It’s all going to hell in a handbasket
The election is but a symptom of a much bigger problem.
Sometimes it feels like the world is falling apart. Things don’t make sense. There’s a never-ending craziness. This is one of those times. This latest election isn’t the cause, it’s just a symptom of the underlying problem.
It seems we’re in one of those downward cycles seen throughout history. The ones that have lead to civil wars, revolutions, and world wars.
We can look to the economy, terrorism, jobs, globalization or the political divide for the cause, but it’s not any of the things. These are just outcomes. These just keep us arguing about what and how to fix them.
Change
In general, we don’t cope well with change, some less than others. Yet, change is rapidly happening at all levels of our global society. Many countries, political parties, and people are feeling left in the dust. The faster things change, the greater the global impact.
The only things that slow change are the speed of innovation and force. Innovation has only sped up over the last 20 years and will soon be hitting a point of inflection. Artificial intelligence is taking the rate of change to a whole new level.
The powers that want to slow, stop, or even, reverse change are assembling their forces. They see those who are creating change as the enemy. They want things to be as they were. Add to them those who are taking advantage of the situation for their own benefit, and we have a real mess.
Major technological and social change has happened before. The Gutenberg printing press, the steam engine, electricity, television and computers have all created massive innovation and social change in the past.
Change is not the only problem, but I think it’s the most fundamental problem. There are also those who are exploiting rampant innovation for their own power. That too is problematic. There are no easy solutions.
Actually, coping with change is the real problem. How we think about change. To some degree, we are all averse to change. Even those who are driving innovation are struggling with the speed of change. We want the security of knowing that our world is not going to change overnight.
Thanks to this past year, we know it can, and many are feeling it.
The fear of change
We can choose to fight those who are fighting change, but they’re only responding to, or taking advantage of, the pent-up fear. We can’t fight fear with fear. It doesn’t work. It will only take us deeper down the rabbit hole.
The only way of dealing with fear is for everyone to see the reality of the situation. Better yet, to understand what’s coming next and why. This is difficult. We each have our world-views and it’s very hard to adjust them. It’s hard to adjust them when you are seeking to do so, never mind if you are fixed in your world-view.
I’ve been working on the Web Of Thought (WOT) project, intended to help us understand and address our thought. The stuff that makes up our world-view. I’ve been at it for a couple of years.
The goal is to create a Thought API that will power applications that can help people understand themselves. It’s a long term project. One that will be hard to execute. The odds are against me, but it won’t stop me from trying. Certainly not now that the writing is on the wall.
WOT or not, we should all try to understand our fears and thoughts. If we don’t, we risk having others manipulate them to their advantage. This is not an us versus them situation. This is about us versus ourselves.
The longer we keep blaming one another, the more dangerous this pending catastrophe will be.
