After Shock—A Planetary Perspective

Bill Diamond

What an amazing journey, to travel back in time nearly fifty years and dive into Alvin Toffler’s prescient masterpiece, Future Shock. I was fourteen years old when Toffler sounded the alarm on the implications to individuals and society of the rapid and accelerating pace of change in nearly all aspects of human existence, stemming from what he called the emergence of the “super-industrial society.” My preoccupations at the time included playing baseball, hanging around with pals, complaining about school lunches (unaware how lucky we were not to have Coca Cola on the menu), and making skateboards from old roller skates and scrap wood. I was blissfully unaware of the rapidly changing world into which I had been cast.

It was thus with the benefit of fifty years of hindsight and a life devoted to science and technology that I sat down to read Future Shock. As the CEO of a nonprofit dedicated to advancing an understanding of the universe and our place in it, I expected to find Toffler’s thesis dated. To my surprise, however, it spoke to me with great urgency and relevance. Two things struck me as I followed his observations of the increasingly frenetic pace of life and the increasingly transient and temporary nature of everything from work and relationships to art and architecture.

First, was the realization of how extraordinarily contemporary and relevant his perspectives remain—fifty years after they were first committed to print. There are of course obvious clues to the time period, such as specific dates and references to various people and events long since passed. There are also more subtle clues, such as the clearly male-dominated nature of the American and global workforce of the mid twentieth century and the associated use of male-dominated pronouns. Nevertheless, his description of the symptoms of an impending crisis, based on the rapid advances of new technologies impacting all aspects of human existence, reads as though it was written yesterday.

Second was the intriguing irony that so many of the corporations, institutions, organizations, and technologies he references in the book are still with us today, fifty years on: IBM, SRI, United Artists, General Electric, Union Carbide, the Rockefeller Institute, the United Nations, and even The Institute for the Future, are all mentioned in Future Shock. We still watch television, fly in jets, drive cars, shop in supermarkets and read The New York Times, albeit in digital form. And of course the computer, now ubiquitous, is heavily referenced by Toffler, though he would scarcely recognize its current physical manifestation. And yet, fifty years prior to Future Shock, in 1920, almost none of these organizations or technologies were in existence.

So, I began to ask, “Did he get it wrong?” Did the pace of change slow down or a new stability emerge? Did younger generations born into this new reality simply adapt to their environment and the current human condition, as countless generations had done before? It is of course comforting to think so. Look how much of the world he described in the 1960s is actually still the same. Could this be a case of much ado about nothing? When reading about the trends he observed, it occurred to me that a simple linear extrapolation of their consequences would likely bring us to a place today that would be radically different and seemingly far more frightening than where we actually are—if we were even fortunate enough to make it.

Based on Toffler’s warnings and prognostications, one could well imagine 50 years later, the collapse not only of Western civilization, but of civilization and civil societies as a whole. How could the individual and the institutions and constructs of society survive the wholesale and unstoppable assault on our senses and our psyche that he described?

Yet as I progressed further into Toffler’s analysis of the impact on people and society resulting from super-industrialization, I came back to the absolute relevance of his book to contemporary society and contemporary issues. While for the most part we have neither individually nor collectively gone completely off the rails, various phenomena of life and society we observe today are almost certainly a result of the reaction of individuals, organizations, and entire communities and cultures to their own future shock. Surely the overstimulation of the human brain, the bombardment of our senses, and the overabundance of information are creating stress and distress in individuals and triggering insidious tears in the fabric of society. In technical terms, we are facing a serious deterioration in the “signal-to-noise ratio” of all the various stimuli we need to process every day. Think of social media, of “fake news” and alternate realities. We no longer know what to believe, or who to believe, and we cannot even assimilate and process all the new information we receive every day. As a result, we become paralyzed by indecision or retreat into our own comfort zones that might provide temporary shelter but which come with their own dangers. Consider the attacks on science we see today and a retreat by many to the comfort of isolationism. Stop the immigrants! Build a wall! End globalization! Raise trade barriers and protect jobs—however obsolete they might be!

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So, I began to ask, “Did he get it wrong?” Did the pace of change slow down or a new stability emerge? Did younger generations born into this new reality simply adapt to their environment and the current human condition, as countless generations had done before?

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Some members of society not only cope with the pace of change and the onslaught of data and stimulation—they thrive on it. Others are left behind, however, and in increasing numbers. They are the resisters, the blockers, the deniers. They yearn for a time that was less chaotic, less turbulent, more ordered and structured, even if they’ve never actually experienced such an environment. “Why can’t we just go back to the way things were?” Let’s “Make America Great Again,” even if we don’t know when that was—or what it looked like.

It became increasingly clear, the more I read, that we are indeed seeing future shock play out before our eyes. Where some examples are subtle and insidious, others are glaringly obvious. Take, for example, the homogenization of America. Over the 50 years since the publication of Future Shock, we have seen suburban America overrun by domestic and international conglomerates who have created an utterly vapid infrastructure of hotels, restaurants, fast-food chains, gas stations, and departments stores, such that everywhere we travel today, it looks and feels totally familiar. There is a comforting “sameness” to our environment, our diet, our work, and leisurely habits. No adaptation is required, no decision-making needed. The hotel room is familiar, the restaurant menu is committed to memory, and the department store layout is blissfully the same, whether we are in Spokane, Washington, or Springfield, Massachusetts. Our homegrown brands of conformity have even spread globally. Fast-food, hotel, and retail franchises have been very good for Wall Street, but not good for Main Street nor for cultural enrichment, diversity of experience, or variety of life.

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The impact of future shock on human behavior has perhaps been less dire than Toffler suggested it might be, possibly serving as testimony to our adaptability and resilience as a species. But there are clearly some cracks in the foundation.

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And yet while I may decry the very existence of these bastions of banality, perhaps their rise to stardom is precisely a response, however unconscious, to our future shock. While the world is changing at an alarming rate, and we are unable to assimilate or adapt to the information and sensory overload that surrounds us, it may well be that the homogenization of our physical environment has served as an important (if profoundly dull) counterforce, preventing us from going individually and collectively insane.

Fifty years ago, the very idea that someone might intentionally fly a plane full of passengers into a skyscraper full of office workers was both abhorrent and unimaginable. The notion that young men and boys would get their hands on automatic weapons and calmly murder innocent children, teachers, and classmates and then generally turn their weapons on themselves was inconceivable. Even Hollywood in its most outlandish B-movie script would not have imagined an unremarkable middle-aged man unleashing a barrage of deadly gunfire into a crowd of people from a hotel window in Las Vegas, with as yet, no apparent motive or purpose. Are these examples of individuals succumbing to the forces of future shock—cracking under the pressures of a world they see spinning out of control and beyond their reach?

Toffler warned us of both these kinds of responses to future shock—a retreat to the comfort of sameness and the good ol’ days—however distorted the view—and the absolute breakdown of rational individual human behavior. Nevertheless, while focusing on the human condition and our response to rapid change and sensory overload, there is an entirely different aspect of future shock that he did not address, that is yet far more alarming.

The phenomenal advances in technology, from medicine to manufacturing, computers to consumer products, and transportation to telecommunications that represent root cause to Toffler’s future shock, have also unleashed unintended consequences far beyond their impact to the human psyche. Since 1900, our world population has grown exponentially, from roughly 1.5 billion to 7.7 billion people. Global carbon emissions have increased from approximately 4 billion tons per year in 1970 to nearly 10 billion tons per year at present. Our population is now consuming resources and generating waste at a rate that is beyond our planet’s ability to replenish and absorb. And our climate is changing at an accelerated pace that is already putting pressures on societies and individuals that even Mr. Toffler could scarcely imagine.

The impact of future shock on human behavior has perhaps been less dire than Toffler suggested it might be, possibly serving as testimony to our adaptability and resilience as a species. But there are clearly some cracks in the foundation. The reality of over-population, resource overutilization, and runaway climate change could result in the entire house simply crumbling to dust.

At the SETI Institute, we think and operate on planetary, solar-system, galactic, and even cosmological scales. Our science not only explores the nature and origins of life in the universe and the evolution of intelligence, but also the interdependence of biology and habitat and the coevolution of life and environment. Much of our research is conducted in the field, in our principal laboratory, which is planet Earth. Thus, while our research explores the question of whether there is life elsewhere among the stars, our methods often involve turning a mirror back on ourselves to understand life on our own planet. Informed by the perspectives of our research, we are seeing an environmental future shock that completely overshadows the psychological one.

While Toffler did not examine the planetary-scale impact of our technology revolution, he did identify a behavioral response to the onslaught of distressing information and overstimulation that clearly exacerbates the planetary-scale problems we now face. Specifically he mentions four different forms of individual maladaptation, the most relevant being the “Denier.” Toffler states: “The Denier’s strategy is to block out unwelcome reality. When the demand for decisions reaches crescendo, he flatly refuses to take in new information… the Denier too, cannot accept the evidence of his senses. Thus he concludes that things really are the same and that all evidences of change are merely superficial.”

We are clearly seeing this maladaptation manifest itself in response to climate change and over-population in all walks of life, from government to private industry, religion to private citizens. The combined and interconnected forces of climate change and overpopulation are simply too frightening and overwhelming to contemplate. So the best survival strategy is to ignore them, and hope they will just go away.

Ironically, if we adapt this defense mechanism to the issue of planetary-scale future shock, we essentially ensure the earlier arrival of catastrophic consequences we may ultimately be unable to arrest. Toffler states: “The Denier sets himself up for personal catastrophe. His strategy for coping increases the likelihood that when he is finally forced to adapt, his encounter with change will come in the form of a single massive life crisis, rather than a sequence of manageable problems.” While overpopulation and technology may be underlying root cause, climate change is that single massive crisis. It is not, however, a personal life crisis. Rather, it represents catastrophe on a planetary scale that threatens the very existence of humankind.

Toffler described his book as a “diagnosis” and did not pretend to offer any solutions or “magic medicine.” Rather, he acknowledged diagnosis as an essential precursor to treatment and cure. Here, too, I offer no silver bullets to address the future shock of climate change that is rapidly bearing down on us. Technology may be part of the solution, but more important will be global policymaking and long term visionary leadership. If we can at least collectively face the realities of our situation and acknowledge the threats rather than deny their existence, if we can bridge the cultural, economic, and educational divides in our societies, then there is at least hope that we can take steps to ensure that 50 years hence, another set of essayists, far more insightful than I, will have the opportunity to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Future Shock, and once again reflect on its significance.

Bill Diamond is a Silicon Valley veteran and current president and CEO of the SETI Institute (www.seti.org), a position he has held since June 2015. The SETI Institute is a nonprofit astrophysics and astrobiology research and education organization focused on the study of life in the Universe. Prior to joining the institute, Mr. Diamond held various executive management positions in applied technologies, most recently at the optical networking company Oclaro, Inc. Mr. Diamond has over 20 years’ experience in photonics and optical communications networks, and more than a decade in X-ray imaging and semiconductor processing technologies. His corporate background covers the spectrum from venture-backed startups to Fortune 100 multinationals, with responsibilities ranging from R&D, engineering, and operations, to marketing, sales, product management, and CEO positions. Mr. Diamond holds a BA in physics from Holy Cross College and a master of business administration from Georgetown University. He is a past member of the Advisory Board for the McDonough School of Business Administration at Georgetown and is a current member of the Optical Society of America, the International Astronomical Congress, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Bay Area Science and Innovation Council, BASIC.