Technology makes things easier.
Gone are the days of cesspools, bloodletting, and worldwide starvation.
No doubt, this is a wonderful achievement. But in the process of making everything easier, we run a terrifying risk.
Without challenge, it’s tempting to revert to self-centred hedonism.
After all, what meaningful pursuits are possibly at our disposal, given the uncertainty of the future?
I struggled with this question for a long time. And now, I think I’ve found the missing puzzle piece (or, at least, one of them).
Technology didn’t just remove difficulty. It weakened our communities.
As we became less dependent on each other for survival, our institutions started to erode faster than we could rebuild them.
And so, inevitably, we directed our efforts inward.
Why gain status through productive generosity when you can post memes on Instagram? Why invest in real-world friendships when you can watch Friends on Netflix?
Before long, our collective time horizon began to shrink.
We cast our eyes down from the landscape of potential sculpted for us by our forefathers, in spite of their suffering.
We let our gaze narrow to our present selves.
Me, regardless of everyone else. Now, regardless of the future.
But this was a choice. And it’s reversible.
The future may be too uncertain for shallow, self-serving plans, but we can build something more durable.
We can reject the zero-sum, learned helplessness of past decades, and set our sights on a more optimistic, far-reaching alternative.
If we each resolve to become worthy ancestors, to plant trees we’ll never sit under, there’s no storm we can’t endure.
And, by embedding these ideas at the level of the individual, rather than the institution, we give them the flexibility needed to ride out the technological waves of the future.
This might be the only safe path forward.
I guess we’ll see.