It’s time for consumers to change
It all starts in a similar style. First, the world acknowledges that it needs saving from a problem. Then there’s a narrative, a potential solution, that can stop the damage. Finally, we look up to some superheroes, political leaders, entrepreneurs to step up to execute on that idea. Only to realize that the new system has new sets of problems to offer, and requires new sets of heroes.
Why does this cycle keep repeating? Be it in political space, business world, or even in unrelated domains.
Are we missing something obvious? To me, the root cause of the problem is that too many of us live without responsibilities towards the system.
The role that the system has assigned to us, is that of consumers. That’s what is expected from us, to buy from the options. Choose the most promising college, job, brand, and political leader from the available options. Every new brand and leader starts as a challenger. The same thing is true for startups as well. It’s easy to be idealistic when you have nothing to lose and everything to gain through your idealism. Then, once enough territory is acquired, the erstwhile challenger turns exploitative. Then we realize that it’s time to fight the old one with the help of the new challenger, once again to go through the same cycle. Sometimes, we are too late by the time we see this.
To stop running in circles, what we need is a fundamental shift in our role in the system. There are already some people who can see through this phenomenon. Some of them try to raise their voices and point out the cracks, while others lose hope in humanity to join the side of the exploiters. So, some people are not enough. What we need is a critical mass of people to realize and help us rise above ineffectively circling the drain.
Let me take an example, a person who hops jobs in pursuit of job satisfaction is merely changing the outer packaging in which the problem presents itself. The distractions of a new place might last for a few years until the reality sets in. The lack of purpose will once again stare at her/him in the face. The only way, in that case, to come permanently out of this problem is to carefully explore the problem until one understands it. The current attitude instead is to act like a child and ask someone else to solve one’s problem and blame them if they don’t do it. Those who wish to exploit this person will convince them by promising that their problem will be solved. Or worst, the person in problem will convince themselves that ‘all my problems will be solved once I change my environment’. Unless the number of exploiters in the system drop below a certain point, these exploited people will keep running in cycles. This is why, we need more and more people to become resilient to exploitation so that it becomes more and more difficult for exploiters to profit.
Why is this not the case? Yes, this is worth thinking about. Especially, if we are arguing for this not to persist. Firstly, I don’t believe that some secret organization is running the world. I think people make choices based on their interests and people with power tend to use their power to further their self-interests. Another key phenomenon is distribution. Basic human abilities, like intelligence, talent, and sincerity are unevenly distributed among all of us. Combine it with the effect of privilege (educational, family, geographic, or economic) and extend it for a long period and most initial states will evolve to the current state of hugely different sets of populations with unequal power and resource distributions. So a super-villain is not our problem.
The problem is that there is no mechanism in the system to reverse the flow of power. The systems that we use to create and control power: money, law, technology, education, and health, have become so complex and specialized, that for most people in society, conveniently outsourcing it to the powerful is the only option. This is my premise, that we need to focus on inclusivity in these systems to bring back the mechanism for the balance of power. The more people have a clear understanding of the legal system, are financially educated, have an understanding of factors affecting their health, are involved in technological advancements, and have access to a world-class education, the more resilient to exploitation will the world become.
Will it happen — there are enough reasons for both optimism and pessimism. The biggest one on the side of pessimism is what gets mentioned repeatedly. There are so many distractions thanks to social media and video apps, that people hardly have time and energy left to reflect on their choices. More and more people are being algorithmically manipulated and controlled, for commercial and political interests. Another cause for pessimism is the amount of complexity in the system. If Artificial intelligence is the most promising technological domain in the coming years, most of the mainstream population might never have the education and capability to make a meaningful contribution towards it. On the side of optimism — there are two forces, education, and entrepreneurship (there could be more, but I see these two). I see education as the starting point. By education, I’m not referring to teaching the school curriculum. I’m talking about the kind of education that puts the power back in the hands of people. Be it the awareness of personal finance, healthcare, or technology. The second force will require creating an ecosystem for a new version of entrepreneurs, those that are not there simply to exploit an opportunity but to leave the consumers stronger than they were before using your products and services. Strangely, I have seen some examples of the second phenomenon through some niche YouTubers. When will it happen and in what form is difficult to tell, but the initial signs give me some reasons to believe in the possibility.
To conclude, what we need is to have a new version of consumers that don’t simply exist as pleasure chasing entities but are strong and responsible to observe and correct the system. What we also need is to have a critical mass of such people to make the system long term resilient.
