In 1903 the New York Times published an article claiming it would take between one million to ten million years for man to achieve powered flight.[1] In December of that year, the Wright brothers proved the paper of record wrong. In the early 20th Century six empires dominated Europe and the world. I suspect one would have been hard-pressed to find many people back then that thought it possible that all those empires could simply cease to exist (or become significantly weakened) in their lifetimes. Proud Victorian-minded Englishmen could not fathom that by the middle of the 20th Century the British Empire itself would fade away and quietly pass the mantle of rulership to the upstart Americans. These changes and more were inconceivable to the ordinary person, even those that thought they were informed.
I think within the lifetime of the current adult generation we will see a transformation more unimaginable than those empires collapsing 100 years ago. A fundamental change just as big as the fall of the Roman Empire. A change that will affect culture, religion, and politics in a fundamental way.
When I began to suggest this around 2016 and in 2019 with more veracity it sounded absurd. In 2022 there are few among us that can honestly argue that it is impossible. What we argue about now relates to 1) is the transformation a good thing and 2) what is the source of the change. Many that sense the danger in all this focus heavily on the source, they want to know who is working for this and why. All of that is important, but not the subject of my point here.
If we assume that the transformation looks pretty ominous and then also assume that we can see the hand of individual men working across time to bring us here I think the important question we ought to ask is just how powerful are men. Is man truly capable of being the absolute master of all of his environment? If even the majority of the super-smart all worked together do we believe they are capable of fully controlling all the variables in our world? Or, is it more likely that such men are like all men in history? Is it possible that overly intelligent men that seek power are capable of doing fantastic things but their plans often fail just like all of the very intelligent schemers before them?
In short, men are capable of amazing things, and sometimes in the hubris and boldness of man’s own overconfidence, the idealism of man exceeds the ability of man to control everything. The real danger in this transformation is that there are people that worked to bring it about, but they will fail in carrying it through. They could end up breaking important things and not being able to control the beast of chaos that action unleashes.
It is impossible to know what the right reaction to all of this is. Some of the things set in motion have an inertia of their own now, almost beyond complete control of the evil fools that worked so hard to bring them into existence. I would only suggest this. We need to live in truth, but we need also to live in love. Take that as you will. All of the people doing things that are so reprehensible and disgusting are fools, many of them willing fools but fools nonetheless.
As all of this plays out everyone will suffer. At some point even the most confused among us will seek answers. If we wrap our truth in love now, some of them may be helped.
And yes, I know, some of them seem unlovable, and some seem to willingly and intentionally seek to do evil. There is little profit in showing hate toward such people. Just consider who you are hating and why they are the way they are.
We know, because it is basic math, that most of the population is of average intelligence. We can know, if we objectively observe and think about it, that our education system does not equip people with thinking tools. It simply does not create critical thinkers. We know, because it is a basic fact, that we have a higher percentage of degreed people in the population that at any point in history. But we can also observe that more education is of little help to those of average intelligence, particularly if it does not equip them with objective critical thinking skills. More education merely allows them to double down in error because after all they ‘know’. This is not a phenomenon of just the right or left, and many that get the world fundamentally correct do not fully understand why and how they came to that conclusion. In the vast middle of the bell curve, most people adhere to ideas that are comfortable. As I wrote yesterday the greatest fear of a person of average intelligence is that they will be found out.[2] It is this overly educated but underinformed group that is most apt to fall prey to social manipulation. If the majority in this group get it all fundamentally wrong it is because the wrong ideas are in vogue, the super-smart advocate wrongthink, and the middlings follow along.
We could be angry at the unwashed masses clinging to relevance by adopting positions that are the least dangerous to them but we would be angry at the wrong target. We ought to look upstream and find the branch in the creek that polluted the means of educating minds. But for those so confused and lost around us now, we ought to simply speak truth in love. [3] We also ought to realize that many of those around us that seem to be allies, those that take to social media to “own the libs” with so much banal toxicity, they are often no better than those that are so wrong. These would and will follow any false hero that comes down the path with promises and lies. We need to speak truth to all, in love and kindness. Not nicely, nice is the handmaiden of evil, but in graciousness, kindness and love.
There is no other way. We are in this together. The confused, the hateful, the toxic, and the dishonest. At the end of the day, history does not spare any from the results of bad ideas. We cannot know if those that worked so hard to put the world in this chaotic state will succeed. Past performance indicates they will fail to achieve whatever goal they began with, but that does not mean it is not possible to truly wreck things in the effort.
Let’s try to show more love to everyone, even and especially those that are so wrong about almost everything. They will still hate us, they will see kindness as weakness, they will be angered by displays of compassion. Some will make the fatal mistake of believing after they have slapped us on both cheeks that we will passively submit to any assault. Love them. Speak truth. Show compassion. Realize the danger of privations and suffering is the lot of all and have empathy for the fool that works for their own destruction.
That is what I think about that. What I have said is more nuanced and complex than believing I just said we all should become Moonies…but if you know, you know and you already knew before I wrote it.
Things are changing and I am not convinced that the agents of change will be able to control the chaos they are unleashing and I do not think they can stop it now. Be less angry about what is happening and work on being the person you believe we ought to be for us to get through it.
