The interesting historical combination of Donald Trump and Artificial Intelligence (AI) seems to have finally broken through the dense shell that enables us to pretend we still have time to write the great American novel, travel, put the boss in his place, lose weight, volunteer, save the planet, help rescue democracy, or just play with the kids more.
The Problem. It is clear to everyone that Trump is accelerating societal degradation and retarding efforts to address climate change, that he is not being sufficiently contained by our systems of justice and accountability, and that he is an existential danger to American democracy. This is a totally legitimate concern -- the danger spreads every additional day he draws a breath.
AI frightens people because its concepts are inaccessible to all but a select few and thus the worst is feared. The problem is not AI itself. AI, like all technologies, has the potential to generate a range of good and bad outcomes. The danger is that it is being rapidly fielded and exponentially scaled by people and organizations whose stakeholders are neoliberal to the core and whose primary, secondary, and tertiary concerns are return on investment. The realistic concern is not that “bad” AI will take over the world, but that runaway AI applications will eliminate jobs and alter economies much more rapidly than governments and people can adapt.
Oddly enough, these two challenges are systemically related. In fact, all our complex societal problems are inextricably linked, and we only point out the two here because they have captured the public imagination. They all result from the combination of the speed at which change now occurs, the reduced time and attention available to people to adapt to change, and obsolete learning approaches. The leverage lies with the third of these and thus we focus on it here.
The Impact. We no longer have a margin of time to make meaning out of our lives and save the planet. The entire earth system (geosphere, biosphere, cryosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere), and most of our sociopolitical systems, are rapidly collapsing. Ominously, the rate of collapse is accelerating, and our collective response rate is inadequate by a magnitude. But these facts are not widely appreciated, meaning we have work to do just to get people to understand the realities we face before we can expect major adjustments in individual attitudes and collective approaches.
As Jem Bendell points out in his seminal work, “Breaking Together,” much current and future systems damage is irreversible even if we began a perfect response from this point forward. Things will get much worse before they get any better, and they may never get better due to our colossal collective cowardice, stupidity, and greed.
So what? We can’t slow the outer world down, but we can adapt and help limit systems damage by thinking, learning, and acting at the speed of modern life. Unfortunately, doing so requires a fundamental change in our approach, a radical shift in priorities, and a massive dose of courage.
The solution. Here are five foundational shifts that will accelerate our learning and render our actions more effective:
Focus less on self-improvement and more on collective community efforts, to effect change.
The U.S. has increasingly become a nation of individual strivers looking for a competitive edge at all costs, a society of marginalized people seeking any avenue to be heard, of people seeking communion and connecting with and through data instead of other people and community efforts. The role of brand and social media “influencer,” such as Paris Hilton, exemplify these trends, but most of us play a part in encouraging and perpetuating them through our attention.
Neoliberalism is our true national religion (technically, it is our political theology); it and the bankruptcy of organized religion -- combined with the myths of the rugged individual and American Exceptionalism -- has created a vicious cycle that accelerates each negative trend in our socio-political system and culture. To the degree that we don’t affirmatively resist neoliberalism we reinforce its stranglehold on the nation and passively accept its deleterious effects on our people and planet.
The reasons for these trends are interesting but not important, and that distinction is what we meant when we said that we require a foundational shift. The most important thing right now is not “why” it happened or “how” we got here, but how do we fix this? And we fix it not by learning more about the phenomenon academically and as individuals, but by wading onto collective and communitarian efforts with which we share sentiments and objectives – and in which we individually and collectively “learn by doing.” Then hanging with them after we discover that they are all flawed, hierarchical organizations full of strivers and posers just like school, work, and church!
It’s a long road from here to the kind of sustainable society we want, but it starts not with the submerging of the individual into an undifferentiated mass hidden behind faux self-expression through social media, but by expressing our individualism within collective efforts as well as individual pursuits.
Adopt a Principled Approach.
Dig deeply into positions you choose to deliberately ignore and those you select to advocate rigorously for. As an example of a current issue that would benefit from all of us knowing more, there is US and NATO support to Ukraine.
As an international relations major and Army Veteran with a long career in the National Security space, I am a realist about war. It is attractive to elites for many reasons, and they have perfected how to make it attractive to participants and acceptable to the masses. And I endorse our current approach to Ukraine because it is the most righteous course of action we are prepared to execute currently.
That said, I must believe there is a more morally justifiable and cost-effective strategy to containing Putin than large scale combat operations, and a more courageous approach to the security of NATO nations than funding and encouraging a protracted proxy war. Unfortunately, it will require the robust engagement of a large percentage of NATO citizens to force design of a better strategy and approach. If the resistance is too small or doesn’t have a great communications ground game, the elites will easily marginalize the effort.
Unfortunately, there is not enough unbiased, in-depth information in the press or social media with which to form a principled opinion yet, but nothing prevents in-depth discussions with concerned citizens. And such an approach will well serve us and Ukraine in the long term.
Prioritize paper and book-length, peer-reviewed information sources — and de-prioritize television, press articles, social media, salaciousness, and triviality.
In the race to keep up with the world through near constant attention to news feeds, we lose the time we need to draft deeply upon works that really matter, and we lose the opportunity to sharpen the critical thinking skills required for analysis and right action.
Specifically, we suggest you read two books per week. Why? This will force you to cut out most of the irrelevant reading you do now. Interestingly, reading just four serious works on a subject gives you more knowledge about a subject than 98% of other people, therefore, you can reach that level of expertise in just two weeks!
This additional benefit of “four-book” expertise is that it provides you an aperture that enables you to learn other things more rapidly, which generates a virtuous cycle of knowledge and competency that will increase your effectiveness much more surely and quickly than tacking to the wind of one self-help fad after another.
What should you read? Read history methodically; seek out empirical, unbiased forecasts aggressively; and keep up with science. Specifically, we recommend learning about Artificial Intelligence, Data Science, Political Science, and Systems Thinking. Other than and within those, read what interests you, because you’ll pick up on the information more quickly and be less likely to falter.
Write regularly and share it.
Writing sharpens and crystallizes thinking and enables a qualitatively different opportunity to connect with others. Cognitively, “creative writing engages the brain on a new level and forms new neural pathways and connections, keeping the brain sharp and agile,” The Benefits of Creating Writing, Life Enrichment Center. Doesn’t have to be a newsletter or blog, it could be one-to-one communication -- but it must be of sufficient length to provide the reader with context. Think back to high school and college essays as a framework. Avoid Twitter and other social media for this sharing because they strip context from our communications and engender miscommunication, envy, and enmity in the process, often as part of their business models.
Accept Ambiguity.
F. Scott Fitzgerald famously wrote: “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless yet be determined to make them otherwise.”
To be effective now and for the rest of your lifetime means you must leave the warm embrace of certitude and embrace ambiguity. You will have to simultaneously resist bad things and people courageously, advocate like hell for democracy and justice and all the other good things you aspire to, and prepare thoughtfully for societal collapse.
Finally, realize that you must be a lifelong learner to get ahead of the pace of change – school is never over for the effective citizen. I have always been an avid reader from a comparative perspective, but I didn’t embrace the “two-books-a-week” and “four books to subject matter expertise” concepts until I was 50. Doing so accelerated my career and greatly enhanced my sense of agency. It ultimately led me to confidently embrace progressive activism.
Will you doing these things save American democracy and the planet? No way to tell. But what is clear to us from our modeling and forecasts us is that all the other approaches are doomed to fail, so what choice do you really have?