Editor’s note: Besides following tech developments, our author is a musical composer (Juilliard-trained). He has provided a musical composition for you to listen to while reading this column. This piece is called “Changing keys and tonal centers.”
The society we now live in makes it possible for us to make decisions about people and issues more quickly than ever before. It also can persuade us to change our minds just as quickly. Ideas and memes can be instantly transmitted to millions of people. In the past, when it took time for information and insights to spread, people were able to weigh options, ask questions, and even perform experiments using the scientific method to try to empirically determine the veracity of what they were told. I do not know if more or fewer people do this now than previously, but have you noticed that we are more likely to believe good storytellers that to require evidence and accuracy? We live in complicated times with a great deal of interdependency. It is not easy to sort out the truth.
In principle, we can use the Internet to triangulate on the truth by checking many differing sources. However, many of us now live in echo chambers, where new information gets excluded when it does not agree with prior unsubstantiated beliefs. People who try to verify the truth of what they are told may get left behind the crowd. Of course, if you are in the habit of searching for multiple sources of information, you are in luck because many do exist. However, even if you obtain the information rapidly, evaluating it takes time.
In an attention-span-depleted society, I often wonder if people are taking the time to vet or update their understanding of what is happening around them.
Our grandparents lived in a very different communication world than we do. Howard Lieberman created this image using DALL-E-2, an AI software program.
The technology we embrace tremendously impacts our relationships. Embracing technology also takes time, for it is not always intuitive to operate. Communication, relationship, and loyalty wars are going on all the time, while different suppliers of content and delivery systems try to outmaneuver each other in the marketplace. It often feels like we live in highly manipulated political and economic times, where truth is hard to discern. One thing is obvious. We need tremendous freedom to make our decisions and evaluate what is going on in our complex world, which seduces us with an array of communication and information options.
Be on your guard for misinformation, take the time to search for evidence, and, if necessary, do some experiments to determine the truth yourself. If our new capabilities are properly used, we are poised for the equivalent of another renaissance where many different peoples and ideas can come together to co-create a far more abundant tomorrow.
If you know people on the other side of the world, in different industries, or with different cultural mindsets who may have answers for you, do not hesitate to reach out.
We can now have friends, teachers, mentors, bosses, employees, collaborators, and all sorts of relationships all over the world. Howard Lieberman created this image with the assistance of DALL-E-2, an AI software program.
This new ability to have many different types of relationships with so many different types of people is incredible. Not only did our parents and grandparents not have it, but we did not even have it ten years ago.
But be on your guard against being manipulated. You have to pay attention and not be on autopilot. Qualify what you hear. If it seems nonsensical, it probably is. We’re an educated group of creative outliers here in the Berkshires and, as such, we are well-positioned to take advantage of new opportunities to transcend geography. We have a lot to learn from each other, and we must remember that once a thought is thought, it cannot be unthought. Once we have seen something, we cannot unsee it.
Anyone who tries to drag you back to the past is not doing it to benefit you, so beware. Humanity’s ability to adapt and change is our superpower. We are the best innovators in the world, and the United States still invents more than everyone else combined. I feel compassion for those who cannot deal with the fact that things have changed and are continuing to change. However, conserving our planet’s resources and relationships does not require us to preserve inflexibility and accept manipulation. Never give up your power, and never attempt to go backward.
I know that change is difficult; however, there is no choice but to move forward, for the past no longer exists, and those who try to get there will fail. As a physicist, I can assure you that there is no way to invent a machine to take us back in time, but we can still fall into dark ages if we are not proactive, positive, informed, and wary of being manipulated.
Any policy that reduces human beings’ freedom to adapt is counter-evolutionary. It is the equivalent of being a suicide bomber because you do not like the way the world is going. There will always be fits and restarts, as people never want to change until they have to. But right now, we have to. The sooner we move away from the centralization of money and power and decide instead to adapt and pursue abundance, the sooner humanity will achieve its potential.
Human beings have to collaborate to create tomorrow together. New technologies that accelerate communications and the capability to develop relationships will have more impact on our future than all the other technologies we have invented so far.
Relationship technology is the tool we can all wield to move forward together.
