Thinking about the Present as the Past: The Early 21st Century
After our last podcast guest, Joe Anhalt, mentioned the book “But What if We’re Wrong?” Rich decided to perform a quick exercise of thinking about the present as if it were the past. He imagines what people 125 years into the future (2145) will say about society in the early 21st Century. The main story is the implementation of digital technology.
In our last podcast episode, Joe Anhalt talked about his experience becoming a New Yorker and culture. When I asked him about the three books that have influenced him most, he mentioned my favorite book, But What If We’re Wrong? By Chuck Klosterman.
Chuck Klosterman is a rock music critic and pop culture writer. He has a number of books, but this is my favorite. It takes this really interesting idea: we think we’re certain about everything in our time, but if we look back at history, we’ve been wrong over and over again. So what today will we be wrong about? He takes a look at rock music, the constitution, books, science, and and so much more and explores this concept.
Sometimes I find myself daydreaming about the past. I can’t believe they didn’t know this or I can’t believe they didn’t know that. There’ve been a number of times I’ve thought about Thomas Jefferson in regards to paleontology. He was a naturalist. He collected fossils. He even told Lewis and Clark to keep their eyes open for fossils on their expedition. He was president of the United States and an accomplished man but, today, I know way more about Earth’s history than him just by being someone interested in dinosaurs. Imagine, he didn’t know about stegosaurus, triceratops, or T-Rex! He didn’t know much about any dinosaurs!
One of my favorite sayings – I don’t know where it comes from or who said it or maybe I said it – We don’t know what we don’t know. We’re only seeing the tree in front of us and not all the trees in the forest. We’re too focused on living in the present that we don’t consider pulling back and looking at the long-term view. It’s arrogant. We think we’re smarter than we are. We think we’re more important than we are.
Let’s do a little exercise. Let’s imagine America 125 years from now. It’s 2145. What does the early 21st century look like? How will the people summarize society in our time?
The beginning of the 21st century is about the implementation of digital technology within society. That is the story. The scientific and technological progress of the 20th century came together and started compounding. Computing power. Humans could do more with less to a point where, foran easy example, nearly every American had a device in their pocket that allowed them to play any song ever recorded, watch any video or film ever recorded, a camera, a phone, and the ability to connect to any other human that also wanted to connect with humans – no matter the location.
What did humans do with this new found power? They misused it. It wasn’t their fault. Nothing like this had ever happened in this species’ history. Everything happened so quickly, no one stopped and thought about HOW they used this power. And if HOW they used it was wrong. There was never a plan or instruction manual with this new way of living. As a result, the people that had power before had new and more powerful ways to maintain the status quo. They could use digital content to hijack human emotions and thoughts by understanding psychology and biology of humans. Digital content became an addiction. Few people stopped to think. Most acted upon their impulses and gave in to unlimited pleasure. They would always be entertained and never bored. Most people, with this technology, were led by fear. Americans all lived in their own communities but now could see how others lived. Instead of embracing each other, there was an urge to protect one’s own identity. It became divisive because digital content used confirmation and negativity bias to gain attention.
I’m so excited for the future. When I say that now, in 2020, people have scoffed at me and have laughed. Perhaps I come across as naive or out of touch. But they don’t see what I see. People think the world is burning because they only see the tree and not the forest. Here’s what the next quarter century looks like:
It’s the story of humans figuring out and adapting to digital technology. Separating themselves from the consumption and using the powerful tools available intentionally to collaborate on a scale that the world has never seen before. Not looking to older leaders to solve the problems they’re incapable of understanding. Digital natives will get out of their own heads and lead the world out of fear and create the beautiful world that’s possible. It’s going to be hard, but it’s going to be fun and highly fulfilling.