Forward and Back
Finding perspective in past truths
Good morning. This week’s letter covers troubling history being made and historical references to put what’s new in context.
READING BACKWARDS
"How society worked was upended between 2008 and 2015. For sure, the last five years. I've become obsessed reading my way back, trying to figure out what the hell is going on."
— Marc Andreesen, March 2022
When people say things have changed forever, is the hyperbole true? Or when pundits say "this time is different," that it's actually the case? If most new events aren't "firsts-if-its-kind," what can we learn from past events?
From comments in this podcast, Marc Andreesen finds the future in history. He said:
"The further I read back, the more universal themes I find. The more things that I think are kind of remarkable and unique to our era actually turn out to be quite universal. I don't know, at least for me, that's a calming experience. It makes me feel less like the world is spinning."
The search for an understanding of history lies at the heart of many popular texts today. The authoritarian, thought-provoking 1984 by Orwell is one example. Tulip Mania, a classic case of herd mentality, is another. In The Guns of August, Barbara Tuchman describes the calculated miscalculations made by the leaders of 1914. Dan Carlin's Hardcore History is yet another example. However, an obscure but highly relevant to our current situation is No Place of Grace.
T.J. Jackson Lears' book documents life during the last great epochal transition to industrialism. His historical accounts from the late 1900s pull from speeches, correspondence, news stories, and more.
While there’s a lot to parse, the forces of industry and productivity caused a near-total loss of public coherence and fight to regain order. The technological effects of industry spanned leadership voids, class warfare, identity confusion, new belief systems, and emotional chaos. In many ways, the story of the last technology revolution is a mirror image of what we've faced since the Internet "changed everything."
The patterns — and current adaptations — in this graphic are the sum of similar, even remarkable themes between then and now.
No Place of Grace documents the root cause of social ills — the dehumanizing effects of technical and social innovation.
Unmoored from precedents, people felt chronic doubt and a sense of "unreality." The break from norms intensified feelings, "that the environment was somehow artificial and unreal." A convergence of causes — removing distance from railroads and telegraphs, information overload, and the monotony of routinized labor — triggered widespread nervousness and insanity.
Psychic conditions got so bad even Herbert Spencer, a social Darwinist and originator of the expression "survival of the fittest," issued warnings agaìnst overwork. Broken by years of battling with nervous exhaustion, he became alarmed by the frequency of suicide and nervous collapse among American people in business.
It wasn't just the amount of work that caused depression and anxiety. Loss of meaning in it was widespread. Irene Sargent, professor of art history at Syracuse University, said degraded work rationalized counter-revolutions in this 1901 Craftsman comment:
"What is to be expected, she from a man, the play of whose intelligence is confined to the endless repetition of a single mental process and whose physical exercise is restricted to the working of certain unvarying muscles. He will develop morbidly, and his mind will offer a resting place for destructive and chaotic ideas. Being not without personal atis to dignity and power, he becomes an insurrectionist, perhaps even pervert and a criminal."
The malaise and revolution documented in No Place of Grace ultimately stemmed from the loss of identity. Industry and productivity broke sacred and ordinary ways of living. Darwinian logic shattered the "common sense" argument from design for God's existence. Keeping time and adhering to schedules was new. As consumption became more prevalent, Americans expressed themselves not through accomplishment but ownership. For the first time, a separation between work and home created personal distinctions between public and private "selves."
Leaders of counter-revolutions sought refuge from modernity, retrieving simple rules and primal acts. Discord and revolt spanned the rise of arts and craft subculture, return to pastoral life, and renegade acts of violence.
New technological, social, and psychological theories accompanying industrialization necessitated a profound revision in self-image. As the public became part of a giant industrialized machine, individuals no longer seemed independent, unified, or fully conscious. The personal vulnerabilities this exposed led to self-deception, political manipulation, and eventually two world wars.
As we contemplate the specter of global and social conflict, there's much to glean from history. As futurist Alvin Toffler suggested, it can help mitigate the sense of doom—provided rationality is retrieved:
The assertion that the world has "gone crazy," the graffiti slogan that "reality is a crutch," the interest in hallucinogenic drugs, the enthusiasm for astrology and the occult, the search for truth in sensation, ecstasy and "peak experience," the swing toward extreme subjectivism, the attacks on science, the snowballing belief that reason has failed man, reflect the everyday experience of masses of ordinary people who find they can no longer cope rationally with change.
In other words, learning from history is an alternative path to emotional escape and lament. What’s old is new again.
QUESTIONS IN THE NEWS
Moving beyond history and conflict, this week's catalytic news list spans driverless cars, immortality, self-improvement, f*ck it populists, and living in a simulation.
Transportation
Is the driverless car transformation coming soon?
GM's Cruise subsidiary petitioned the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) for permission to put the driverless Cruise Origin into commercial service. Cruise announced the filing of its petition for approval, saying the car is "a zero-emission, shared, electric vehicle that has been purposefully designed from the ground up to operate without a human driver. It does not rely on certain human-centered features, like a steering wheel or a sun visor, to operate safely." (source: GM/Cruise Automation)
Human Longevity
Is immorality a real possibility?
Jeff Bezos is assembling a team of top scientists to assist in his dream of developing immortality technology. The billionaire is funneling his money into an anti-aging startup dubbed Alto Labs. The Bezos-backed startup also announced that it has secured more than $3 billion in funding at launch. At the startup’s core is its mission of achieving biological reprogramming. This is a method of essentially rejuvenating cells after they’ve matured. Time will tell if this billionaire-backed venture can actually help us stay young forever. (source: Futurism, The Week, The Guardian)
Emotion Hacking
What’s driving the sudden surge in self-improvement?
A new genre of branded self-improvement challenges and start-ups re an increasingly popular approach for achieving self-improvement goals. Is it the product of human nature or an entrepreneurial nudge? Research says 61% of Americans are trying to break unhealthy habits. Start-ups like 75 Hard are answering the call. A self-improvement challenge, 75 Hard challenges people to do six things–workout, read, drink water, follow a diet, use cold showers, and take progress photos–every day for 75 days with no cheat days. The challenge has gone viral on TikTok, with videos mentioning 75 Hard gatherings more than 1.5 billion views on the platform. (source: Exploding Topics, Andy Frisella)
Coherence Crash
Are DGAFs the future of media or "had enough of it" ethos?
Provocateurs from outside traditional party politics are driving a new strain of American political conversation. Joe Rogan, Elon Musk, Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy and others have become the most significant cultural flashpoints of the Biden era. The Atlantic's Derek Thompson has dubbed these entertainers and pundits "DGAF [don't give a f***] populists," noting the same qualities that make them popular "are the qualities that make them a nightmare for publicly traded companies. New media personalities from both sides of the aisle gained enormous traction during the Biden presidency by catering to people who feel disillusioned by the mainstream press on podcasts, YouTube videos, and newsletters. (source: The Atlantic, Axios)
World-Building
Will we seriously be living in a simulation?
Is the metaverse coming or are we already living in it? The current vision of the metaverse includes augmented reality (or AR, where smart glasses project objects onto the physical world), portable digital goods, and currency in the form of nonfungible tokens (NFTs) and cryptocurrency, realistic AI characters that can pass the Turing test, and brain-computer interface (BCI) technology. BCIs will eventually allow us to not only control our avatars via brain waves but eventually, beam signals from the metaverse directly into our brains, further muddying the waters of what is real and what is virtual. (source: Scientific American)
PATTERNS OF DISRUPTION
World Changes
McKinsey says 60 percent of all physical output will be re-engineered biologically. Guns now kill more people than cars. Experts weigh in on the most dangerous emerging technologies. Frustrated with public utilities Californians build off the grid. A Harvard historian thinks Musk is wrong about the future.
Human Innovations
Ten breakthrough technologies of 2022. Future sex looks wild. Telehealth migrates to training and fitness. Decentralized science is growing. AIs outperform humans in neurological training. Robots were behind Olympics broadcasts. Thousands team up to build a digital twin of NYC in Minecraft. Can you really warm yourself with your mind?
Social Dilemmas
Keeping your sanity amid the Ukraine crisis. Employees are sick of making moral compromises. Downtowns are suffering from a “mom-and-popcalypse” Happiness professor says anxiety is destroying students. Why does dementia content get billions of views on TikTok? Silicon Valley taught America to treat work as religion. Disney got caught in the crosshairs of culture wars. According to a new study, one in five now have a vigilante personality.
Translations of Power
List of companies canceling Russia. Online sleuths using face recognition to ID Russian soldiers. War accelerates Russia’s Internet isolation. Russians evade social media ban with VPNs. An indie website helps people to text Russians about the war. Russian soldiers being ID'd in photos by civilians using face recognition software. Russian disinfo engines break down. Instagram shut down. "Hello, occupier, I’m flying for your soul” Maybe it is a TikTok war?
“Other”
Housing frenzy to extend through Spring. Condom demand is on the rise. Sales of CDs grow for the first time since 2004. Spotify introduces a double dashboard. Four in ten pet owners taste pet food first. Man credits affair with AI girlfriend for saving his marriage.
A FINAL NOTE
As a bookend to No Place of Grace, Matthew B. Crawford has an excellent, deeply investigated interpretation of antimodern sentiment. Shop as Soulcraft is an inquiry into manual work's value and psychic appeal. It presents a counter-culture view that hands-on manual skills are a better predictor of future success than knowledge work. But more than work or economics, Crawford speaks to the soul. You can also read this essay adapted from the book.
Take great care. More next week.
- CP
Perspective Agents are things that push the boundaries of thought. You can also find automated updates and new examples on Twitter. Thanks for the read.