More of a Mixed Bag, Don’t You Think?
Grant you the existence age related intolerance, pockets of bigotry and crime stats. But assuming connectedness and greater youthful tolerance makes the future “amazing” is the other “Happy Talk” extreme.
First, in politics the operative phrase is that “perception is reality.” To wit, there is nothing to make one more positive about political institutions, whether we are about Western, Middle Eastern, or Asian systems.
Indeed, greater connectedness seems to be leading governments globally toward less tolerance of dissent. Arab Spring advocates were more connected. How did that turn out? Jihadists are more connected. How is that playing out for tolerance?
In the U.S. it is true that one political party reflects extreme intolerance but there is no satisfaction with the other party. Moreover, there are no indications that greater connectedness is making the political and legislative processes less dysfunctional and more responsive to real issues.
Indeed, were intolerance and bigotry magically vaporized tomorrow, the issues you raise, which have been around for decades, would still exist. How does connectedness resolve those?
Your own caveats on the filter bubble problem are sufficiently consequential to be disconcerting. More to the point, issues related to algorithms, overload, and selection-choice problems become more, not less perplexing as we go further into the future.
Unresponsiveness of the political system enabled inequality to grown for decades, and with greater technological automation the situation is likely to grow worse. As a practical matter, while racial, ethnic and gender harassment are technically illegal, they are still rampant from police behavior to Silicon Valley.
The unfolding of global economic system with distorted tax structures and growing automation have no correlation to connectedness. Indeed, add in continued inequality and automation there is less reason to be optimistic. And this does not factor in increase global economic migration, algorithmic discrimination, growth of surveillance state, weaponization of AI, etc.
Hyper-connectedness, as Alvin Toffler long ago discussed, leads to de-massification not unification of purpose. An infinite present easily forgets context and makes the ill- and un- informed vulnerable to demagogic winds.
Suggesting as you do that, “every single problem that we have and discuss today is simply a generational problem related to resistance to change. And because it’s generational, these problems will solve themselves over time.” [Emphasis added]is rank hyperbole. But you knew that
Bottom-line: greater connectedness is good but seriously handicapped without changing the operation of political systems (the real area of resistance to change). In particular is the need for provision of some new way to aggregate constructive dialogue toward issue prioritization, policy selection, and accountable results beyond episodic elections.
My work focuses on these issues. I have B.A. focused on communication policy, M.A. in alternative futures, and Ph.D. in how systems evolve. My Medium publication, A Passion to Evolve, has numerous article you might find rewarding.
The big picture is laid out in a longish piece, Macroscopic Evolutionary Paradigm, but there are other shorter and topic specific ones related to economics, political institutions, technology, change, etc. for example, Doc Says — Our Emotions, Institutions and Technological Capabilities Are Mismatched
Doc Huston
