Five hidden choices that will shape our future

Whether we choose to make them or not

I’m pretty sure there are very few people over 40 that actively decided on the role technology would play in their lives. Sure, for those of us with kids, we may try to figure out how we expose them to technology. But for those that saw digital technologies proliferate as adults? Did people stop and decide how and why we would shift to computers? To email? To online entertainment? To social networking? To 24/7 connectivity?

None of these were proactive decisions by individuals. These were noiseless, invisible tidal waves that hit our society and shaped it for the future. Only now are some of the consequences of these shifts becoming more prominent, and in many ways, the decision has been made for us.

Imagine trying to ‘reject’ email. Sure, you might use Slack instead. But really reject the idea of email. The idea of omnipresent communication. You’d be outcast as a Luddite and have very few attractive employment options. The choice has been made by society invisibly, not by individuals. There was no active debate, no top-down thought process. The choice was made for us, through billions of micro-decisions, for better or for worse.

Could we have been more thoughtful as a society about the design and introduction of digital technologies?
Even if we had tried to be, would it have made any difference?


In case the answer is yes, I see five major areas where we might be able to exert our influence. Where we lack consensus.

Where the future of humanity is at stake.

In a few decades, we might look back and see how obviously we were headed down the path we did. I'd like to take this opportunity to lay out the case for each, along with my estimated probability of each side winning. Of course, these may be false dichotomies and the real answer might be a third, more harmonious option, but at least to me, there seem to be some fundamentally oppositional characteristics to each of these debates. 


Debate 1: Caring about more than just present humanity vs. caring even more about present humanity

On one hand, there's a growing sense that our ethics and values need to extend beyond the immediate concerns of the humans who currently live on Earth. This manifests most obviously in climate change - caring for the planet such that it can sustain life for generations and generations to come, for human life and beyond. It's also present in a growing movement in replacing our eating habits (e.g. Beyond Meat) in a way that's more environmentally sustainable and ethical in the treatment of animals. This ethical sense is underwritten by an ever-steady scientific movement that continues to diminish the 'special' nature of humans. The deeper our understanding of science, the more humans become a cosmic blip that is the manifestation of physical, biological, and chemical processes. 

On the other hand, despite this growing scientific understanding, there's been little progress in overriding our deep biological drive to care about ourselves, our kin, and the people closest to us. Focusing on present consumption and improving conditions for our own continues to be the overriding concern of humanity, driven by the global economic engine that measures progress based on the impact on the people of today. That drive continues, as the capitalistic engines of our economy push towards improving products that serve more of humanity at lower prices. We see this in the spread of beneficial technology and the improving distribution of products and services. In this world, it is a belief in the 'special' nature of human ingenuity and innovation that will solve any problem, like inhabiting another planet should we exhaust the resources of the current one. 

My estimated likelihood: 10% chance caring about more wins, 90% chance caring even more wins.

While I believe we ought to move more towards the former, COVID-19 has illustrated our poor capacity for thinking beyond our own immediate challenges. I think it's likely that our economic activities will continue to emphasize our own present well-being, with the hope that human ingenuity can ensure that it doesn't cost non-humans or future humans too much. 


Debate 2: Equality of outcome vs. equality of opportunity

There's a growing discontent with inequality and the pot is reaching a boiling point. This has manifested in the election of Trump, the rise of Sanders/Warren, and a lot of 'radical' ideas (wealth taxes, universal basic income, reparations) moving closer to the mainstream. The recent protests and movement around racial equality only reinforces this rising tide. More and more people are starting to find the idea of equality of opportunity as a means to meritocracy hopelessly idealistic. As a one-time game, it may work. But, as a repeated game played out over generations, it becomes impossible to sustain. Wealth is transferred over generations, but that's secondary - the main issue is that wealth is wielded to raise children with an endless set of advantages. From attention and intellectual stimulation at birth to focused training and tutoring for core and extracurricular activities, the growth of children is so deeply tied to wealth and power. As we move towards acknowledging how far we are from a level playing field, there's a stronger argument for finding other ways to level the score. 

At the same time, there is a strong foundation in the movement towards creating greater equality of opportunity. From Title IX and affirmative action to smaller actions like anonymous hiring or removing SAT/ACT scores from college admissions, there are many different actions we are taking to make our playing field more level. No one believes we're there yet, but to bastardize a quote made famous by MLK Jr - the arc of societal organization is long, but it bends toward meritocracy. It is this idea that drives the innovation and progress of our society - attempts at equalizing outcomes will only stifle the overall growth of humanity. Our experimentation with forms of education (e.g. charter schools) and parental support (universal pre-K) will continue to move us closer and closer to an ideal world where anyone, no matter where they are born and to whom, has a near-equal chance of achieving success. 

My estimated likelihood: 33% chance outcome wins, 67% chance opportunity wins.

I am much more in favor of equality of outcome measures since becoming a parent. Seeing what my daughters have been incredibly lucky to have at such a young age - stability, love, excessive amounts of care and attention, intellectually stimulating experiences - I can't see any world where there's a level playing field between them and children raised in very different socioeconomic circumstances. You can do whatever you want with public education - there's nothing short of raising children collectively from birth that will even approximate a true meritocracy. That being said, the status quo is incredibly resilient, so I do think it is more likely than not that radicals are placated with softer measures (e.g. a very minimal UBI) while we continue to try to push measures aimed at increasing access to opportunity. 


Debate 3: Leisure vs. work

With every technological revolution, there has been the promise of more free time as technology replaces the need for labor. And, with every revolution, that promise has not just proven incorrect, it's proven to be the opposite of true. We continue to work harder and harder, with technology serving to blur the boundaries between work and the rest of life. Maybe the current technology revolution will be different. With the revolution in artificial intelligence, there's a real possibility that we could During this pandemic, we are seeing a couple of things: 1) Labor is an inhibitor of profits. My interpretation of the fact that mass layoffs have coincided with a rising stock market is the fact that the market believes a leaner workforce will lead to greater profitability in the short and medium-term. 2) The amount of bullshit work. As most non-essential white-collar workers find themselves working from home, they are seeing the pointlessness of face time and many of the meetings they have. Combine these two trends and maybe that's the push we need to start redefining and re-prioritizing the role of work in our lives.  

Of course, there may be a reason work has persisted in such a meaningful way throughout our history. Work provides a purpose and meaning to lives that is larger than our immediate family. As humans, we naturally crave that. No matter where we progress technologically or otherwise, the innate need for purpose will naturally structure itself around work. And work structured as a competitive game where there are winners and losers will always result in benefits to those who work harder and smarter. That, combined with our insatiable need to measure ourselves relative to others, will continue to drive a culture that emphasizes and prioritizes the importance of work in society. 

 

My estimated likelihood: 20% chance leisure wins, 80% chance work wins.

When I ask my friends what they would do if money were no object, most of them have an answer that still has some sort of income-generating activity as the most substantive part of their life. That shocks me but goes to show how deep our desires for relevance and purpose are. With that small sample size in mind, I am convinced we will continue to harness our societal progress towards economic activities, not towards reducing them. 


Debate 4: Privacy vs. Availability and accessibility

I often wonder what the first terms & conditions acceptance looked like on the Internet. Did someone read it? Did the people who made it realize the power that was held within those paragraphs? Who knows, but today, we're in a place where we now give up everything from our DNA to our love lives and our deepest thoughts to anyone who can provide us with a way to spend our time digitally. With the FAANG monopolies, an opt-out culture, and a society where personal data is the most valuable currency, we have given up that data without even considering what the long-term consequences might be.

 

Or maybe we don't care that much about our privacy. Maybe people implicitly accept the trade-off - what's so bad about getting advertised things I want when I want them? Access is important, and this privacy shift has allowed digital tools to proliferate faster than any technology in history because it's free. It doesn't cost us anything except our data and our privacy. And with the pandemic, we are likely giving away more, not less. People are likely going to accept the loss of privacy that comes with contact tracing for the upside of a reopened economy. Once they give it up, it’s not going to reverse – as Yuval Noah Harari writes, “temporary measures have a nasty habit of outlasting emergencies”.

 

My estimated likelihood: 2% chance privacy wins, 98% chance availability wins.

It would take a revolution to reverse the trend towards giving up our privacy in exchange for access. I think the effects are too subliminal and intangible to galvanize enough support.


Debate 5: Community vs. Technology-enabled flexibility

Since the advent of the web, we've been asking the question: can a remote community replace a real one? The jury is still out, but it seems like, for more and more people, the answer is no. COVID-19 has sparked a real appreciation for in-person human interaction in our lives. But even before that, master-planned communities and coliving spaces were on the rise. The initial positive vibes around social networks and niche online communities have been overwhelmed by trolls, negativity, and a cancel culture that has left us with digital interactions that leave us emptier and unhappier. Perhaps a silver lining in this pandemic will be that we come out of this crisis with a deeper motivation to find and foster live, in-person communities, using digital tools to enable those possibilities instead of replacing them. 

 

On the flip side, we've also seen the pandemic put to the forefront the idea of remote work in many sectors of the economy. We've seen that working in the same space is often overrated and that many people can be more productive and happier on their own schedules in their own spaces. While we can't deny the negativity that exists on many digital platforms, there's a continued growth in the use of these platforms. Perhaps it's only a matter of time before we find technological solutions to trolling and the negative emotions these platforms can elicit. In other words, you can't close Pandora's Box now that it's open. Our digital avatars will only become a more important part of our lives and it will be up to us to ensure that we cultivate the digital world we operate in. 

 

My estimated likelihood: 40% chance community wins, 60% chance flexibility wins.

This is the one I feel most uncertain about. On one hand, I do think our appreciation for physical interaction is at an all-time high with the pandemic. On the other, I hesitate to ever bet against the Facebooks and Googles of the world, with their deep wallets and even deeper understanding of human psychology. They have the largest data sets on humanity in the world and they use it with one underlying purpose in mind - continue to increase their influence over our lives. It's hard to see anything less than a herculean effort (coordinated by who?) to get them to relinquish that.  


These choices are interlinked, but each is fundamentally important. By my estimations, I'm rooting for the underdogs here. What about you?

Where we land is less important than ensuring that we've made a choice at all.

It would be great if we, collectively, could grapple with the pros and cons of these and consciously move in a direction rather than the current feeling that the forces of society are moving in subtle and unconscious ways that we have no control over. If we could vote on these issues, what's the platform we would back?

Whether we think about it or not, we are the voters - with our purchases, with our time, with our political votes.

I know I theoretically support the underdogs, but in many of these debates, my actions support the favorites. I love free apps, no matter what their terms & conditions are. I do almost nothing to reduce my carbon footprint and actually converted from vegetarianism to meat-eating purely out of convenience. As they say, actions speak louder than words.

So, the more important question is - what platform are each of us backing in our lives

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