We Are The Future
It is not often that I find myself in a situation to speak out. Though I have — I dare say — never had a problem of formulating my thoughts, I generally keep away from political debate. I’m a programmer. I write code, not political treaties. But something is very slowly creeping up on me. A feeling, an idea, that keeps me awake at night. A thought which never formulates, as if it is at the tip of my tongue. It is making me do the same errands over and over again at the canal next to my house. It is about you, me, and society as a whole. It is — goodness gracious — rejecting almost everything and anything to it. It is a call for change. Big change. Change I’m afraid we’re not ready for, if we ever will. Unfortunately, the need to write it down is stronger than myself, so with the knowledge of not having much to loose I’ll still write it out. Besides, I am not here to lecture you on how the future should look. I’m simply here to give you my idea of how it could look, and I’m looking forward to hearing your thoughts about it. Maybe we can find some common ground, maybe not.
Something Is About To Happen
First of all, let’s admit it right now: we both know something is going on, that something is about to happen. Fake news? Information “bubble”? Maybe you don’t know exactly what it is, or maybe you’re afraid see it. Maybe you simply don’t care, but something is. And that something is a deep, fundamental asset of our being. I believe it was there ever since the beginning. Our struggle for survival, never-ending, always continuing. We can’t seem to break free of it. We can’t take a rest from life and just watch as it all happen before our eyes. It is impossible, because everything that is done beyond our reach affects us in some way, and we know that. If we don’t do a job from 9 to 5, we can’t buy food for our children. This seems real enough. Why should we bother with anything else? The truth is that society is drifting away in a deeper crisis, in which it seems unable to distinguish from what is — to put it very blunt — bullshit and what it is it really wants to achieve. The financial system has crashed once. When is the next one going to happen? And how will we deal with all of this information overload?
Usually, a crisis is followed by some kind of revolution, a radical new way of thinking. We struggle as we move from one civilisation to the next, as we transform one government into something entirely different (or more of the same, as some will argue). One revolution after the other. Yes, history has known a bloody course. Time and again, with anger, we tear down walls which we then later rebuild in another configuration. We kill and destroy, then we build and heal. But why do we do that? What is it we are truly after? Did these “revolutions” ever cause real change? Or is it rather like the donkey in Aldous Huxley’s Animal Farm, saying that “Windmill or no windmill, he said, life would go on as it had always gone on– that is, badly.”
Windmill or no windmill, life will go on as it had always gone on– that is, badly.
As I see it, there are two evolutions that are rapidly moving towards a point of no return, and I expect will collide in a not so distant future. A next step our struggle for survival, as I mentioned previously. Right now, we are drilling ourselves to death by aggressively depleting every last drop of oil we have out there. Above that, the divide between rich and poor was never this high. And at the same time, there is social unrest all over the world. Seemingly totally indifferent from these trends is the technological development, which is advancing at a phenomenal pace. AI is now considered mainstream; a valid model for doing business. Emerging technologies like nanobots will radically come to change how we perform medicine. And there are even claims that we are not far away from reversing aging, effectively letting us live forever. These two phenomena, social unrest and technological advancement, stand completely and utterly perpendicular upon each other; not sharing a thing. Don’t you think that they have gone too far off? How can we justify research in neural networks while a considerable amount of people is not even allowed access to electricity? It is my opinion that if we do not tread very carefully to where it is we want to be, things could go really bad.
Yet amidst all of this social unrest technology offers unprecedented ways of solving these problems, if used thoughtfully and correctly. That is also the spirit of an organisation called SingularityU. However, these initiatives will only work when every individual on earth works towards making it happen, and that is where I’m afraid my ideas loose traction. To arrive at that point in the future, everyone will need to agree and actively contribute to a society I know right now many people do not feel comfortable with, for several reasons. Some people (most of all the rich and wealthy) are simply too comfortable where they are right now. Others are afraid of any change, and yet others do not agree because they cannot see themselves being happy in this future, and they have every right to do so. Yet not all my hope is lost. The seats the rich have effectively installed themselves on are made on top of a largely capitalist system and oil reserves that are rapidly disappearing. And following social chaos, which is expected to only increase, who knows what might happen next.
Following social chaos, which is expected to only increase, who knows what might happen next.
A Verge Into The Unknown
We are at the verge of change, and I think it is about time we took the matter in our own hands. That’s why in the upcoming blog posts, I will discuss my vision of how an optimal future might look. To get you warm: what if I told you that the people of the future do not have the notion of a central government that can be overthrown? Indeed, what if I told you that they have no concept of above and below, of rich and poor? What if I told you that these people are set free of gender inequality? For some, the notion might sound too good to be true. Others will see it as dangerous, maybe even label it as an extreme form of anarchism or insanity. It is neither. It is what I consider to be a next step in taking the reigns in our evolutionary path. Nature at its equilibrium. An utopia (or dystopia), perhaps, but one with a tiny chance of being within reach.
The next two days, I will be on an event about marxism and capitalism. Yes, that’s right. The same ideas that brought forward evil communism. And yet, I believe that the marxistic way of thinking holds some truths that are essential in the transformation that is about to happen. I also believe that a lot of people think the same. For instance, why is universal basic income (UBI) even being discussed by much of the tech community? Doesn’t that mean that these people believe that some good can come of a radical new way of looking at money and property? Or is it just their “quick fix” of the problem? If you think it is their quick fix, then we really should start the debate going. If you think it isn’t, how do you presume these people would like to shape our future, and do we agree?
Only by allowing free expression we will be able to find a true purpose in life, something we shouldn’t be afraid of.
Like I have made clear in my previous article, I believe that life can only break free from its “evolutionary” bonds if we acknowledge the mystery that is life, and celebrate it as such. Life is a true wonder, and the only way we are ever going to live a happy life is if we are able to put that wonder into words. Words like songs, dance movements, literary stories or paintings. Only like this we will we be able to find a true purpose in life, something we shouldn’t be afraid of. In any case, I’m looking forward to the event, and I expect to meet some really interesting people. See you in my next article, where I will be discussing how the event went!
Sam Vervaeck is a freelance writer living in Belgium, trying to find his way in life while exploring various philosophical questions. He loves programming, playing piano, and martial arts. He is in the process of writing a book about artificial intelligence and the future of society, which will be available on his website.
