Skepsis #31: Dystopia
Skepsis #31: Dystopia
In a world that feels more and more dystopian, it's time we got some compelling utopian stories about our future.
What I'm thinking about
We need new stories
Out of all popular science fiction and blockbuster films to have come out in the past decades, how many show a dystopian future versus a utopian one? Off the top of my head, I can't even think of one story with a largely positive narrative about the future. We have The Terminator, Black Mirror, The Handmaid's Tale, The Hunger Games, Blade Runner, The Matrix and many more. All telling the story of a dystopian future in one shape or another. Even the latest Star Trek movies have lost their utopian flair.
There's a point to be made about dystopian stories being more interesting. They have a narrative arc of overcoming hardships and unfairness built into them, compared to utopian stories that have to come up with other challenges for its protagonists. But I don't think that's the full explanation.
Dystopias seem more believable and rational because of pessimism bias, the tendency to overestimate the likelihood of negative outcomes. Pessimists come across as more rational to us because pointing out everything that's wrong or could go wrong makes you look smarter. I think it's a lot easier to tell a compelling dystopian story about the future than it is to tell a compelling utopian one.
Dystopias are also popular now because we live in an age of disillusionment with technology. And it's not hard to see why.
"We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters.” - Peter Thiel (See my previous newsletter with more from Thiel)
The internet promised free flowing information and that information is now getting weaponized or walled off.
Social media promised to connect us with one another and instead it's driving us apart.
Smartphones promised the world at our fingertips and instead it's causing us to become anxious, depressed and neurotic.
Fake news, populism across the political spectrum, racism, riots, pandemics, natural disasters, demagogues and authoritarians, hipsters. What has the world come to?! It's hard to not get disillusioned.
But bad times doesn't always lead people to have a bleaker outlook on the future. Your outlook on the world has as much to do with the story you tell yourself as what's actually going on.
We're living in a world that is objectively better than it has ever been for most people across most dimensions. Although there's nothing that guarantees things will keep on getting better unless we make it so. In fact, I think it is precisely because we are living in the best of times (all things considered) that we are so sensitive to bad things that are going on. We've become blind to the progress that has and is being made. And I'm worried that this dystopian outlook on our future can devolve into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
What's more, the current political zeitgeist is a pretty uninspiring collection of ideas. It's either about returning to a golden age from decades past (that probably never existed in the first place); to tear down the whole political order in favor of... something that's not the current political order; or a progressive agenda that's lacking its own vision of what the future should look like and is instead mostly a response to all the bad things that are perceived to be happening (climate change, inequality, racism, etc.).
That's why we need a new wave of utopian ideas and fiction that tells an inspiring story about our shared future. A story that can inspire a new generation of scientists, entrepreneurs, and politicians to dream about what could be. Rather than one that only tries to warn us about what to avoid.
We need politicians that have the imagination and the guts to stake out a concrete, positive, and inspiring vision for the future. (And an electorate that will vote for them). And it can’t all be about science fiction and technology. It must also be about our political systems and the philosophical ideas that underpin them.
Note: I'm saying utopian rather than Utopia. Meaning that there's an idealistic utopian vision but no one right answer to what the future should look like. Hardcore Utopias with only one true way for humans to “find liberation” tend to bring with them a whole set of less than desirable side-effects. To say the least.
In fact, I’d argue that some of the worst episodes of human history came about as a result of the wholesale adoption of dogmatic ideologies like Nazism, Communism, Fascism, and so on - all inspired by an imagined Utopia. The danger with these kinds of utopian ideologies is that they can exert such a strong pull on us. They have THE answer. And there's no price that's too big to pay to reach the Utopia.
So we need utopian ideas that are level-headed enough to really work and don't require the extermination of a whole class of people but are also inspirational and urgent enough that they cause people to take action in the right direction.
I see it as the job of entrepreneurs, artists, authors, filmmakers, and philosophers to formulate new ideas for what the world should be like. To come up with utopian ideas that can act as a counter-narrative to the prevailing dystopian narrative. And maybe even figure out new means for how to create that future, or invent technologies that may enable it. (Earl Grey, hot.)
The thing with utopias (and dystopias) is that they will never (and probably shouldn't) be fully realized in practice - which is good. But they give us a target to aim towards.
What I like about Star Trek is that it represented a utopian ideal based on liberal and scientific ideas for the future of all of humanity. A future where people (and aliens) are treated based on their abilities rather than their gender or skin color, where religious dogmatism is a thing of the past, and where humanity has come together based on a shared narrative in the face of the vast cosmos that is open to explore. Some episodes of Star Trek are, in my opinion, some of the most powerful pieces of fiction ever created. We need a new Star Trek.
Today, it looks like there's only one country that's truly pursuing some sort of shared grand vision for itself, and that is China. The US seems to have lost most of that drive long ago. I think the EU has some of it but is also too focused on the legacy of WWII and on creating unity in order to not fight each other, rather than as a result of a shared vision of the future. The US, for all its faults, was (is?) a country founded on a vision of the future. It was founded on a set of strong ideas about what life should be like; "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness". We need more of this.
Articles
How to make video calls almost as good as face-to-face
These days most of us are constantly battling laggy video connections, background noise, and the awkward 5 minutes at the start of every Zoom meeting trying to figure out the proper audio settings. The optimal setup can save you tonnes of time and frustration, making the meetings more productive and pleasant. Some tips I liked:
Find a quiet place (!).
Avoid WiFi and plug your computer into your router directly, if possible.
Use a good headset with a microphone that has a pop-filter which eliminates a lot of background noise - no need to mute yourself. (You should use a wired headset).
Have a second screen for taking notes so you can stay focused on the meeting.
Most laptop webcams are pretty bad, you can connect your Smartphone to the computer these days, or even use your DSLR if you have one.
Arrange the lighting better (it should cast a wide and diffuse light on your face).
A Few Rules
Some good “rules” or principles by the venture capitalist Morgan Housel on how to live and think about the world. Which ones resonate with you? Here are some I’m adopting:
The person who tells the most compelling story wins.
Everything is accountable to either Darwin or Newton, proverbially speaking.
The world is governed by probability, but people think in black and white.
History is Deep. Everything looks new when you don’t know your history.
Don’t expect balance from very talented people.
Progress happens slowly, setbacks occur in an instant.
It is way easier to spot other people’s mistakes than your own.
The Spiral of Silence
How minority opinions and narratives can come to dominate our public discourse even though very few people actually agree with it.
Our perception of how “safe” it is to voice a particular view comes from the clues we pick up, consciously or not, about what everyone else believes. We make an internal calculation based on signs like what the mainstream media reports, what we overhear coworkers discussing on coffee breaks, what our high school friends post on Facebook, or prior responses to things we’ve said.
We think some of our apparently unpopular opinions are not shared by most people, so we don’t voice them.
We want to avoid conflict, so we don’t share those opinions.
What looks like a sudden change in public opinion is actually a shift in what has become acceptable to say publicly, not a change in what people think.
Vocal and staunch holders of minority opinions will largely dictate public discourse. (People with moderate opinions are not as likely to make themselves heard, so the only opinions we hear are the extreme ones.)
This is also referred to as pluralistic ignorance and is effectively how ideologies like national socialism can come to dominate public opinion even though far from everyone really believes in it. When you think everyone else believes that the emperor has new clothes, you don’t dare to point out that he’s really naked.
It only goes up from here
How to become friends with famous people and why you should invest in people early.
Note that I'm not saying everyone succeeds, just that on average, most people you know will do better in the future than now. And of that group, some will turn out to be extremely successful. If you believe that's the case, then you should help as much as you can. If you don't, it's time to get new friends.
The simple, but not easy, solution, is to invest in others early. Invest as much as you can - time, money, advice. Invest in as many people as you can. Invest as often as you can.
Video
Speaking of dystopias. A real concern is the ever-present but underestimated threat of a nuclear holocaust. In this short video, former Secretary of Defense Bill Perry - who’s nowadays leading various efforts to eliminate nuclear weapons - narrates a fictional story about the unthinkable outcome of a nuclear attack on Washington D.C.
Podcast
Joe Rogan speaks to Edward Snowden, in part about why he chose to leak the classified documents. I found it really interesting to learn more about Snowden himself and I think he seems like a genuinely thoughtul and smart person. As an interesting counter-narrative to the “heroic” one given in the JRE podcast, a former intelligence agency worker on a recent episode of the Knowledge Project podcast gives his arguments for why what Snowden did was dangerous and irresponsible. There are two sides to every story.
What I'm listening to
Live long and prosper 🖖🏼.
/Phil