Jaron Lanier is the Internet guru who popularized the term “Virtual Reality.” In his book, You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto, he argued that online aggregators like Google, Amazon, iTunes, and YouTube help only themselves, not the little people who actually create the songs, books, and videos: “Wikipedia, a mediocre product of group writing, has become the intellectual backbone of the Web. We’re treating aggregators of content as though they’re more important than the actual creators of content.”
Lanier argued that online aggregators are built on the theory that a million men are wiser than one man. But individual genius is based on the assumption that one man is wiser than a million men. Lanier is a dissenting voice, representing the minority “Me” contingent that disagrees with society’s current Upswing toward “We.”
Figure 17.1 The Zenith of a “WE” cycle.
If this were 2033, Lanier would be an Alpha Voice, shining a hot spotlight on the new way of thinking that will become mainstream in 2043. We can only guess what new genre of music will be spawned in 2038, but you can be sure it will embody the core message that Lanier’s You Are Not a Gadget trumpeted: “Genius is not a group project.”1
Society will probably look back and see Lanier as a man ahead of his time. The words he wrote in 2010 will likely encapsulate the feelings of the majority in 2033, when our current “We” is at the halfway point of its Downswing.
Not surprisingly, Lanier’s message is essentially what John Steinbeck shouted in 1952, when society’s Pendulum was in precisely the same position, the halfway point of the Downswing of a “We.”
ME Nothing was ever created by two men. There are no good collaborations, whether in music, in art, in poetry, in mathematics, in philosophy. Once the miracle of creation has taken place, the group can build and extend it, but the group never invents anything. The preciousness lies in the lonely mind of a man.
Steinbeck spoke of the glory and value of “Me,” as did Lanier. A “Me” is a good thing, no question about it, but “Me” isn’t where the majority of Western society is headed during the years 2013 to 2033. If history is a reliable guide, we’re about to take a good thing too far. As we approach 2023, the Zenith of our current “We,” we’re about to learn what Steinbeck was talking about when he spoke of a similar time: “a teetotaler is not content not to drink—he must stop all the drinking in the world; a vegetarian among us would outlaw the eating of meat.
Yes, “working together for the common good” can quickly become self-righteousness. In the words of novelist David Farland, “Men who believe themselves to be good, who do not search their own souls, often commit the worst atrocities. A man who sees himself as evil will restrain himself. It is only when we do evil in the belief that we do good that we pursue it wholeheartedly.”3
| WEWorking together for the common good can quickly become self-righteousness. |
The decades that fall on each side of a Zenith are the twenty years when society is most out of balance and suffering for it. Conversely, the ten years that fall on each side of a tipping point are those decades when society is most in balance—between “Halfway Down” and “Halfway Up.”
Balance: From halfway down a “We” to halfway up a “Me” is unicorns and rainbows, “I’m OK, you’re OK,” “Apple trees, honeybees, snow-white turtledoves!” “I’m going to buy the world a Coke!” (1953–1973).
Out of balance: From halfway up a “Me” to halfway down that “Me” is a time of hero worship, when we wish we were someone we admire. “I’m not OK, you’re OK,” Big hair and costumes, phony is the new real (1973–1993).
Balance: From halfway down a “Me” to halfway up a “We” is a time of mutual brokenness, transparency, and authenticity: “I’m screwed up, and you’re screwed up, so let’s both just forgive each other and look past all this, okay?” This season of “I’m not OK, you’re not OK” feels a lot like “I’m OK, you’re OK” because both seasons fall on the tipping points halfway between the Zeniths. Daniel Pink’s book Drive points to this as precisely the time when we begin moving from extrinsic motivators like big houses and cars to intrinsic motivators like autonomy, mastery, and purpose (1993–2013).
iStockphoto / Thomas Vogel
Out of balance: From halfway up a “We” to halfway down that “We” is the time of witch hunts, transparency, and authenticity: “I’m OK, you’re not OK,” the twenty-year season of Holy Wars, us vs. them. “We, the good and righteous defenders of truth and beauty against them, the evil and sinister malefactors intent on destroying our way of life” (2013–2033).
Figure 17.2 Balance and out of balance through time.
| WE | BALANCE | ME |
HALFWAY DOWN A “ME” TO HALFWAY UP A “WE”
Mutual brokenness
1993–2013
Moving from big houses and cars to autonomy, mastery, and purpose.
| WE | HALFWAY UP A “WE” TO HALFWAY DOWN A “ME” |
HALFWAY UP A “WE” TO HALFWAY DOWN A “WE”
Witch hunts
2013–2033
| WE | BALANCE | ME |
HALFWAY DOWN A “WE” TO HALFWAY UP A “ME”
Unicorns and Rainbows
1953–1973
Apple trees, honeybees, snow-white turtledoves. I’m going to buy the world a Coke!
Holy wars: Us vs. Them
Let’s take a look at a few of the more infamous seasons of a “We” Zenith:
Figure 17.3 Balance: Tipping Point.
”We” Zenith—1223 The Lateran Council of 1215 (eight years before the “We” Zenith of 1223) approved burning at the stake as a punishment against heresy, and the Synod of Toulouse confirmed this in 1229 (six years after that same “We” Zenith)
”We” Zenith—1543 Just eleven years past this “We” Zenith, England’s “Bloody Mary” revived the practice of burning at the stake and offered 284 Protestants as her offering to God.
”We” Zenith—1703 The Salem Witch Trials of 1692 began just eleven years prior to this “We” Zenith. Irrational accusations followed by the death penalty were popular once again.
”We” Zenith—1783 This Zenith of “I’m OK, you’re not OK” led to the introduction of the guillotine as the preferred method of execution during Robespierre’s Reign of Terror in France (1793). Many of the twenty to forty thousand people he executed were not allowed to speak in their own defense at their trials.
”We” Zenith—1863 Self-righteous southerners faced off against self-righteous northerners in a horrifically bloody civil war between brothers (1861–1865).
CC Image courtesy of Mulica on Flickr
”We” Zenith—1943 Adolph Hitler was the German promoter of “I’m OK, you’re not OK” (1933–1945). Joseph Stalin was the Soviet promoter during his “Great Purge” of 1936–1938. Senator Joseph McCarthy was the American witch-hunt specialist with the help of the “Un-American Activities Committee” from 1937 to 1953.
Figure 17.4 “WE” Zenith: Witch Hunts.
| WE | WE ZENITHS |
| WE ALWAYS TAKE A GOOD THING TOO FAR | |
| Witch hunts / Small actions—Zenith | |
| 1943 | Adolph Hitler—The Holocaust |
| 1936–1938 | Joseph Stalin—Great Purge |
| 1937–1953 | Senator Joseph McCarthy—”Un-American Activities Committee” |
| Witch hunts / Small actions—Zenith | |
| 1863 | American Civil War |
| Witch Hunts / Small Actions—Zenith | |
| 1783 | Robespierre—Reign of Terror in France (1793) |
| 1783 | America wins Revolutionary War |
| Witch hunts / Small actions—Zenith | |
| 1703 | Salem Witch Trials (1692) |
| Witch hunts / Small actions—Zenith | |
| 1543 | “Bloody Mary” revived burning at the stake in 1554 |
| Witch hunts / Small actions—Zenith | |
| 1223 | Burning at the stake approved by Lateran Council of 1215 |
Keep in mind that this twenty-year season of “I’m OK, you’re not OK” represents just one-fourth of the eighty-year round trip of a forty-year “Me” followed by a forty-year “We.” This means the odds of a particular event randomly falling into this specific, twenty-year window are just one in four. Yet virtually every instance of widespread viciousness in Western society has happened within ten years of the Zenith of a “We.”
2013–2033: Who Will We Burn This Time?
On the upside, the Zenith of a “We” offers some very specific marketing opportunities. Self-definition—“branding” if you will—is no longer determined by who you include and what you stand for; instead, it becomes a function of exclusion: who you exclude and what you stand against.
Here’s the payoff: the easiest people in the world to manipulate are those who are focused on a single issue. Be forcefully against whatever they’re against and you can lead them around like a tame calf on a rope. You can’t have insiders without outsiders.
Figure 17.5 Upswing toward a “WE” Zenith.
Yes, marketing becomes very easy as we approach the Zenith of the “We.” Just choose what and who you will demonize and then start tossing fear-soaked words as though they were longneck beer bottles full of gasoline with fiery rags stuffed down their throats. It’s Machiavellian, we know, but it’s true nonetheless. We wish we could bring you happier news, but the simple truth is this: unless we begin working together to soften this coming trend of “I’m OK, you’re not OK,” we’re about to enter the ugliest twenty years of the Pendulum’s eighty-year round trip.
To counteract the coming trend,
1. Listen with your whole heart, and try not to interrupt. Resist the temptation to put words into others’ mouths. Don’t be accusatory. Try to understand, truly, what “the other side” is saying. The last time we were in this “I’m OK, you’re not OK” cycle, Ernest Hemingway is reported to have offered the perfect advice to his readers: “When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.” It’s time to heed that advice once again.
WE |
Instantaneous worldwide communication might be able to help us mitigate the negativity and soften the viciousness of the next 20 years. But you must have the courage to speak up. |
2. Be capable of articulating calmly how “the other side” sees it. Always acknowledge that goodness and sincerity can be found on both sides of every argument. Paul Hewitt said, “The person who can state his antagonist’s point of view to the satisfaction of the antagonist is more likely to be correct than the person who cannot.”4 Most of us cannot articulate the position of our antagonist to the satisfaction of the antagonist because we fear that a clear understanding of their perspective might cause us to change our minds. And in an era of “I’m OK, you’re not OK” this feels like the ultimate disaster because, if that were to happen, we would, by our own self-righteous definition, no longer be “OK.”
When we discuss this Pendulum phenomenon with others, people often ask, “Will the advent of instantaneous worldwide communication (the Internet) accelerate the Pendulum?” The logic of this question is obvious, but we feel the answer is No.
If intellect or information drove the Pendulum, the answer would most certainly be Yes. But these things don’t seem to drive the human heart. The pace of deep human change is agricultural—our motivations change at the speed of trees.
Think of a tree—a specific tree whose location you know. That tree seems not to change from day to day, right? And unless it’s very young, it seems not even to change from year to year. But take a snapshot of that tree today and then come back in ten, twenty, or forty years, and it will be astoundingly different. This seems also to be the way of the human heart. Grief counselors are very familiar with this “agricultural” pace of the human heart, as it often takes a complete cycle of four seasons for an emotional wound to heal. When a member of one’s immediate family is lost, a single cycle of four seasons barely begins this process of recovery. The Internet has done nothing to change this.
iStockphoto / nuno
The good news, however, is that instantaneous worldwide communication might be able to help us mitigate the negativity and soften the viciousness of the next twenty years.
But you must have the courage to speak up.
Edmund Burke is reported to have said 240 years ago, “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”
“A Catholic, a Mormon, a Jew, and an Evangelical sat down at a table together and . . .”
No, that wasn’t the beginning of a joke. It’s what happened on July 1, 2011, when four alumni of Wizard Academy decided to turn on a recorder before they began a discussion about the future. Two of the four were Roy H. Williams and Michael R. Drew, the authors of this book. They were joined by Tim Miles, a Wizard of Ads partner, and Jeffrey Eisenberg, who, with his brother Bryan Eisenberg, wrote the online marketing books Waiting for Your Cat to Bark? and Call to Action. Both books became New York Times and Wall Street Journal business best sellers.
This is a transcript of that discussion:
Roy: 2013 to 2023. Jeffrey, what do you think will happen?
Jeff: We’re just sitting here and chatting, really, trying to understand the forces that you’ve shown us exist. But in the end most of us are very, very bad at knowing what will happen tomorrow, so when we try to predict what’s going to happen in twenty, thirty, or forty years, we’ve got religious and secular orientations, and scientific orientations, and educational biases, and regional biases, and political biases. We have so many biases that get inserted into our predictions that I’m concerned the Pendulum reader will latch onto all the wrong predictions we’re about to make and then use them to evaluate the quality of the basic idea. The “Me” and “We” forces are real and highly instructive, even if we can’t use them to predict specific events.
Clockwise from top: Roy H. Williams (coauthor), Michael R. Drew (coauthor), Jeffery Eisenberg, Tim Miles.
Roy: That was very well said, Jeff.
Michael: I agree.
Roy: I have the same concerns about the reader disagreeing with our predictions and ignoring the truth of the Pendulum because of it, but in the end I decided that it would seem like a cop-out if we didn’t end the book with at least our best guesses. Mike and I appreciate that you guys agreed to go out on a limb with us. Thanks, Jeffrey. Thanks, Tim.
Michael: Definitely. Thanks.
Tim: Maybe one prediction made by one of us will turn out to be correct. [Everyone laughs.]
Roy: So now that we’ve safely disclaimed everything we’re about to say, what do you think will happen, Jeffrey? 2013 to 2023.
WE I believe we’ll see a continuation of the trend to give up privacy for the greater good. We did it with the Patriot Act, and we did it again to get free stuff online and then along came Facebook. I believe we’ll be pressured to give up our privacy in countless ways for the common and individual good. And in the end, we’ll wind up with a tremendous loss of . . .
PhotoDune / Logoff
Roy: Are you talking about a continued invasion of privacy by the government, or will it be coming primarily from business?
Jeff: Most people don’t yet realize that when they look something up on Google, it doesn’t always show them what it might show someone else. A significant percentage of the search results from Google are personalized to the searcher based on what Google has learned about that person from their previous searches. This personalization of data just drives each of us deeper into a perceptual cocoon, right? And we are giving up privacy because we don’t want to pay for stuff. We like the comfort of it. And there is also this feeling of needing to prove that we have nothing to hide.
Roy: I see.
Jeff: So there are a lot of different pressures for us to live publicly, right? Twitter is a public-feed thing. I mean, the pressures are increasingly to give up our privacy.
Tim: The fear I have is that it’s becoming sort of a “villagers outside the gates with torches.” There’s a populist, almost excitement about battling any sort of resistance to the elimination of privacy, you know? If I want to celebrate privacy, well, “Then you must have something to hide . . .”
Jeff: Right.
Tim: And you’re automatically guilty of something. I don’t know what it is, but you’re guilty, and I’m mad at you, and I’m going to tell everybody that you’re doing something wrong.”
Roy: Right. Now Michael. 2013 to 2023. What’s your best speculation?
Michael: I think we are going to stay in a recession. We probably aren’t going to see a full recovery of the economy until around 2023. I also think we are going to see, as Jeff was saying, a loss of privacy and a requirement to be completely open. I think we’ll see better uses of social media for business. And I also think that the greatest capital we’re going to have is our reputation. I know some kids, you know, teenagers, fifteen-, sixteen-year-olds, who are putting all their sexual exploits on Facebook because they think it’s okay, you know? They don’t understand that as they move forward that stuff is going to come back to bite them. Parents in today’s culture just don’t understand, yet the ramifications of being completely transparent and what it’s going to mean to their children’s lives as they go off to the university or as they apply for jobs and whatnot.
Roy: So, now, when parents begin to . . .
Jeff: Michael’s right. This is probably the predominant trend we’re going to see. All the rest of what we’re going to say is going to be much more speculative. We’ve been watching this trend toward the voluntary loss of privacy, and this is clearly going to continue for another ten years.
Roy: Jeff, you, and Michael, and Tim might see this voluntary loss of privacy as a very self-evident thing, and I think you guys are probably correct, but that’s not something I had really considered. What I think we can expect to see happen is that the general public will try to purge the system of corrupt politicians. We’ve seen too much self-serving among our politicians, and a “We” generation just won’t stand for it. The recent Blagojevich conviction was the tip of the iceberg. And then came Anthony Weiner with his sexting scandal and then Newt Gingrich got a big surprise when he took the goodwill of the public and his campaign staff for granted. I believe in the second half of this Upswing into “We” we’re going to elect political candidates who lift brooms during their speeches and promise, “I’m going to clean up Washington.”
Jeff: I’m seeing the opposite. Andrew Sullivan has been writing, “So when did we become Rome? When did we go into decline?” Sullivan would say that what you’re currently seeing is apathy, and his prediction is that this apathy will continue. I think I might agree with him.
iStockphoto / Jodi Jacobson
Roy: It’ll be fun to see who is right.
Jeff: I don’t think we’ll see a political purge because, like Mike said, there’s this transparency issue. You know, who doesn’t live in a glass house? No one is going to be willing to cast the first stone. I think we can see evidence of this in Europe. Many of Europe’s leaders are openly self-serving and hedonistic.
Tim: No, see, I hear . . .
Michael: I don’t see it as a decline. In a “Me” it’s all about the individual. We do things bigger and more verbose than who we really are. That translates into business and into government, and most of the politicians we’re talking about were elected during a “Me.” In a “We” culture, we start demanding authenticity and transparency in the marketplace.
Roy: I hear everything you’ve said, but I still disagree with it. Let me tell you why.
Jeff: That’s why we’re here, right? [laughs]
Roy: What you’re calling apathy and what Andrew Sullivan is calling apathy is actually carefully disguised patience. I think we have a certain tolerance and patience, and then, when we finally reach the boiling point, we track down John Dillinger and Al Capone and “Pretty Boy” Floyd and Bonnie and Clyde, and we lock ‘em up, and the hero is the FBI.
Jeff: So, but you’re talking about from 2013 . . .
Roy: 2013 to 2023, right.
Jeff: . . . to 2023. I don’t think it can happen that fast. And I don’t feel comfortable in saying that what Andrew Sullivan is talking about is apathy. I think that what he’s saying is that we are in decline.
Roy: Now here’s the thing. I violently disagree with Andrew Sullivan and his comparison of our current condition to the decline of Rome, and I think Michael agrees with me, but . . . yes, Michael’s nodding his head . . .
Michael: Mm-hmm.
National Union of Journalists
Roy: Go back exactly eighty years, when the Pendulum was in the same position and headed in the same direction as it is now. You’d be in 1932, and we were passing all kinds of laws prohibiting the sale of alcohol and restricting other freedoms, and it wouldn’t be many more years until we were locking up all the Japanese Americans in our own version of concentration camps. America never talks about these Japanese internment camps because we’re ashamed of what we did. But any time the government begins to feel empowered by the people to invade privacy and impose restrictions on the population “for the common good” we’re going to do these sorts of things.
So let’s summarize. I think the one thing we all agreed on was that we’ll likely continue to give up our privacy. Big Brother is alive and well, and George Orwell was right.
Jeff: Right, except that instead of the government watching us as Orwell predicted, we’re actually just watching each other.
Michael: Well, see, I think it’s a combination of Orwell’s 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, which was written exactly eighty years ago. I think it’s a combination of both, not just 1984.
CC Image
Roy: When did Orwell write 1984?
Michael: 1948, published in ’49.
Jeff: Oh, stop talking about all the GAMMAS that you live around.5
Michael: [laughs]
Roy: If we say that we’ve given up liberties in exchange for the perception of security and that this is going to continue to be a trend . . .
Jeff: And not just security. It’s also the public desire for “free.” We’ve become funnily frugal about things . . .
Tim: So you mean financially “free.” You’re not talking about liberty . . .
Jeff: . . . Yes, yes, yes, that’s what I’m saying. We don’t seem to value intellectual property in the same way that a “Me” cycle would. We feel that when intellectual property is beneficial, “Well, why can’t I reproduce it? Why can’t I mash it up? It’s enjoyable, I get benefit out of it.” So we’ve given up on this idea of personal authorship, not yet in a fully financial sense, but to a great degree infringements that we consider acceptable today would not have been considered acceptable twenty years ago.
2023–2043
Roy: Okay, let’s talk about 2023 to 2043, the Downswing of the “We,” when this all starts losing some of its energy. We’ve been doing good for so long that people get swept forward by the momentum of it until it becomes societal obligation and we get worried about social appearances.
Tim: My children are going to have me killed
ALL: [laughter]
Tim: ’cause I’ll be in their way, old and slow.
Roy: Tim, that’s kind of what happened in the Downswing of the last “We.” Joseph McCarthy came to power and started pointing his finger at people he suspected of being communists. You had the blacklists. Lives were ruined. Everyone was paranoid and afraid . . .
CC Image
Tim: So Glenn Beck was just fifteen years too early!
ALL: [laughter]
Michael: 2023 to 2030. I think the United States will continue to move toward globalization. We’ve lost the Industrial Revolution. That’s moved to China. That’s moved to India. If we want to look at competing internationally, we’re going to have to do it by being ahead of the rest of the world in terms of education and in terms of opportunity, and I think that what we’ll be doing is changing our educational system so that we’re able to develop more entrepreneurs. . . .
Jeff: You think that ten, thirty years from now we’ll still have an advantage in education?
Michael: I think we currently have an opportunity advantage when it comes to education. It’s more readily available in the United States than in most countries. We’re certainly not number one in education right now, but we do have an opportunity advantage. But when India and China have enough money coming in twenty years of working in the mill or at the factory, they’ll start to raise children who will have at least as much opportunity as we enjoy in the West . . .
Jeff: I’m going to disagree because I think what you’re explaining has something with a nationalist tinge, and what we wind up with is . . .
Roy: Hang on a sec! We’re off topic. Stay focused on what you think will happen in Western society from 2023 to 2043.
Jeff: I believe we’ll have much more of a caste system than we’ve ever seen before. Society will be divided into knowledge workers, industrial workers, and agricultural workers. There will be cities like Austin, New York, and Portland, where knowledge workers live, and those people will have stronger relationships with the knowledge workers in Mumbai than they’ll have with the agricultural workers who live just twenty miles away. I think we’re going to see more and more of this caste system because what it takes to stay ahead is a level of education and indoctrination to values that are becoming more and more difficult to penetrate. In the United States, we already have a less porous social class system than we’ve ever had before, and it’s starting to happen all over the world. To enter the “knowledge worker” class is becoming more difficult to accomplish if you weren’t born into it.
Roy: Alright, here’s what I want you guys to do. Think of a single sentence to encapsulate what you think will happen. Summarize it as sharply as you can. 2023 to 2043. Tim, what are you thinking?
Tim: I think we’re going to see a continuing erosion of public education.
Roy: Why?
WE The new debate in education will be about how to create new pathways to wealth. The old path doesn’t go there anymore.
Tim: Kids haven’t had anyone nipping at their heels or any sort of challenges or worries about what might happen to them. They no longer buy into the idea that they need a college degree. I believe society is headed back to the old Renaissance idea of scholars. Scholars congregate at universities. Learned thinkers are at universities. Someone who’s going to be a knowledge worker doesn’t necessarily need a university degree anymore. They just need training. Being a knowledge worker is more of a trade, but these new trades aren’t industrial anymore. They’re technologically and intellectually based. I think we’re going to see a sort of divisiveness in education that will cause a lot of new problems and challenges.
Jeff: You see a greater distinction of the class system?
Tim: Yes.
Roy: Jeff, summarize your thoughts.
Jeff: I believe there will be a backlash against organizers of religion whose message revolves around money, okay? And political power. There will be a backlash. I also believe the West is becoming postnationalist, and a worker-class system will develop because instantaneous, worldwide communication is everywhere and it’s free. Classism will develop because we’ll relate to workers in our own class in other countries more than we relate to workers in a different class in our own country.
Roy: Michael, summarize your thoughts.
Michael: I think we’re going to see what Tim and Jeffrey both said. I foresee a massive debate regarding the future of education, and it will be related to the creation of wealth. Specifically, how do we maintain our middle class? If you look back at what came out of the last “We,” it was infrastructure. We had industry, and wealth was built by workers going out, getting jobs, being paid more and more for their work, creating pensions and buying into the system, going to college, getting a job, staying with the company. . . .
iStockphoto / scibak
Jeff: Are you saying that’s what you think will happen?
Michael: No, I said that’s what happened back then. The new debate in education will be about how to create new pathways to wealth. The old path doesn’t go there anymore.
Jeff: People with wealth relate to other people with wealth no matter where they might live. Our current globalization is the globalization of a caste system that results in an erosion of national interests. American manufacturers no longer struggle to manufacture their products in the United States. They’re no longer worried about employing Americans. They just want to make money. American companies are just as happy to create jobs in China and India. Money recognizes no borders between nations.
iStockphoto / hronos7
Roy: I think you’re going to see a huge resurgence of labor unions as the middle class continues to get squeezed. “Working together for the common good” is the driving force in a “We,” and labor unions are a natural expression of it. I’m not pro-union, but I believe labor unions are going to gain momentum near the Zenith of the “We” whether I’m in favor of them or not.
Jeff: I hate to sound Marxist, but workers of the world will unite. We’re seeing the gutting of the middle class. We can no longer expect to live like our parents did. They could live really nicely on one salary while the other parent stayed home and took care of the kids. We no longer have that expectation, and we’ve continued to lower our expectations for the past several years.
Tim: I don’t disagree with you regarding how money flows across borders, but I think most people will remain uninformed. People tend to look at problems superficially, never really grappling with the primary cause.
Jeff: We’ve had safety valves and all sorts of things that are slowly disappearing. You know, those safety valves that are quickly letting off the steam?
PhotoDune / lucadp
Roy: What you’re saying, Jeffrey, is that they have not yet had to eliminate Social Security.
Jeff: Correct! And the thing is, they will never eliminate social security. I believe they will inflate it.
Michael: I disagree with that. I think that for the last thirty years, for most of my life, we’ve been talking about the insolvency of social security. I don’t think the ones who are going to see it cut have a full expectation of it being there anyway.
Jeff: But you know what? They also don’t expect old people to be dying in the streets. I’m not saying that’s going to happen, but we’ve seen inflation in the Carter years, okay, and we’re going to need a minimum of that kind of inflation to inflate our way out of our problems and the cost of living. . . .
Roy: Now Jeffrey, you said something very interesting. You said “we’ve” seen. You and I remember the Jimmy Carter years, but do Michael and Tim? Michael said “in my thirty years.” So we have a thirty-year-old Mormon, a forty-five-year-old Jew, a fifty-three-year-old Evangelical Christian and . . .?
Tim: A forty-year-old-year-old Catholic.
Roy: . . . and a forty-year-old-year-old Catholic. [Everyone laughs.] That’s kind of interesting.
Tim: Is it possible that one of the Alpha Voices in our future will have something to do with, I dunno, a group who gets together and cracks cold fusion, and the game changes, and suddenly the idea of oil for energy that we’ve been burdened with for, you know, since the Industrial Revolution, changes the game, changes the rules. Is that a possibility?
Jeff: [Speaking to Tim] You and I have had this discussion. We’ve talked about it on the phone. So if cold fusion happened, we walk away from carbon-based energy into a better form of energy. And the way the world looks at things, scientific discovery, a lot of things would change.
Roy: Guys, this is that part of the discussion when I want you to go out onto the skinny part of the branch. Let’s talk about the Upswing of the next “Me.” 2043 to 2063. Think that far ahead. 2043 to 2063.
Jeff: Well, it’s interesting. I believe the Alpha Voices of 2033 will be heroic in that they take themselves off the grid. They’ll refuse the implants that we put into ourselves to stay on the grid. You know, communications and things. The Alpha Voices will be people who say, “No, I’m an individual, I’m me. . . .”
Michael: It’s a Philip Dick and Margaret Atwood kind of thing coming to fruition. These Alpha Voice heroes, living in a world where science fiction starts to become real life. . . .
PhotoDune / scyther5
Jeff: Well, I mean the logical thing is that we’ll have implants, cognitively. William Gibson says that the future is just not widely distributed today. We could implant phones . . .
Roy: He said what? The future . . .
Jeff: The future is not widely distributed or something to that effect. It’s worth looking up.
Roy: And who said it?
Jeff: William Gibson.
Roy: William Gibson.6
Jeff: I believe that within the next forty years we’ll be living with implants, bioengineered with mechanically engineered enhancements.
Tim: Well, then why couldn’t we live to be a hundred and twenty?
Jeff: I mean, we could.
Michael: I agree with you about the implants and about how the Alpha Voices will refuse them as we approach the beginning of the next “Me.” Have you guys heard of augmented reality [AR]?
Tim: Like when you point a smart phone in GPS mode at something and an additional graphic appears onscreen on top of the thing you’re looking at?
Michael: Exactly. Augmented reality combines virtual reality with actual reality. I believe the Alpha Voices of 2033 to 2043 will reject these implants because they’ll represent the complete loss of personal identity and privacy.
Roy: Slow down. You lost me.
Michael: If we use the analogy of cooking a live frog by slowly heating up the water until the frog is dead, augmented reality is part of what’s going to “heat up” the water so that our society relaxes its anxiety toward accepting implants. I believe it’s this augmented reality technology, coupled with RFID Tags and streaming social media at its most extreme, that will lead to the acceptance of implants.
Roy: You know who you sound like, don’t you?
Michael: [sigh] Tell me.
Roy: You’re Sarah Connor and this augmented reality thing is Skynet.
[Everyone laughs]
Jeffrey: Terminator?
Roy: Skynet was the early artificial intelligence [AI] software program that evolved and took over humanity.
Tim: Here’s what Google says about augmented reality: “Augmentation is conventionally in real-time and in semantic context with environmental elements, such as sports scores on TV during a match. With the help of advanced AR technology the information about the surrounding real world of the user becomes interactive and digitally manipulable. Artificial information about the environment and its objects can be overlaid on the real world . . . [As an example] the yellow ‘first down’ line seen in television broadcasts of American football games shows the line the offensive team must cross to receive a first down.”
Roy: 2043 to 2063. I’m going to say this only briefly, but I think it’s funny that it came up just after I pointed out our different backgrounds. Considering the different perspectives and training that are given to Evangelicals, Mormons, Catholics, and Jews, it’s really funny that it would be the Jewish guy rather than the Evangelical who would propose an idea that has long been taught in Evangelical churches. Implants. The Book of Revelation. The mark of the beast. Evangelicals have always been fascinated with a passage in Revelation 13 that says the people in the last days can “neither buy nor sell” without the mark of the beast. The speculation for the last fifty years is that this mark would obviously have to be something that replaces money, an implanted chip of some kind, so that your hand would be scanned during a financial transaction. Robbery, credit card theft, and identity theft will be eliminated because the physical person is required to effect every transaction. Jeffrey, you have no idea how much you sounded like an Evangelical Christian evangelist just then. You have absolutely no idea.
Jeff: And I don’t even play one on television! [Everyone laughs.] I like science fiction, but I dislike prediction. I’m not crazy about what we’re doing. It’s a nice conversation, but, you know, it’s pure speculation.
Roy: It’s absolute speculation. But it’s impossible to write about the Pendulum of society without speculating about what might happen next. Michael and I really appreciate you and Tim sharing your thoughts.
Jeff: This idea, my central idea, which is this loss of privacy, is about us giving up increasing amounts of privacy for convenience, for power, for payments, for conformity. If I was to think of this as a Book of Revelation thing, then yes, we’d have to include the rise of a Christ-like hero, but I’m actually not saying that. What I’m saying is that some Alpha Voices will be real heroes and take themselves off the grid.
Roy: When you talk about taking yourself off the grid and suffering the consequences of it, you’re sort of describing Keanu Reeves when he is awakened in the Matrix. When he decides to step out of the dream that is the matrix. . . .
Jeff: Yeah, he took the red pill.
Roy: . . . and now all of a sudden it’s a pretty gritty existence, but at least he has his purity or whatever. . . . Now Michael, 2043 to 2063. What happens?
Michael: One of two things is going to happen: Either from 2023 to 2043 we’re going to work out something economically and be back in a time frame when most of the workers will have been the worker bees for twenty-plus years, and their kids will start to reject that type of conformity in 2043, or we’re going to be in a position where we’ve gone into a massive decline, a decades-long recession from which we haven’t been able to recover economically, and we’re going to be looking for economic leaders who will . . .
Jeff: You keep using the word recession as if it has meaning. Again, we’re talking about a future thing and part of this, we’ve just gone back, we just started talking about the “Me,” but in the “We,” which we’re firmly in right now, there’s a real rejection at a fundamental level of a national recession. We’re in Austin, Texas, where the effects of the recession are negligible. And there are other places in the world where you’d hardly know it, and yet, we could drive less than five hours and see places that look like they’re in a depression. I think that’s part of the point that you’re missing. So when you’re talking about economies recovering, the question becomes economies recovering for whom?
Michael: For the masses, the majority, there’s New York, San Francisco . . .
Roy: And so in this “Me” of 2043 to 2063, Michael, what happens?
Michael: This is why I’m raising the question, because it partially depends on where we end up economically at that point. If we’ve come up with an economic solution, there will be one response. If we haven’t, then I believe that the “Me” cycle will actually produce concepts and ideas that will help pull us out of economic crisis, whether you want to call it a recession, or . . .
Jeff: I see them as revolutionaries. The “Mes” will wind up looking much more like revolutionaries. We’ve got this whole “We” cycle to work through this group thing, this forming of classes, and I think that in 2043 what we’re looking at is a much more revolutionary-type cycle where people start talking about empowering themselves as individuals.
Michael: I agree, but my question is whether that’s going to be from an economic standpoint due to the masses being in a lower class system that wants to break through, or is it going to come from a more spiritual, individualistic standpoint, a breaking away from technology?
Jeff: Are these things necessarily different?
Roy: Tim, 2043 to 2063. What do you think? What happens?
MEFirst, I don’t want my children to eat me as food. Second, I want a ray gun. [Everyone laughs.] Seriously, though, my son will be my age, and he’ll have grown up with computer chips, and they won’t be fascinating to him like they are to us. I think there’s a real possibility for the next “Me” to be an age of enlightenment. People will be so confident in the tools they have that their basic need to spread their wings and explore could easily usher in a time of really extraordinary advances.
iStockphoto / Jean Gill
Jeff: I can buy into that. You just described a future for the knowledge-worker class, which is a step below, or maybe a couple of steps below the top line—wealthy people.
Figure 17.6 What’s coming next?
| WE | A LOOK AHEAD: A PREDICTION OF EVENTS IN 2013–2063 |
| 2013 to 2023: In the second half of a “We” Upswing and the first half of the Downswing—essentially. | |
| 2023–2033: We become more oriented to the self-righteous perspective, “I’m OK, You’re not OK.” This opens the door for deeply entrenched ideologues who are all mouth and no ears, hard-fisted leaders who expect to be heard but who never listen—Joseph McCarthy, Joseph Stalin, Adolph Hitler. These leaders create insular groups who believe everyone else is wrong. The popular thing will be to assign blame. It is a time of finger pointing—not a pretty picture socially. Frankly, my plan is not to be among the majority. I plan to live completely counter to this trend. My primary reason for agreeing to publish Pendulum is the rather optimistic hope that it will cause some people to think twice and resist this inevitable trend toward blame shifting and fear. |
|
| 2033–2043: Partly due to the rise of ideologues, the Downswing of a “We” is when much is done just for the sake of appearances. Conformity will be expected. Outliers will be scorned. The Alpha Voices in technology and literature will be heard in 2033, and my best guess about the new musical genre of 2038 can only be described as a crossword puzzle of statements spoken in rhythm. | |
Michael: If you have a class system that basically puts 75 percent of the world in poverty, I think that . . .
Jeff: Poverty is relevant, so let’s differentiate between people dying in the streets of hunger and people having the basic necessities. Forty years ago we imagined the middle class being a vastly different thing than it is today, and forty years from now we’ll imagine the middle class as being, “Hey, they eat, they go to school, they can get jobs, they have transportation.” You know, pretty basic stuff.
Roy: A few minutes ago I mentioned that any book about the Pendulum of society would need to end with some speculation about what might happen next. I’ve played the role of moderator so far and let you guys go out on the limb without me, and that’s not fair. So here are my best guesses about what is likely to happen.
Tim: What do you mean?
The Granger Collection, NYC
Roy: You’ve heard “row, row, row your boat” sung in rounds, right?
Tim: Sure.
Roy: Imagine a group of performers, each reciting their own poem simultaneously. You can focus on just one voice and follow that story, or you can focus on an entirely different voice telling a different story, or, due to the interplay of cadence, rhythm, and meter, you can hear a series of completely different messages by listening “across” the performers. In other words, you might listen to three words from the first performer, then catch the next couple of words from a different performer, then switch to a third performer to complete the sentence. A virtually infinite number of phrases, encouragements, reprimands, and slogans could be woven into a song using this technique. If we compare rap to playing chess on a single chessboard, this new musical genre would be like chess played on three chessboards stacked vertically with every piece free to be moved at will to its appropriate position on either of the other two chessboards.
iStockphoto / Burwell Photography
Tim: I need a hit of whatever you’re smoking. [Everyone laughs.]
Roy: And then when we hit the Zenith of 2063, everyone will start wearing big hair again, and photographers will use backlighting so the hair always seems to glow heroically. [Everyone laughs.]
Tim: Just like in Jeffrey’s high school yearbook photo?
Jeff: Hey! [Everyone laughs.]
Roy: 2043 to 2063. As we begin our next “Me,” China and India will have just finished their own forty-year “Me,” the result of which will be that land in Canada and in Mongolia at about fifty-three degrees north latitude will be extremely expensive because everyone will be trying to move there.
Jeff: Global warming?
Roy: Bingo. China currently has nearly thirty thousand miles of limited access freeway. This is almost triple what they had in 2001. The United States, by comparison, has only forty-seven thousand miles of interstate. China is expected to surpass that number by 2020 and will shortly thereafter be consuming more gasoline than America and Europe combined. You might convince people in a “We” to reduce their consumption of fossil fuels, but China is currently in a “Me” that won’t end until 2043, when birds are bursting into flames in midair.
Michael: What do you say when someone says that science has not yet proven a link between fossil fuels and global warming?
Roy: When I was a kid, the big argument was that science had never proven a link between cigarette smoking and cancer. But most of the people who were making that argument died from emphysema, so you don’t hear it much anymore. Does anybody have any last words that they’d like to add?
Michael: I’d like to go back to our conversation about class and where we’re headed.
Jeff: You’re fun, Mike. Classism is like climate change. It’s happening, and it’s either recognized or it’s not, right?
Michael: But I think there’s still time to make changes within our culture.
Jeff: Now turn off that recorder and I’ll tell you what I’d never want to go on record as having said.
Roy: Okay . . . [Click]
