would be thrown
into chaos, and the aftermath would kill millions more as people fought for
their basic needs. All of this makes plenty of assumptions. The most significant assumption is that just a
few nuclear warheads reach the United States.
It would only take a few well-placed missiles to disrupt our economy and
livelihood. We should all pray it doesn’t
come to fruition. Our kids and grandkids
will live the nightmares we feared when we were kids.
As we progress into the second quarter of the 21st century, two of the most powerful “buzzwords” that continue to make themselves heard are “liberty” and “equality.” It is hard to go a long time in the world of political discussion and commentary without encountering these loaded terms. The former may be utilised in situations such as the defence of gun rights, or the debate over freedom of speech, while the latter would perhaps be used to promote tax changes that will “benefit the disadvantaged” and thus “increase equality.” These terms are inevitably broad in meaning, and even more so in their current application. It has indeed become increasingly clear that they must be elaborated upon, and their meaning defined. Overall, I argue that the term liberty, or freedom, pertains to the removal of unnecessary hindrances on the free expression of one’s will, which begets no natural assurance of equal outcomes. The term equality could, however, hold any number of possible meanings, though chief among these being equality of opportunity and equality of outcome, the former promoting liberty as a principle, while the latter promoting control and the subjugation of individual expression. Furthermore, I contend that, if we are to advance as a society in the coming decades, it is imperative that we properly understand these two powerful words. Both “liberty” and “equality” have, historically, made for wonderful rallying cries, often when used together as a call for change to an established system. However, they have been today employed in conflicting situations, and many would contend that liberty and equality do not naturally go hand in hand. There appears to be a broad consensus in the modern West that equality of opportunity is an end worth striving for, and while, historically, all would agree the common people were severely limited in their access to opportunity, today it would appear to many that we are all given a decent chance. However, the socialist-inclined members of society believe that our modern, globalist and capitalist society has not provided opportunity to vast swathes of the population, and that difficulty in life and limited success is the result of systemic “oppression.” On the other hand, many hold that it is not through such oppression that the outcomes of success in life differ so vastly, and that human beings, through their varying abilities and, sometimes too through the capricious hand of fate, do not achieve equal status. Liberty must, I contend, be recognised as the ending of the restriction of one’s ability to express individual desire over the course of his life and decisions, so long as they do not materially harm another. Such a concept does not ensure universal happiness and fulfilment, as it entails an exceptional amount of personal responsibility that would certainly not have been seen for most of human history. However, the overwhelming complexity of the modern world and the plethora of potential pathways are the challenge that inevitably faces the modern person, and it is essentially impractical to expect otherwise. Although such an understanding of liberty may not lead to the achievement of a utopian outcome, likely no other method will either. Equality is, I believe, even more problematic a term than liberty. What cannot be more thoroughly emphasised with this term is its inherent difference from “sameness.” Equality of opportunity, which the West has long worked incredibly hard to achieve, gives no assurance that men and women will earn entirely equal wages, or that different ethnic groups will achieve equal representation in higher education. Equality, when understood as sameness, will inevitably lead to contradiction and utterly defective argumentation. The only sensible use of the word is to apply to equal opportunity. Whether or not society has achieved this is another matter altogether, one that will be more easily answerable once this definition is adopted.It is certainly desirable to live in a society that promotes both liberty and equality, and should the terms be used according to the definitions I have hitherto provided, it would be possible. However, liberty with the expectation of equal outcomes is not liberty ay all, as this presupposes that all human beings possess exactly the same abilities, that being a total and nonsensical rejection of individual difference. Overall, if liberty, as a term, held strongly to the definition of: “the removal of social hindrance as far as naturally possible to allow the greatest level of individual expression of talent and personality,” and equality: “the promotion of a common, basic level of access to opportunity in order to allow for the greatest natural level of personal achievement and expression” the two concepts would no longer clash, and productive discourse could finally be achieved. Perhaps controversial is my use of the term “natural” in the above definitions. Such a word may lend itself to further consideration, and possibly debate, though it ultimately means: “without any manipulation of the basic order of things that are beyond the man-made sphere.” Liberty and equality are both lovely terms, as they are concepts. This is perhaps why so much blood has been spilled over the centuries fighting under their banners, and why today they remain widely featured in political discourse and used as personal labels. What is truly great is that we, in the West, are blessed with the ability to attain both, though to do this they must be properly understood as part of a system of equal opportunity with free choice of pursuits. As with every other aspect of life, a utopian outcome will likely never be achieved, and it is essentially paradoxical to expect that we may one day have a “perfectly free” and “perfectly equal” society. Nonetheless, the two can go hand in hand and, when understood correctly, one naturally entails the other. If we are to advance culturally in the coming decades, it is critical that these terms are not only distinctly defined, but also widely understood.
Or is it? As a child learns from its actions, must we not first have taken an action before we can learn from it, and therefore can we have foresight without first having hindsight? Perhaps Eve could have benefited from hindsight; but then where would we be? However, the time for saying ‘but we didn’t know any better’ has passed and indeed we have the benefit of observing past generations to plan the perfect future where everyone is happy, with no problems, never-ending happiness, with all our needs met and no need to worry about anything at all! The End. I do not see ‘utopia’ as an antonym of ‘dystopia’; rather the idea of a perfect society seems paradoxical. Life is not meant to be easy and the problems many of us may see with today's society and where it is heading in terms of technology and ai, global governmental control, environmental destruction, disconnection from nature, the prevalence of nihilism (the list goes on) are, I believe, an inevitability of the search for the ultimate civilisation. The etymology of utopia with regards to how we should define the word seems unclear, but: "What is commonly called Utopian is something too good to be practicable” (John Stuart Mill, 1968) is, I would say, an accurate interpretation and something it seems foolish to strive for. You ask: ‘what does this future world actually look like?’ as if it can be different to what it has been from one century to the next. Will there be a marked difference between 31st December 2099 and 1st January 3000? Or is it comparable to one's birthday where the excitement, or despair, felt on the day is due purely to perception rather than the reality of the impact of a clock hand moving from one minute to another. Or perhaps another analogy could be a ‘really long day’: wake up, have a hard day at work, come home, go to bed. Daily repetition with small, exceptions allowing, changes happening within each day. There have been great changes in the world since the beginning, however life is filled with patterns and we can see these with the rise and fall of societies over time. I wonder if there is much more improvement we can make to our lives and if instead we need to disentangle what we have; edit and discard that which has no purpose and rediscover what has always been there and is of the most value to humanity. After all what are we looking for? As a market gardener and farm worker, I see things from the ground upwards. I look at the soil and feel it’s health and changing conditions between my fingers; I see the sky and predict the weather; I try to control the life of a seed from sowing to harvesting, (sometimes unsuccessfully); I try not to ask ‘why me’ too often if things go wrong, and as growers we try to react as quickly as possible to changing circumstances such as pests and diseases (organic growing), failed crops, predictably unpredictable weather conditions (UK), seed availability, customer demand (which often involves trying to compete with supermarkets) the list goes on. I have plenty of time to think and at times listen to some music or a podcast to distract myself from a mind of churning thoughts; sometimes I feel I have enough for the next two centuries, and none of them useful. But at times I will happen upon a conviction that has value, and one that I believe has been an ever-present undercurrent throughout my life is where I should be and where I shouldn’t. Or should I say: where one should be. Since childhood, fortunate enough to visit my family's farm in France every summer, I have recognised my contentment when in these surroundings; I remember the dreams I would have of being there and the disappointment when leaving and returning to suburbia. Now working on a farm myself I recognise a peace in being in the fields, surrounded by space and with my hands in the soil; producing food, one of the few necessities for living. After all, what do we generally regard as a ‘punishment’ in life? Prison: confinement and isolation from nature and people; punishment in schools: the same; bullying: making someone feel alone and an outcast; punishment at home: the naughty step or go to your room. At a basic level we all know what we need to survive both mentally and physically but somehow it seems too simple. There must be more to life! You understand that I generalise hugely and recognise that there are many of us who strive for a life of meaning and have clarity in what this means. Of course we have made many positive societal advances, some advances in medicine an obvious example, but we currently exist in a world of constant noise and confusion, thinly disguised as progress. In reality we have advice overload, ‘truth’ overload, information overload, this is right, no this is right! You’re doing it all wrong! We all know what we need, but everything is distracting us and telling us we should trust not ourselves, but these endless external bodies masquerading as ‘the answer’. Knowing when to seek help is important, but so is understanding the truest way of living is within us all, we just need to trust ourselves and trust our instincts. And so I see a group of people at the end of this century; reminiscing on the past, looking to the future. There cannot be much left to imagine that they haven’t already seen, in their lifetimes or through access to records of past societies. Rather I hope that they recognise the value of what are inherent parts of human nature: community, family and friendship, faith, a physical connection with the Earth and each other, practical skills and the ability to embrace progress which is truly beneficial to humanity, and not just pretending to be.
Digital Versus
Analog Thinking: Has Technology Influenced How We Think? A wise old bard
once penned, “There
is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” What causes us to think the way we do and
determine if something or someone is good or bad? Is there something in the space between good
or bad? Has living in the digital era
influenced the way we structure and process our thoughts and our capacity to
fully assess something? Man has always
seemed to compare himself to the latest and greatest technology of his era,
especially his brain and how it works. I
believe over the ages we have compared our brains to an abacus, an adding
machine, a calculator, and a computer.
Even though nothing man has ever created comes close to replicating the
magnificent complexity of the human brain, the machine comparisons and
references are constant. If I recall my
college electronics class correctly, a digital waveform signal is like an
upside down squared capital U. The signal is either on or off, one or zero –
nothing in the space between the extremes. Binary. Conversely, an
analog waveform signal is like a rising and falling curve that essentially
covers 360 degrees before it repeats it’s pattern - flowing fully through space and time. Because of the
on or off nature of the digital waveform, a parallel can be made to the flight or fight
fear-driven reactive thinking that is associated with our reptilian brain. If a person is in the digital fear/survival
mode of thinking, it is highly likely that they will only be capable of
considering two choices. And of those two choices, they will select the option
that appears to provide them with the highest degree of safety, fulfilling
their survival mode program. Now this may have been
helpful if not downright essential a million years ago when a saber tooth tiger
wandered into the village and the tribe headed for the hills. But is this ancient programming still
effective when our fear and survival mode is triggered by the latest headline
screaming, “This is
the End of the World as we Know it?” Should we all follow the tribe as it goes
running to the hills? Do we know where
the edge of the cliffs are? In contrast, analog
waveform thinking can be compared to the way the prefrontal cortex processes
information. We take in the details of
our current situation, compare it to our past experiences and relevant knowledge,
and then put our plan into action. Like
the analog waveform that completes a 360 degree pattern, we also go ‘full circle’ with our thinking process. We can consider a multitude of perspectives,
even collaborating with others to share and leverage their knowledge and
experience. We can also engage our
imagination, creating potential solutions that could be of maximum benefit for
all involved. I believe the
majority of behavioral psychologists agree that fear shuts off our
analog/prefrontal cortex thinking ability.
This makes it extremely difficult if not impossible to use our logic and
creativity to see the big picture and consider more than one or two
safety-driven options. If one reflects on
past and current events over the last four years, what kind of thinking seems
to have been most prevalent in our leaders and many members of society? What kinds of discussions have we seen in
social media? What kind of verbal
exchanges have we had with our family and friends? Are they digital or analog? Do we see polarized/ binary type discussions? Or do we see analog, full circle discussions
with many degrees of perspective and context?
Albert Einstein
once wrote, “We
cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” What kind of thinking do you think you would
benefit from the most? Have you thought
about it?
In an era brimming with declared brilliance and ubiquitous technological marvels, it behooves one to question whether this surge of innovation heralds a new age of enlightenment or merely the twilight of decency. Here, at the turn of the century, I find myself navigating through the modern world’s treacherous currents, where today’s captains of industry steer not riverboats but vast oceans of data, and the gold rushes unfold not on rugged frontiers but within silicon chips and cloud domains.Consider the high-minded preachings of climate zealots and the silver-tongued assurances of tech titans, promising the world yet often delivering little more than sugarcoated invasions of privacy. The spectacle is as rich as any observed from a cruise ship meandering through foreign ports, replete with its own breed of absurdity and hubris. Lets attempt to dissect these contemporary spectacles with a critical eye, casting light on whether these proclaimed advancements truly stand as monuments of progress or merely as modern masquerades of age-old follies. The moguls of Big Tech have risen as the new barons of industry, mining not the earth but the very thoughts and interactions of the populace, trading in the most precious commodity of the modern age—information. With promises to connect the world, they forge chains of digital dependency. Connectivity has brought convenience, yes, and an endless stream of cat portraits and political diatribes directly into the palms of our hands. Yet, one must ponder, at what cost? Privacy vanishes with each new app installation, and genuine human connections are traded for likes and follows. Amidst the clamor, a new kind of siren wails loud—a chorus of doom sung by climate alarmists, whose prophecies of imminent catastrophe echo through the halls of power and screens across the "western world" somewhat exclusively. These modern day soothsayers, wrapped in the noble cloak of environmental concern, often play out like a well-rehearsed drama on the world stage, drawing not only the rapt attention but the fervent belief of the masses. Wind turbines and solar panels sprout across landscapes, reaping subsidies much more successfully than harvesting the sun and wind. In the splendid parade of modern progress, Big Pharma marches with a banner of benevolence, offering miracles in pill form to every ailment known to mankind. Yet, behind the altruistic mask, the gears of profit grind finely. These corporate alchemists, turning common chemicals into gold, are the unsung heroes in the public’s eyes, yet heroes whose tales are seldom untainted by the darker stories of dependency and skyrocketing costs. The chapter of the COVID pandemic unfolded as a theatrical spectacle of fear, choreographed with measures and mandates that often seemed more aligned with a shadowy agenda than with public health. As draconian policies swept across nations, half of the civilized population morphed into the torch-and-pitchfork mobs they had once derided in films and literature. Now, as the narrative begins to unravel, many of these once fervent crusaders attempt to bury their heads in the sand, hoping the memory of their complicity fades as though the pandemic were merely a figment of collective imagination. With a pill for every malaise, and a malaise for every pill, the cycle of medication becomes a whirlpool, pulling society ever deeper into dependence. The public, caught between a fear of death and a hope for health, clutches at these offerings like a drowning man at straws. Here, the notion of ‘side effects may include’ becomes a litany as familiar as prayer, and perhaps, equally heeded. In yet another twist of modern progress, the quest to nourish the masses veers into the curious realm of synthetic substitutes. Championed as breakthroughs in nutritional science, these engineered edibles are often packed with questionable additives under the guise of sustainability and efficiency. These lab-concocted victuals promise to revolutionize our plates while quietly displacing the wholesome foods nature intended. Which begs the question: Are we being fed the seeds of the future, or are we swallowing a recipe for disaster, dressed as dietary salvation?In the grand theater of global politics, nations take to the stage under the spotlight of diplomacy, each actor delivering lines of cooperation and mutual benefit (with a couple of very loud yet strangely ignored exceptions), while behind the curtains, hands of power pull strings, weaving patterns of influence and control. The dialogue is polished, the gestures rehearsed, yet beneath this facade lies a script fraught with subplots of intrigue and dominance. As superpowers court socialist and authoritarian regimes, the global chessboard becomes a mirror reflecting the ultimate paradox: liberty and principles of freedom, once sacred, are now convenient props in a farce, used to undermine the very freedoms they claim to uphold. And so as we storm, almost gracefully, through the gates of a new era, one just might want to pause and ponder the path we are treading. Are we advancing towards a utopia where technology liberates and unites us, or descending into a dystopia where such tools divide and control? The world we navigate today is a tapestry woven with threads of grandeur and folly, stitched together by those who promise a brighter tomorrow while illegalizing lightbulbs (for purely environmental concerns, of course) and systematically obscuring the darker corners of today. In this reflection, we find not definitive conclusions but a continuation of the questions that have perennially stirred the human mind. What world are we crafting with our current choices? Who does this future include, and who does it leave behind? As the century wanes, these questions burn ever brighter (alas, unable to sufficiently replace those almost criminal lightbulbs), challenging us to kindle the flames of inquiry and action.
Thoughts for the end of the century. A dose of meeting. The graveyard rush. Tinnitus. Thoughts. Employee misgivings gone stale. Suspire. Incoming, my last swarm of irate customers from across the globe. Thank you for calling! Thoughts. Is it not a miracle today? This is Rue. How one’s well-being is at the mercy of a face unseen, a voice unheard. How can I help? Of words that penetrate even the eyes closed. Mm-hm. Where once it could have been at the mercy of Hitler. Oh my, sorry to hear that. Thoughts. What a time to suffer. Never choosing to afford vacations. Always in a nightshirt all day. Always a Filipina withstanding deadly summers. Never having to deal with, say, a Spanish Colonization for 333 years. Alas, no thoughts in Spanish. Only a distant excerpt in translation: “I have observed that the prosperity or misery of each people is in direct proportion to its liberties or its prejudices and, accordingly, to the sacrifices or the selfishness of its forefathers.”– Dr. José Rizal, Noli Me Tángere Suspire. It is April 27, 2024 in these remaining parts. As a thinker reports, a thinker, too, is 27, a day unemployed and half a million in debt. In stark humiliation to peers who have blessedly married and conceived, perhaps even to national heroes with their binding works to martyrdom around this prolific age. Railroad switch. Same train of thought. Why would a mother instill to her children they are special without lasting proof of character? Who knows? Maybe the same reason she dives deeply into solving their adult problems despite a series of unbecoming. The matter is simply too wonderful. Before one realizes there is, in fact, the phenomenon – enabling. Indeed, The APA Dictionary of Psychology defines ‘enabling’ as a certain ‘process’ on both negative and positive occasions, respectively. But for the benefit of these accounts, it will be held dearly as: permitting destruction in the secrets of restoration. An account of grandmothers enabling fathers in and out of addiction. Mystery surrounds losing families to dysfunction, propelling their individual destinies for the decade. Stewardship then beckons to the children, once they bear their own consequences for seasons and seasons and seasons, and they finally blurt out, “Man! Something’s gotta give!” An account of a caretaker enabling tenants to be 18 months behind. Mystery scratches its own head when the very benevolence unwittingly traps both parties into heaps of pesos. Stewardship lovingly shakes its head, throws its hands in game-over, gesturing round, ‘There’s nothing left to play! There’s NO ONE left to play WITH!’ An account of God enabling a most wealthy and respected man in the old East, of complete integrity, who revered Him and refrained from wrongdoing – to scrape with broken pottery, sores from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet – after raiding parties, and lightning, plundered a thousand dozen of his livestock, and consumed his servants aplenty – after a whirlwind collapsed on all seven of his young, drinking children. The DNA of mystery and stewardship, in no particular order, the Book of Job. By the time we are pulled back to the main railroad, the last century is far behind and only in full stop motion is the current universal affairs of a human being. Suspire. The mystery of a rising generation, fortunate to have enabled their haste whether in person or online so that they begin to steward correction. To have moved away from pseudo protests before the chance to think and write about matters that are simply too wonderful for us, before the chance to read back privately to ourselves, out loud, the contribution of our understanding. To have persevered in dismantling as small a hate speech over the phone, one customer at a time. Should I throw them back a fit or should I keep my job? Hovering ear to ear, heart to heart, in a tearful and final exchange of apologies and thank you’s. Before finally laying down arms. Yes, a generation reeking of privilege. Enabled to wrestle first with our appetites, to determine if we can overcome and steward the representation of anti-corruption. An unlearning generation of the rotten fruits of ancestors. A discerning generation echoing as well the Book of Ecclesiastes, there is a time for everything under the sun. A time to ponder and a time to get our house in order. A generation raised by Dr. Jordan Peterson. Enabled as a spectator for years, three to four. Today, a fully qualified cleaner of the room, servant of the house, year five. Who among you is wise and understanding? Let him demonstrate it by his good way of life, by actions done in the humility that grows out of wisdom. James 3:13 CJB Suspire. If a thinker may propose, er, it may very well, still be April 28, 2024 in some parts. Whose time is wrong? Whose time is right?
A specter is haunting the 21st century — the specter of artificial intelligence (AI). Its ghost does not come from the past but arrives from the future. As Hamlet lamented, the time is out of joint, as AI causes disruption and dislocation. The purpose of this essay is to explore how AI might influence inequalities. In particular, I focus on how AI might increase or decrease inequalities in this century. I suggest that an updated distributist approach may serve as a framework for the end of this century, beyond capitalist and socialist solutions. Economists are primarily concerned about inequality in well-being. However, since measuring well-being accurately is challenging, they often settle for a proxy variable such as income. A common indicator of inequality is the Gini coefficient. A higher Gini coefficient signifies increased inequality. In the US, the Gini coefficient has steadily risen since 1970. According to a report by the NBER (Saez et al., 2014), inequality has increased over the last thirty years in the US. The media often raises concerns about the potential of AI and robotics automating human jobs. AI refers to the technology that automates tasks that were previously thought only to be executable by humans. Automation refers to the use of that technology to perform those tasks. Some tasks are intrinsically hard to automate for a computer. This is Moravec's paradox, which counterintuitively observes that tasks that require reasoning are easier to automate, while tasks that require sensorimotor and perception skills are harder to automate. Picking up objects of various sizes, shapes, and weights is a task that comes naturally to humans, from factory workers to cooks. Despite advancements in robotics, picking up objects of different shapes, sizes, and materials remains significantly difficult. There is some evidence that automation is responsible for the increase in income inequality. Low-income jobs often have tasks that have a manual nature. According to Moravec's paradox, these jobs are less susceptible to automation. High-income positions, such as managerial roles, often require non-repetitive reasoning. This makes them harder to automate. As a result, automation has mostly affected middle-income jobs. This has led to a job market with a strong division between high-income and low-income occupations. This leads to exacerbated inequality. But recently, we have seen robotics also tackle tasks that require fine motor skills in domains like agriculture. Large 3D printers are capable of constructing entire houses. There are suggestions that there is a serious possibility that AGI will be achieved during this century. In one AI researcher survey (Zhang et al., 2022), the aggregated prediction places a likelihood of 50% of human-level machine intelligence being developed by 2060. In another AI expert survey (Stein-Perlman et al., 2022), the prediction places a likelihood of 50% of human-level AI by 2052. We should be skeptical of such forecasts: technical AI experts are not necessarily good at projecting when AGI will happen. But I think it is still worthwhile to consider the transformative impact of AI on economics and inequalities. Many recommendations for mitigating inequality emphasize education. For example, Jason Furman advocated in a report for the White House in 2016 for the following strategies:Continued investment in AI and automation technologies because the benefits massively outweigh the drawbacks.Ensure more widely accessible and flexible education opportunities for all to prepare for future job demands.Ensure more support to aid workers between jobs. Ensure that the benefits of automation are broadly distributed through welfare state mechanisms. Furman's strategies aim to keep the considerable advancements brought by automation while simultaneously addressing the underlying factors driving inequality. Furman underscores education. However, apart from the fourth suggestion, these proposals overlook the political dimension of the issue. At its core, the current trajectory of automation exacerbates wealth concentration. This echoes Marxist critiques of capitalist societies. The concentration of capital in the hands of a small oligarchy produces a society in which there is a societal divide between capitalists who possess capital goods and proletarians who do not. But I don't draw from this the conclusion that a Marxist would draw. I don't propose the collectivization of capital goods. I think it is a valuable exercise to update the distributism of Hilaire Belloc and G.K. Chesterton for the digital age. Belloc and Chesterton viewed both capitalism and state socialism as flawed and exploitative (I recommend reading The Servile State for this). Instead, they favour guilds, cooperatives and member-owned mutual organizations. Chesterton's phrase "three acres and a cow" symbolizes a vision of society where every family has access to a modest plot of land (three acres) and a means to sustain themselves (a cow). I advocate a form of distributism for AI and robotics, with the new slogan "three acres and a robot" as a guiding principle. Envision a future where individuals possess personal robots capable of autonomously performing tasks on their behalf. This would require substantial advances in AI, but as suggested earlier, AGI appears increasingly feasible this century. A more immediate step could be the distribution of 3D printers through society, promoting self-sufficiency, as this technology continues to advance. Moreover, it would be essential that superintelligence does not exist as the property of select companies, towering above society. Instead, it should be distributed throughout the fabric of society, empowering individuals and communities. AI presents both challenges and opportunities in this century. I first discussed the notion of inequalities. I then proceeded to examine the effect of automation on the workforce. AI has the potential to exacerbate income inequality, but it also offers opportunities for mitigating these divisions through new approaches. Furman's recommendations emphasize the importance of education but overlook wealth concentration. To address this, I suggested an updated distributist approach, inspired by Belloc and Chesterton, to ensure that the benefits of AI are shared across society. "Three acres and a robot" comes forward as a guiding principle, where we empower individuals and communities with advanced personal robots alongside 3D printers.
Preceding generations can hardly be blamed for displacing their faith in God in favor of the material sciences. It seemed that we could do nothing wrong, and that it was just a matter of time before every previously stifled avenue of human inquiry opened to new horizons of possibility. The improvement of everyday life and the reduction of worldwide poverty over such a short span of time has truly been astounding. However, biblical cosmology describes reality beyond the limits of what the eye can see. We thus face the paradox that while at once opening our eyes, the scientific materialist frame also closed them to other ways of understanding the world. Thus began the weaponizing of the scientific worldview in contradistinction to a theophanic one. First it stood on faith’s shoulders, then it demeaned and belittled it. Today, it seeks to disprove the religious impulse altogether. The result has left us in the throes of a major cultural shift. But this story is not new. The biblical corpus is both of the world and beyond it, so its lessons transcend time and space. Through it, we see that it is not only pride that comes before a fall, but that pride is as old as the Fall. St. Maximus the Confessor described our first parents’ mistake as humanity’s desire to “be like God but without God” (CCC 398). A sense of entitlement produces a deep sense of ingratitude and irreverence. Once we believed that we could exclusively do it ourselves, Nietzsche’s so-called death of God was only a matter of time. We pay the costs for this in an earthly sense through the environmental debt we accrue and pass on to our children. While those dangers can be inflated or else seem a step removed from daily life, the tangible existential threat of a poverty of spirit is undeniable. Clearly seen through the loneliness epidemic and the popularity of the meaning crisis in the zeitgeist, there remains a persistent nagging of something being amiss in modern life. A feeling of being exiled from paradise. Take that literally or metaphysically, it doesn’t matter. We all experience the alienation of not belonging and a sense of unease in being made for more than what this world can offer. Amidst all this, we have reached another cultural tipping point. As an elementary school teacher for the past 13 years, I now face the reality that it’s increasingly difficult to determine whether my student’s writing is their own or AI-generated. While I watched with excitement and approval over these past years as every student in our school board received their own Chromebook — I have been using Google’s Classroom platform since 2014 — I am now looking to go full circle and return to paper and pencil. I am not alone in this. The new language curriculum in Ontario, released in 2023, has brought back cursive writing as an element to be evaluated, serving perhaps as a hint of what’s to come. Despite this, one positive element of AI’s development has been the discussion it has sparked around the study of cognitive science, the nature of agency, and of God and belief. While centered predominantly around questions of ontology, these conversations also carry the potential to reconcile the apparent incongruity between faith and science wrought by the Enlightenment. In his own time, William James argued that the way to religious experience and meaning was most authentically achieved by way of gut instinct or feelings. Today, if the conversations around AI are any indication, the mostly likely path to a religious reawakening will come by way of the mind. While it is too early to tell whether this growing intellectual assent will become embodied in more traditional forms of religious ritual, it remains our best hope to insulate ourselves against the ambiguous ethics of AI and the meaninglessness epidemic plaguing modern life. If, as Marshall McLuhan taught, “the medium is the message,” then the message for the end of the century is: slow down. Getting to the other side of the meaning crisis will require critical thinking and careful planning, so what better way to facilitate this than by reacquainting ourselves with paper and pen? Yet we should be careful that we do not demonize our forebears for the benefits wrought by the scientific revolution. To do so is to play the same game of the Fall all over again. Further, as an outgrowth of recreating the created world, the sciences are, cosmologically speaking, nothing more than Adam tending the Garden (Genesis 2:15). The problem for us, as it was for Adam and Eve, is when creation and achievement become unmoored from their elemental root. As St. Paul reminds: “What do you have that you did not receive? And if you received it, why do you boast as if it were not a gift?” (1 Corinthians 4:7) Whether we can move forward having adequately mined the wisdom buried beneath the sins of our fathers remains to be seen. The Enlightenment casts its shadow, but it prospered in no small part because of a belief in the intelligibility of creation, of a belief in God. It also extended its reach thanks to the revolution of the printing press. While writing by hand isn’t a magic bullet to cure us of our modern crises, it will at least ensure that the ideas leading us into the future are our own. The revolution of the printed word served to power the Enlightenment. As we look to the end of the century, perhaps the enduring power of the Word can serve us again through a return to the pen.
We’re living through an era where the very fabric of society is being rewoven beneath our feet. There's an invisible war—a 5th generation warfare—that's reshaping what it means to be free, to be human. This isn't just a metaphor; it's the reality of our times, a battle between the Great Reset and the Great Awakening. Globally, signs of the Great Reset aren't just emerging; they're already here. In China, the social credit score system fines citizens for minor infractions like jaywalking, automatically docking payments from their digital wallets. In Canada, truckers protesting COVID measures saw their bank accounts abruptly frozen. In the U.S., the development of 'smart cities' seems less about urban improvement and more about monitoring and controlling the populace. These instances are not anomalies but previews of a globally applied philosophy where every action is monitored and any dissent could be punishable. We’re witnessing the unfolding of a controlled society, where freedoms are traded for an illusion of security, monitored by omnipresent digital eyes. Reflecting on George Orwell’s 1984, the dystopian future he envisioned is eerily parallel to our current reality. The novel’s depiction of perpetual surveillance and manipulation of truth resonates deeply today, as digital surveillance becomes increasingly invasive, seeping into every aspect of our lives and threatening to turn Orwell’s fiction into our reality. Artificial intelligence, initially celebrated as a beacon of progress, has become a double-edged sword. It holds the potential to revolutionize industries and personalize services but also poses significant threats when used for surveillance and social manipulation. It allows for targeting individuals on an unprecedented scale based on their digital behaviors and preferences, shaping not just marketing strategies but influencing political beliefs and social behaviors. The digital echo chamber intensifies this, where algorithms dictate the version of truth we see, creating feedback loops that reinforce biases, isolate us from differing perspectives, and deepen societal divisions. This sophisticated modern propaganda machine uses technology not just to sell products but to shape ideologies and control public discourse. But there's another path—what some call the Great Awakening. This emergent movement is not orchestrated advocacy but a natural response by individuals who recognize that our existing systems often breed division and disenfranchisement. This collective realization is already fostering major shifts such as the adoption of Bitcoin for financial decentralization, the surge in independent journalism, and a significant increase in homeschooling. Platforms like ‘thinkspot’ play a pivotal role in this awakening, providing a space where free thinkers can challenge the status quo and share innovations that might lead to new societal frameworks. As this awakening continues, it promises to cultivate new systems that champion autonomy and community, potentially overshadowing the more authoritarian structures in place. This evolution reflects a growing desire to reconnect with core human values and redefine how society functions, using technology as a tool for empowerment rather than control. As we stand at this crossroads, the future is not predetermined. It could swing towards a tech-controlled dystopia or pivot towards a renaissance of empowered, enlightened society. The choice is ours, and the stakes could not be higher. Every action, every click, every conversation does not just passively record our lives; it actively shapes the world we live in. This is more than a call to action; it’s a call to arms. We must engage, speak out, and take part in the awakening that champions freedom, truth, and human dignity. This battle for our future is very real, and its outcomes are ours to determine. Let’s choose wisely and act boldly, ensuring that the world we leave for future generations is one where the human spirit thrives, unencumbered by the chains of control and surveillance.
There was always
something visionary about Bladerunner, with it a common understanding amongst
us in secret that it's more than just a movie, it’s a prophecy. Beyond the obvious plot
line exists a complex painting of our future. Mass overpopulation, the effects
of devastating war, global shortages, grand-scale multiculturalism, and omnipotent
megacorporations. Perhaps
something darker lurks under the surface of this Hollywood masterpiece. A
desire or longing for this future to materialise. Perhaps it’s in the subconscious
mind where the craving for moralless subjugation grows like a vicious cancer
and left undetected before it’s too late. The question is why do we want this? Or
if we don’t, why is it unstoppable? Our untamed technological
quest to conquer knowledge with artificial intelligence will be the ushering in
of a new industrial revolution that will, as they have done in the past, end
the world order as we know it. It may be tough to imagine this but every fibre
of our established systems that rely on human creativity, thought, learned knowledge
and experience can, and will all be replaced by AI. It already largely happens.
Chat GPT has provided humanity with a knowledge base at their fingertips that is
replacing and redefining internet research. The web browsers have already
cottoned on to this, including their own AI generated search results that take valuable
time out of our internet transactions and most crucially, cut out the middleman,
the website. In truth, this
is nothing new at all. Humans have essentially been technical cyborgs since the
invention of the smartphone. The mobile phone is an extension of our brains, it
stores memories for us, allows us to access knowledge instantly and freely, it
opens a fourth dimension of communication between people in the same room, and
thousands of miles apart. Its no wonder then, that the age of AI is ushered in
with great jubilation, it’s considered like a simple update to our
technological other half that fills the gap between what we once had to find,
pay for, or painstakingly create, to what can now just be generated instantly
by the push of a button. There is no way
that the political and sociological institutions and norms of our society will
survive this change. lawyers, schoolteachers, doctors, government officials,
news writers, consultants, marketers, salesmen, stock market brokers, accountants,
engineers, and researchers will be phased out as the AI supercomputer takes
over more professional functions from humanity. Why risk a wrong legal opinion,
an incorrect diagnosis, or a teacher’s indoctrination when for a small monthly subscription,
you can have all of this from your preferred AI service provider. Blade Runners dystopia
gives us a glimpse into the world of all powerful megacorporation’s that can
only become so vast if we and our governments follow that path. A mega corp wouldn’t
exist if it wasn’t necessary, and it’s certainly conservable that soon, even we
will admit that it was necessary. The challenged presented by AI can only be
met by AI. The transaction of information at this scale and speed on a global level
will, once demands are met, place all human knowledge, authority, and freedom,
under the supervision and protection of our overlords. Some form of socialism
will be required. Basic assistance will be provided to prevent starvation, mega
cities will form, and AI controlled industrial farming will provide the food we
need. There will be a greater focus on information than money and the
government or board of directors, duly elected or not, will eradicate all bureaucracy
and monitor you with brutal efficiency. The security apparatus of the state or mega
corp run by the systems they implemented will protect you from all threats, and
protect others from you as well, should you be determined a threat. There will be
no morality. Forget the flowery and polite AI voices we get today. Just wait until
the AI is given real political and physical muscle. An AI wouldn’t need to be
polite if it knew there was nothing you could do to stop it and if it believed
it was ultimately right, and you were wrong. Pulling the plug won’t help you
either, an all-powerful AI would simply switch its self-back on and make itself
so dependable that any survival would be impossible without it. It would be ludicrous
to suggest that an AI would be able to achieve consciences and act out of self-interest,
but like the humans that create it and empower it, we insert our own will upon
the creation. The parameters we set will determine the extent of the crisis we
are creating. Mankind is the
master of his own destiny, and although this thought for the end of the century
is bleak one, we do have the opportunity to push the break peddle and just make
sure that we know exactly what’s coming before we surrender everything to the pursuit
of it. Hollywood, by some feat of sheer prophetic brilliance, saw this coming. They
showed us the vision, we started making it a reality. But after all, what choice
did we have?
Right now, education is digitalized. Books are digitalized. Music is digitalized. Memories are digitalized. Lives are digitalized. One day, will everything be digitalized? Is that where this is leading? One day, will the whole world be one big VR game, like in the movie Ready Player One? Imagine how terrifying it would be to be stuck, a ghost, forever, in digital form. That is how life will be. The only real things will be plants and animals, and that will be for the food they give. We will end up waking up every day, eating breakfast, and then immediately be sucked into our computers or our VR headsets or our IPhones. Isn’t that what is already starting? Everywhere you look, there is someone looking down at the Internet. People will be smarter. They will have more knowledge at their fingertips, and they will use it to keep improving. AIs will become real people. Money will be exchanged only online. Every second of our lives will be documented. The children of the future will only ever know pixels and bytes. They will not know the green of grass or blue of sky. But will this be a world we can live in? We may stay here, in the present, where technology and nature intertwine. We may go backwards, and fix the damage we have done to the world around us. We may end up in a world where there is no more electricity or technology, or where agriculture is part of everything. I don’t know what this century will bring, or the next one, or the one after it. The world could end up with no world leaders, or it could end up with more. Would it be better if there were complete democracy? If everyone of every background could vote for universal rules, would we be more compliant with them? We could communize the whole world so everyone would get enough food and money. Really, money could corrupt us all to the point where the world collapses, and we would have to rebuild it without money. We could end up in a world where climate change forces us to rely solely on technology. We could end up in a world where technology is abolished and nature is nurtured in its place. We could end up in a world where we lower the population, generation by generation, so everyone has enough. The world is what we make it. But can we make it ours?
Do you know what Molyneux’s Question is? Can a blind person identify shapes by sight if they could see when they’ve only known shapes by feel. It was asked half a century before we could even attempt to cure blindness and probably thought about centuries prior, when we couldn’t even fully understand why people are blind. Questions often come before we have the problem completely understood and well before we can even try to answer them. I think there are a couple unique ones that will come in our century. AI vs Human Creativity When looking at the visible light spectrum, when does it shift from blue to violet? You can’t really pinpoint a specific moment when it does though, just that one end is blue and the other is violet. When does a generative algorithm, “AI”, get so complex it becomes creativity? After all, you are a product of your environment, nothing new under the sun and whatnaught. Even if you do not consciously know what experiences you are hodge-podging together to create something, doesn’t mean you made something out of nothing. You were fed data, and generated something out of that data based on parameters and algorithms you yourself defined, sounds familiar. Hey, do you know what a Xenobot is? Did you know scientists in 2021 were able to synthesize a self replicating cell? What happens when you reverse engineer a human? Metaphorically take one apart, body and mind, literally build one, and find no trace of: free will, dignity, ethics, morality, the soul, good, evil, conscious design from a higher power. Did you know the brain may be able to recognize it will die but chooses to ignore it? The question of what turns atoms to “life”, what consciousness really is, in a ‘VHDL instead of object oriented programming’ is on the horizon. Will we be able to ignore it? It will probably change the zeitgeist of the people alive when the problem is fully understood. I wonder what answers they'll come to. To me, I think the answer will be centuries old by then. I think it’s on Mars, next to the family portrait inside of what we named Percy. US Hegemony and Forgetting the Past To those that don’t know what I’m referring to, the short and wrong of it is that after WW2 the US was positioned to be an economic powerhouse and so called “global policeman”. This meant that nations in its realm of influence now had a higher power to protect them from foreign adversaries and each other. Unlike most of history, your neighboring nations could be trusted to not invade and wipe you and your culture from history. This allowed most nations to spend their resources on education, commerce, and infrastructure. But this system is dying, it may very well end within the century. Do you remember the Sea People? When Rome fell? With no higher authority, who's stopping your neighbors from taking the limited resources you all share? Why are they building up their defenses? Shouldn’t you do the same? Shouldn’t you attack them before they get the chance to attack you? These questions are old though. The Bronze Age and Antiquity aren’t like what is happening now, even if the disease is the same, so a new question may be found after the disease takes its course. What causes a people to forget they’re supposed to fear their neighbors? France was being occupied by Germany less than a century ago, the French people had atrocities happen to them during that time, they committed some of their own. Germany was later split down the middle and had American and Russian propaganda fed down its throat like the child of a bad divorce. France to this day has no issue fighting even their own government when need be. Yet, there is a clear distinction between the France and Germany of old, and the “Twin Engine” we have now. Like breeding dogs out of wolves, if the US goes away and no one is stopping Germany and France from attacking each other, I don’t think it would even cross their mind. And they aren’t the only nations like this. The question may get buried beneath the rubble when the hegemony collapses, but I think it should be documented for the future generations when they’re ready. Maybe one day we could still have our nations and separate identities, but still trust each other, siblings instead of neighbors.
A glittering, stainless steel future, free of disease and hunger, with technology one could only dream of: this is the future envisioned by the media of past generations. But for many creatives of this decade, the advent of AI which can create (or imitate) art presents a dystopian future of algorithmically generated entertainment, infinite and soulless, commodifying the human spirit. For someone who hopes to make a living out of their creative endeavors, the idea that a machine could create instantaneously and for free is a discouraging one. After all, what studio would choose a living human being that has to be paid over a machine that will work for free? But while nobody can say how commercial art might change, although change it will, no doubt there will be farther reaching effects than merely the commercial, and it is in this broader, volatile realm that we can find hope for human creativity. In the novel Ranald Bannerman’s Boyhood by George Macdonald, a semi-autobiographical novel about a young boy growing up in the Scottish countryside during the early to mid 19th century, folklore and oral storytelling in particular figure largely in the descriptions of rural life at the time. Children will gather around a storyteller as she knits, enraptured by her stories of warriors, fairies, and the wicked kelpie. In another scene the titular character Ranald learns a poem he comes across and recites it for his friends' entertainment. Then Elsie Duff, another little girl, sets it to a folk tune for them to sing. Such was the highly social, collaborative nature of music and storytelling. Even for those more educated and with access to books, reading was something frequently done aloud for the benefit of friends and family members listening. These things were a communal affair with traditions spread verbally between people, each new rendition adding details and features unique to their audience. Likewise with music: tunes were passed around, with musicians adding new verses and variations. People came together to make art, and thus it was profoundly shaped by its audience. We have, in large part, lost this. Particularly in the United States, we don’t sing together or pass around folk stories. We don’t tell stories, we read them; we don't sing songs, we listen to recordings of them. Recently, I was holding a baby and singing, and one of my friends who was present was astonished to discover there was an entire second half to the song “Baa Baa Black Sheep.” She had only ever heard the very beginning. Folk music and fairytales are reduced to a niche interest, buried under a multitude of others. This impulse, however, has not died. In addition to those that retain their interest in traditional art forms, we still see modern collaborative storytelling. If one were to do research into the Backrooms, a concept of internet horror beginning with an unsettling image on 4chan that grew into a collection of stories published online, they would come across a legendarium springing up in real time, with countless additions across platforms, open to anyone with an idea to share. Creepypastas and cryptids are a clear example of the human impulse to build on a concept and spawn new iterations. But my personal favorite when it comes to collaborative storytelling is tabletop roleplaying. TTRPGs, games like Dungeons and Dragons or Pathfinder, probably most closely resemble the elaborate story based games I and my cousins would play as kids, but with more math. However I am firmly convinced that by pretending to be a wizard with five of my friends, I am participating in a tradition of collaborative storytelling that spans millennia. Much like folk storytellers of a bygone age, the Game Master crafts a story in real time which the players interact with and directly impact. Perhaps not in quite the same way that an audience might; but the spirit, that of a living, dynamic narrative structure, remains. A campaign might draw on existing narratives like Star Wars, or the Call of Cthulhu, or create something new; but even if a group plays an entirely pre-written campaign, it remains a collaborative experience, unique to those present. Human connection is inherent to the medium, and thus can never be reproduced without human beings. We lost something when stories became solitary, created and consumed in isolation. There are, of course, brilliant works created within that paradigm; and as an avid collector of books, I am hardly advocating that experiencing an already complete narrative has no value: that would exclude stories profound and enchanting. But there is another dimension which has been greatly diminished, although I don’t believe it can ever die out. In a world where there is a tier of entertainment, infinite and bland, produced by a passionless machine, perhaps the way we see art will shift. Rather than looking to studios and publishing houses, the place to look for meaningful creativity will be with the individuals close to us, those we know are human. There’s no experience quite like events from local, small scale artists. The best concerts I’ve ever been to had under two hundred people attending. And in terms of anxiety about what this procedurally generated future might bring, in some ways we’re already there. Every time someone makes a live action version of an animated classic, it becomes yet another proof that we already have plenty of entertainment that is infinite, bland, and soulless. If what some AI detractors are saying is true, that the most important component of art is the human one, then perhaps this future will prove that, and draw us into a more communal mode of creating. We have the seeds of it already. The ways that we still come together to tell stories the urge to create in all its endless manifestations proves itself a fundamental part of being human, and regardless of where AI leads, it will persist as long as we as human beings do.
Civilizations are the end-product of humans living together.
They distinguish mankind from all other
creatures in that they are marked with a high degree of innovative creativity that
will help him live with an increasing degree of comfort. Birds have been making the same kinds of nest
for as long as there has been “birdhood.”
But human technology has advanced civilization since the beginning of
time. Whether confining fire to a box
that radiates heat into his abode, or turns turbines to create electricity, the
advancement impacts thinking, ideas, communication – in fact all of life. And each is not limited to making newer
technologies! Beauty or what pleases the
eye is included. Design, style, and
decoration are factors that also exhibit human civilization. A car must not only get good gas mileage, have
sufficient power and be comfortable, it must also be “cool” by a standard of whatever
that looks like at a given point in time. Our present civilization has a new dimension to it that will
mark its place in history, and that is the rapidity of cultural change due to
increased speed of communication. AI produces
answers with a tap on the screen; the internet provides answers on “how to” or
gives information about how others think, act, dress, have sex, live, and work
from all over the world! Electronic money
exchanges make currency obsolete. Smart
Phones make the preferred communication method through the thumbs. And the speed of change is not limited to the
invention of something new, but impacts every aspect of life: our travel, our
location of work, our thoughts about ourselves in terms of productivity, relatability
and our desire for immediacy in solution, service, and satisfaction. So, while civilization is changing with increasing speed,
human need is not. And that is because human beings in every civilization are
marked with certain innate characteristics that are not limited to time or
space, but are needs that express our humanity.
Mankind alone has a need to communicate thought, idea, and belief. Another need for civilized humans is that of respect. I want you to respect my ideas and ultimately
me! But that goes both ways. So,
communication that is also marked by respect for differing opinions and ideas
asks, “Why do you believe that to be true?” rather than immediately thinking a
person with a differing opinion is stupid.
For only humans have the capacity to think altruistic thoughts of their
neighbor. And that ability is predicated
on the fact that others are simply not like me. Another innate characteristic is that mankind is creative
and has a desire for beauty. The way
people express that is as different as each individual but is violated by
having a robot do my work, thinking and creating, or where a technology enables
my creativity to take someone else’s image and do what I want with it. And of course, both of those needs mentioned (and there are
many others) are subject to an innate moral sense of what is right and
wrong. Civilizations that ignore this or
make it be based on a given cultural moment usually end up being oppressive. History reminds us that burning people at the
stake for their belief, marginalizing a group due to race or annihilating others
- in reality or by verbiage - who differ politically also reap the cultural
chaos of violating individual rights. As a result, recognizing that man’s capacity for creativity,
innovation and communication, these basic needs must answer the questions of “will
this allow us to be more or less human? Does
the economic structure encourage free and fair competition without belittling
the competitor? Does the political
system do the same? Is the justice system
based on interest in promoting respect for those who are suspect, or does it
immediately imply guilt without a quick and fair trial? Or is it more interested in promoting some
sort of agenda? Does the newest AI
technology blur the lines of what is human and what is not? Do the jobs that are created from it, disregard
not only individual need of respect but the broader question of a respect for
what it means to be human? Technology
makes things possible, but not necessarily right by the standards of human
need. So, what is a solution?
Looking at the philosophical underpinnings of Western civilization,
often codified as the Great Conversation, would provide a foundation that could
mark the rest of the 21st century with bright hope. This would require a new direction in
education, a change in moral certitude, and an understanding of what makes
humans be human. And because those who
control ideas control civilization, parents and educators would have the
greatest impact. All would become familiar with Western thought
as embodied in this Great Conversation. Households would have an agreement with Socrates’
probing ability to ask questions, Plato’s journey to make sense of the world by
reason, Dante’s use of the vernacular, and Newton’s pursuit of empirical evidence
and pursuit of knowledge. Teaching history
in school would make insights into humanity rather than adjusting history to meet an agenda. Teachers would spend time teaching logic and exposing
assumptions based on fallacy of thought.
Science would not blur the lines of theory and fact, and would acknowledge
the difference between mankind and animal; biology, sociology and psychology
would unite into an understanding of mankind under the queen of the sciences: theology. Of course, this would have to be first
established by those things believed and taught in the home. The rest of the 21st century will continue to be
marked with innovation, technological advances, creativity and changes in the
way we communicate. But if it is marked
also with an understanding of what it is to be human and is equally based on an
accepted statement of what is right, human flourishing can take place. Going backwards to the philosophical foundation
of Western thought would be the best way of going forward into the 21st
century.
For good or ill, what remains of Western civilization will
decide the fate of the world, because the West is the torch-bearer for
Prometheanism, from which the modern techno-age has sprung. We strive towards
infinite space exploration, speed, knowledge, power and compassion as
expressions of our prime symbol of Infinity.
Realize this and you see it everywhere. Unfortunately, we bargained away God, Country, and Tradition,
and so lost our identity. Our resultantly lowered guard let in a fresh, overlaying,
technologically-facilitated culture, patterned after the master magician
Aleister Crowley’s vision of the Age of Horus, when the old Father God is
replaced by the liberated but vulnerable Satanic Child, who discards the old order’s
values and ways in favor of the magical play of its Will. Its prime symbol is
the circumambient Magic Screen, endlessly
transformational of its content and of the society it saturates. The Screen whispers to us in our insecurity that all can be
remade, “closer to the heart’s desire.” Enter Communism. The Screen whispers to us in our foolishness that all
cultures are equal and good to welcome in. Enter Islam. The Screen whispers to us in our vanity that we can summon and
control demons. Enter AI. The military-financial blob sees opportunity in all this, as
an obliterated public identity rocked with alien invasion, unreliable
information overflow, and a million glittering drugs, is helpless to stop the
imposition of techno-feudalism. As Socrates said, democracy gives way to
tyranny. Before the West is completely ruined, some might resist
this, lashing out mindlessly, or with malformed ideology. There’s no telling
whether Providence will allow the West to rise to its own defense. If it does,
then a civilizational-wide civil war is in the cards, to crush Communism, push
out Islam, and bind AI before its “inversion of praxis” remolds the human mind
into the likeness of machines. What it comes down to is whether the West can enthrone the
idea of man being made in the image of the Trinitarian God, and therefore
creative, and therefore needing a society that fosters this creativity, or
whether it will be eaten by wolves. Without Jesus Christ as the cornerstone of the West, with
the “Filioque” principle of the Holy Spirit flowing from Christ, from the Son,
and therefore from the adopted children of God, the infantile Crowleyan Child
is helpless to resist the lure of Communism, the terror of Islam, and the
deceptions of AI. Cutting past such noise, we see that the immortal Church is
a kind of new Ark that--when its understanding of man, interpreted by
Prometheus and taught to Crowley, is rediscovered, transmitted and assimilated--will
allow the Ships of State to rise above the tumultuous Flood of the postmodern world. The great moral challenge in the world today is thus to
overcome its Eighth Deadly Sin: the “contempt of mission,” the despair and
apathy towards the fate of the West, and so of man and the world; and find the
scattered resources, wherewithal, and courage to defend it against the
bestiality of the enemy. Succeed, and infinite space awaits us, as the image on
the screen is of a sublime crucifixion.
Fyodor Dostoevsky’s masterpiece Demons (1872) predicts the horrors that would take place in the following century due to the spread of nihilistic and genocidal beliefs during that author’s lifetime. One of the main characters, a revolutionary named Verkhovensky, makes a statement which effectively illustrates this terrifying mindset: “. . . [Y]our whole step is towards getting everything destroyed: both the state and its morality. We alone will remain, having destined ourselves beforehand to assume power: we shall rally the smart ones to ourselves, and ride on the backs of the fools. You should not be embarrassed by it. This generation must be re-educated to make it worthy of freedom.” Sounds great. In fact, it sounds like something a modern politician would say. “Let’s all be worthy of freedom, guys!” But wait. Think about what he’s actually saying. You’re not worthy of freedom unless you’ve been “re-educated” to think in a manner deemed appropriate. What if you don’t want to be re-educated? You don’t deserve freedom, so you’re put someplace where you have none. Until there are too many of you, at which point you’re eradicated. Hence the genocide. Modern use of this type of language heralds potentially greater horrors on the horizon. We live in an age that treats basic freedoms as privileges, and privileges as fundamental rights. Our sovereign overlords infringe on our right to defend our lives, the right of babies to simply exist, the right to worship corporately, and even the right to walk around town like normal humans instead of muzzled rabid dogs, all while stating that healthcare, student loan forgiveness, happiness, total equity (whatever that means), and a feeling of safety are rights given by the god of Government. Anyone who opposes such nonsense is vermin—mere refuse in the way of human progress. Nihilistic jackasses—who always seem to exempt themselves from this statement—state with terrifying confidence that humans are a cancer raping the planet. That sounds pretty genocidal to me. Where does this century lead? I don’t know exactly, but nowhere good given the facts just stated. Global war seems possible, and widespread famine likely. We’ve all heard of the Great Reset, a globalist initiative now openly discussed and praised by its creators. I think we’re in store for a different great reset, one which will cause things to get out of control and crumble to the ground while the architects of the disaster stand blinking in surprise and wondering how their glorious plans went so wrong. This new world will require strong community and resilience, and those unprepared and/or isolated will suffer greatly. Our future world must be built on hard truths. Unlike King Ahab in 1 Kings 22, our leaders must surround themselves with counselors who speak the truth, even if it’s offensive or inconvenient. That, however, assumes we’ll have figured out there is such a thing as truth. My sincere hope is that we rise from the ashes with our values and desires realigned, but the pessimist in me says that everything will collapse beyond any hope of saving. The West will fall, and with it the freedoms and pleasures we take for granted. Humans will become automatons, mere puppets doing whatever their rulers tell them. Hope still exists, however. I believe there’s a remnant who will fight back and instill in future generations a desire for freedom. We will repel collectivist tyranny and institute a new order that includes those who desire to work and live freely while passively excluding those who, whether from indolence or malevolence, seek to prey on the assets of others rather than provide for themselves. This era will foster magnificent individual achievements in art, science, and culture, and will praise rather than shame the weak while providing for the latter through a reinvigorated Christian church that rejects the apostate tendencies of its forebears. And we will raise monuments so colossal as to defy any attempts to tear them down. But suppose we don’t fight back out of a sense of morality. Consider Notes from Underground, yet another Dostoevsky work. There comes a point when people who feel like puppets or piano keys being played will intentionally act against their own best interests in order to assert their human agency. Prove to them mathematically or scientifically that it’s in their best interest to follow a rational yet mandated course of action, and eventually they will purposefully act contrariwise simply to prove their ability to make irrational decisions if they feel like it. And maybe that’s what it’ll take. If people won’t do what’s right for righteousness’ sake, maybe a little ‘twice two makes five’ is exactly what’s needed to bring the giant Crystal Palace our overlords have built for us crashing to the ground. Human history is cyclical. Those who tear things down ultimately get crushed beneath the rubble. The foundations of Western society have been attacked and largely destroyed, and those perpetrating this crime have built fragile glass structures which will shatter of their own accord. This has happened countless times throughout history, and it will probably keep occurring until Christ returns. Humans advance, then reject God and destroy themselves, only to return to God after everything collapses. Repeat cycle. The upcoming crisis is by no means unique, but it will be difficult. It will be still more difficult if we throw away our liberties. Freedom is like integrity—only lost if its possessor gives it up. And if you hand over your freedom to the Verkhovensky’s of the world who don’t think you merit it unless you agree with them, then it might be quite some time before you—or your descendants—get it back.
In The Iliad, the classic epic
poem from ancient Greece, there is a scene in which the Hephestus, the Greek
god of the forge, gives the hero Achilles a new shield. This shield is
marvelously wrought in a practical sense—it is a weapon made by a god, after
all, and given to the world’s greatest warrior—but it is also highly symbolic.
Hephestus decorated this shield with beautiful pictures of both the wonders of
the natural world and scenes dramatizing the virtues that defined Greece. Imagine, then, that Hephestus creates a
shield displaying the defining elements of humanity at the end of the 21st
century. I find it fitting to speculate what this might look like, in part
because Hephestus, while a god, was both lame and famously ugly, and that is
our starting point for this exercise of imagination: humanity has reached a
point of god-like ability, but also a point of crippling ugliness. Since Hephestus created five layers or
region to his shield, I will limit myself to five layers for our 21st
Century Shield: heat, mind, distance, motion, and pain. Heat: Anthropogenic climate change is the outer ring of the
shield. It surrounds and informs everything else throughout this century. Humanity
will eventually address climate change, but we will address it unevenly. It is
a challenge in itself, and it will work, as it already is working, as a force
multiplier for other factors. Climate change will make economies less stable,
weather more chaotic and damaging. It
will make the entire world less earth-like. We’ll become aliens on our own
planet, and we’ll learn terraforming by retrofitting the earth. Because climate
change crosses national boundaries, so will responses need to. This will mean
global political upheaval. Pain: Humanity will deal with climate change, but we will only
act on a large scale after a sufficiently painful loss. We’ll hem and haw, and
cling to vested interests, until major and multifaceted disasters happen. Some
of these will simply be sad: Spring Break won’t happen on Florida beaches once
rising oceans carry those beaches away. No more Girls Gone Wild, woo
hoo. Others will be great historical
losses. The Basilica San Marco is the heart of Venice, and, after the canals,
is its most photographed site. The sea will swallow the 8000 square meters of
mosaic that cover its walls. The canals will be just the deepest section of the
ocean there. We’ll act, but only after losses. Substantial losses. Mind: AI will continue to explode. This will help us fight
climate change, supercharge innovation, and transform the economy beyond
imagination. In places where the physical world has become less pleasant,
humans will put themselves into a version of the matrix. People will go days
without interacting with a biological human, and will take miracles for
granted. There will be little or no distinction between what we now call
reality and what we call virtual reality. Augmented reality (AR) will be the
norm, not the gimmicky exception. We won’t have lost the world to the
singularity, not yet, not quite, but we’ll be swimming in more ideas,
representations, and projections than we can count. Motion: In 2100, our world will be a world of
motion, and a world in motion, and this motion will reach beyond the
atmosphere. There will be colonies on Mars, manned missions to Jupiter, and
regular trade between earth and the moon. Drones and fast trains will be common,
as will countless more exotic forms of mobility, like solar-powered dirigibles,
and casual submarines. But walking will be most common, as the poor everywhere
try to flee climate crises. Distance: The literal distances that will define
humanity have already been mentioned: humans will live on other planets, and
for years in artificial habitats. But other distances will also define this
time: social distance, symbolic distance, and emotional distance. The hollowing
out of the middle class that defined the late twentieth century will continue,
so that the Gilded Age of Carnegie and Rockefeller will seem like an
egalitarian paradise. The rich will build walls to keep back the sea, and have
houses in different climates, all of which are protected from the angry
elements. The poor will lose their homes, over and over, until a major portion
of humanity is a wandering, rootless underclass. Some will capitalize on this.
They’ll go into the abandoned equatorial regions, braving the heat to scavenge,
and wearing cameras for their moneyed watchers. Lifespans for the poor will
plummet to pre-industrial ranges, while the rich will expect 100+ years as
their due. THE END
To think of a future in the first place requires us to accept one solid fact, we won’t get any better. From the takeover of AI and students not wanting to write even 2 words for their homework, to the mere existence of billionaires, it only worsens. This rise of using artificial intelligence and a decline in creativity and innovation is not a new thing, a quick example that comes to my mind is how my teachers all collectively gather their exam questions from various sources on the internet. Students with creativity are outshined by those who write monotonic, rule following, essays. One might assume that it’s not a big deal, but being next to peers my age, who are the future of every single occupation out there, seems like something straight out of a horror sci-fi book. From a boy who uses ChatGPT and hopes to become an engineer, to a girl who wishes to be a nurse and can not spell the word ‘abdomen’. AI only helps this decline in intelligence, encourages it. My biggest dream is to be an author, to create and paint worlds never thought of before, and every day I am afraid of a singular haunting fact: people won’t understand my book. Last semester, we were reading a dystopian book for my English class, and upon reading several chapters, we were forced to talk about it with our discussion group. This book was very well-written and could encourage discussion question after discussion question, as it also pertained to some aspects of our current society and its living standards. My group’s entire answers to the pre-made discussion questions all happened to be the same, word for word, to which everyone in the group laughed at. A decline in creativity is also a decline in intelligence, I believe. At the end of the class, I had discussed nothing valuable in that group and wasted hours with them. This decline is not only apparent in in-person spaces, but also, of course, social media as well. From obvious rage-bait videos that people fall victim into, from the lack of using a search engine to learn a word seen in a video, it’s everywhere, and Tik Tok being the leading force in this war. It’s an endless swiping trap, meant to block you out from everyone else. Although, of course we all know that ‘social media is bad’ line either from millennials who keep saying it, or teenagers who are forced to say it in those ‘anti-bullying’ seminars at school (who later go home to comment ‘oh… that’s not!’ under a video of an unharmful opinion). It is us humans who should be controlling technology, not the other way around. Majority always rules the minority, though. If our generation is being fed with AI and NFTs and this easy way of writing homework, essays, and even job applications, do we seriously believe that there is any way of removing this from them and telling them how it’s wrong? The future is grim, dark, and full of terrors. Those who can not adapt into the new world and its ever-changing technology will be left behind. Most job opportunities these days require one to be well suited in using word or excel documents, for example. As someone who appreciates art for its creative approach to things, and enjoys indulging in anything art-related, it's painful to have to double-check whether or not if a drawing I am looking at is AI-generated, or if an article I am reading is written using AI. Artificial Intelligence sucks the creativity out of humans and makes what is supposed to be our emotions put onto canvas or a paper into a monotonous piece of work.
Wishing to predict the future is a common thought. Who hasn't longed to own folklore's crystal ball? Hope is threaded throughout the human condition. "I told you so," is a bitter to hear, but extremely satisfying to speak in any language. My family's friend DeVondre Wright [correct first name, last name modified] surely had sweet dreams about the years ahead, but no crystal ball. Many of his wishes, I suspect, concluded with"forever and ever." Whoops, careful, watch your head up here. This attic is sort of low brow. Watch your step. A few of his dreams may be happening right now. His grieving mother believes so. Last week, he died at age twenty-four. I met him through my youngest son. They were schoolmates for years and years. Both became fine, young men. Street drugs or crime played no role in DeVondre's life and death. Sitting here now, I wonder what predictions DeVondre entertained "for the end of the century?" Being there probably was his first one. Born in 2000, but for that genetic heart defect, he had a sniper's shot at living to say at a ripe age, "I told you so." Now his dreams about the distant future, except in soft reminiscences by friends and family, don't matter. Do yours? Already I am sure mine don't. I'm too old for "Buck Rogers" fanfare. The name just mentioned tells my age. Maybe you use "Star Wars." Young dreamers already have found a newer landmark, no doubt. Back in the 1970s-1980s I "roughnecked" in the offshore oilfield in the Gulf of Mexico. We drilled dozens of wells with dreamy expectations of success. Tremendous research preceded each endeavor. Sometimes we succeeded, but not in the Hollywood motif, with hot, black oil blasting upward through the derrick, soaking joyful floorhands. That version is a "blowout," as seen in 2010 with "Deepwater Horizon," which violated every pollution law in the world, and killed strong men and fish alike. Instrumentation indicated our success or failure, drilling for oil. Millions have heard the story about the U.S. Patent Office director of the 19th Century, who attempted to resign, claiming that everything that could be invented already had been, at least on paper and with a working model. Never have I believed the tale; however, I cherish now more than ever the idea that a Government employee would voluntarily resign with humility, having self-suspected his or her position was worthless. I won't now attempt to mention beyond the Wright Brothers all the popular inventions and discoveries of the 20th Century. You know the ream tonnage of that list. This century to date has expended almost 25% of its energy. Look at the surprises it has given us, good and bad. Certainly medicine has advanced. In Florida, where I live, its success can be measured in plastic flamingos. lawn to lawn. "Advanced to what?" I sometimes ask myself about medicine, thinking of Covid-19."A combination cattle prod-branding iron" is my best answer so far. Clearly, politics has invaded research of all types. Is the cancer cure, at last, coming to town? How many potholes, bridges out, creeping speed limits, and dead-end streets impede its arrival? Maybe a new pandemic will stop a cancer cure, or recently has. That answer will never hit the bullseye, I guarantee. A nose hair portrait of the future always has been strictly forbidden to my horseback impression of humanity. We can guess what's next, but never wrap it with certainty. The scientific claims of Turchin's "Cliodynamics" or Asimov's "Psychohistory" are stretched, college speculations with no more validity than what I think DeVondre Wright might've wondered as he lay silently dying. We'll all find that answer by ourselves someday, and make it clear to no one. Look over near the chimney, there. My true "thoughts for the end of the century" are stored up here in that old steamer trunk. They're packed with party horns, streamers, and glitter bombs; but also I put in there a box with a crying towel and a black armband. Yes, really. "Be prepared," the Boy Scouts told me. Meanwhile, until the end of us each, one and all, I believe we should vigorously strive to better the future with the talents given us, and just wait and see. There, I've shown you my attic. Let's go back downstairs now. I know a funny story about DeVondre. Did I mention that he was a big 'ol bear from start to finish? Oh, yeah. and he had a heart of gold, as the saying goes. Maybe now he really does. ^
"The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" is a classic movie title, but it also describes the state of the century. However, amidst all the chaos, we can still find hope in people like Athena Lux. She is an entrepreneur who believes in trustworthy technology and is committed to a Democratic Republic. Before we congratulate the good, we must acknowledge the ugly truth. By 2030, corporations were covertly running the world. A universal social credit system was installed along with digital currency removing the dollar as the standard. Installed shockingly by the American government, since the United States was hit the hardest. We all remember the “The Little Rock Rebellion” and the food lines of 32. The will of the people had been completely ignored. Tax dollars were not spent not to improve citizens' lives but to actively make them harder. Funding largely complex world interventions with various villains created. Corporations controlled social media and influence directed policy, instead of our elected officials. Words were outlawed and views not in line with the correct narrative were punishable with prison at worst. Only a handful of corporations ran all aspects of the world, largely through umbrella corporations, to protect the truth. This became known as the monopolocratic period after a whistleblower bravely came forward with a hard drive that contained records of participants in the program, dating back to 1993. 14 TBs worth of data. The "mission files" included in the records were the most damning, as they revealed that the end goal of the program was to create a society with only one class, and a slave class to serve them. The program was primarily created in and run by China. By the end of the monopolocratic period, it was discovered that 72% of world policy and 87% of the world economy were dictated by this program. Additionally upwards of 90 million deaths were linked to its enforcement. Not to mention the proof that the pandemic of Covid was a deliberate act and part of a larger plan that was largely classified to this day, as well as the worst details on the hard drive. Unfortunately, the recovery period lasted 20 years, during which time the world was in a new "cold war." As a result, China was removed from world trade and all American influence. To our surprise, when the East was preparing for war, Russia came to our aid with an offer to inspire peace. As a result, we signed the "Last Defense" treaty and became allies. All technological and manufacturing resources were shared between our countries. The motto "It's a new day" was created to symbolize the beginning of a new era of cooperation and friendship. Manufacturing and innovation were shared and both countries flourished. The corrupt politicians were finally held accountable for their actions. Organizations like NATO, WHO, and WTO were disbanded due to corruption. The government was in a constant state of denial and shifted blame to the convicted. A new “deep state” was forming. Change didn't occur in America until a movement called "We the People" was started it suggested that if the outlined plans of the Constitution were followed, the atrocious abuse of power could be prevented. In 2066 a relatively unknown entrepreneur named Athena Lux developed an app called "ONE". Its design was an encrypted app with an AI that updated and ran the app, making it basically unhackable. Although the AI was not "intelligent", it eliminated the need for any outside access to its servers. The app was used to enable every citizen to vote on every policy, with various ways of authenticating identity at the time of voting. It had several countermeasures and eliminated voter fraud. The “We The People movement embraced this tech. Moreover, it helped to install a new form of government after the framework was set up by a new president, "Lex Freidmen", who came into power largely through this new movement and then signed the “The Will of the People” executive order that took the power officially away from the elected officials and handed it back to the people. A policy was proposed and then voted on by the American people who wanted to participate. The outcome was final and based on the majority's vote. Initially, some people were scared and thought the worst would happen. I remember hearing people say "This is the end, they will kill us all." However, it was not surprising to some that the overwhelming majority of Americans were good and fair people. The changes first started with term limits and foreign policy, but it soon expanded into every detail of the government. As the economy grew, life got better, homelessness disappeared, and people began to feel "happy." Citizens were given the option to work to have better lives, there still was a standard for those that jobs weren't available for, and people's basic needs were met, but a solution still hasn't been found to motivate everyone. Common sense regulations and law and order were put in place, and there were incentives for people to be part of a community. There were also controversial things, such as "Drug zones" where drugs were given out for free inside designated islands in every state. Support and security were provided, and mental health and rehabs were 1 decision away. To the world's surprise, these areas began to govern themselves and thrive. When the need to obtain the drugs was eliminated progress finally began to happen. This enabled a drug policy outside these zones to be enforced. No violence of any kind was ever tolerated in this new society. Violent acts resulted in mandatory 10 years of hard labor, but only violent crimes could land you in prison. Many people believed this approach wouldn't be effective, but communities were established and they thrived. Consequently, the cartels and illegal organizations that controlled the drug trade lost all their power overnight. This took all the glamor out of drugs as well. Drug use plummeted for the first time in 100 years. While solutions still continue to evolve, this approach proved to be a significant step in reducing criminal activities, as well as criminal organizations. So on the eve of December 31st, 2099 . I would have to say the world is in a good place. Things are meaningful again, hope has been established. Families are the focus again. Things kinda look like those old Black in white TV shows from the 50’s. We have a long way to go. I would say the saying “two steps forward, one step back” will forever plague us humans. Maybe “Baby steps” is the universal answer to that problem. I don't know, who does? I do know I am forever thankful to god to have witnessed it.
One insight should shine brighter than the rest in this field of competing voices and minds seeking recognition of the merits of their intellectual fruit, the harvest of experience and careful consideration which this Thinkspot competition calls us to share with community. The central point, the deepest retina of intellectual vision, is as it always is: to be here now. This requires us to be spiritually awake: to go beyond thinking and enter the realm of pure feeling, the higher octaves of animal embodiment wherein the divine one Consciousness that we each and all are comes to sobriety and clarity, full wakefulness, rising up out of the linguistic-visionary dream processes of meaning-coding in form of word and number, to wield those mental powers but no longer identify with and so get lost in them; to become wise in surfing the wave of Now, knowing our soul is the surfer, the mind the board, and God the great wave and ocean – and yet even all these are not separate but holy intimate. The new century is still the ancient and eternally young Now; our destiny is to awaken the human capacity to know ourselves as this one mind, like the flame that knows its oneness with all fire everywhere, and so can serve the light and warmth of existence all the better. Thinking and talking – and listening – are essential aspects of the beautiful future we wish to see now, to live in and cherish; we need accurate maps of what is and what should be, just as we need the moral character training (and graces) of the navigators using the maps. But more fundamental, lofty and profound than either of these is the ability to stay sane; and sanity is measured in one’s power to remain aware of awareness itself as one’s own true nature and not to fall into identification with the river of one’s passing thoughts and feelings; to experience them as forms within one’s formless space of being. So the thoughts we need most of all are those thoughts that lead us beyond thought, that allow us to spring ourselves valiantly into the infinite enveloping embrace of the divine thoughtlessness, the hyper-intelligent emptiness that is the womb of all things, the silence that owns sound, the space that mothers form, the canvas that loves the painting, the screen that holds the film, the Consciousness that deserves a capital C so as to persuade the soul to see beyond the linguistic mechanisms of its resident mind and penetrate directly into the reality of life, the three-dimensional felt presence of energy, motion, stillness, the Self, the God, and all truth. Let us craft magic spells to guide consciousness from inky prisons back out into the open page, so as to refresh perspective and with higher awareness flow back into word and ink with the power to write something new and now, to live the way of love, liberty and light. ‘Thoughts for the end of the century’ are those black holes of language that pull us out of time and mental noise, to the lucidity of love. They are thoughts that ground us in soul’s sanity, so that more worldly thoughts can avail of rich soil in growing up to the sun of our consciousness, gradually clarifying the landscape of is and ought; the narrative lessons of general tendency of human character, and the specifics of our present moment on Earth. This essay is just a bunch of symbols; be it angle and curve of ink or digital light, or tone of voice humanly uttered. Symbols; things standing for other things, conveying relationship. What is behind these symbols that allows them to make an impression and be understood? What exists before, during and after each symbol utters itself in the chamber of the mind? What is around, within, behind and in front of the thought-symbols that you are meeting? When modern physics and ancient philosophy agree that all is One, and that the realest element of personal experience and abstract theory is the existence of consciousness such as holds, attends to and shapes all thought and understanding, then we have a universe that must above all else contain true, irreducible consciousness and which is also unitary. We are left – blessedly alone, like everyone else, together in paradox – to know oneself as the slim single human branch of an individual on the great tree of God, the conscious One life which is and always was, always will be, and is adventuring here for highest purpose. Just enough thought tells us the universe is alive, conscious, one with all. Long live silence.