For a Future Worth Living In
The latter half of the twentieth century will likely be regarded in future ages as the era when Organization Man reached his zenith. This period was dominated by institutions so powerful that it became almost impossible to imagine life without them. It was by most accounts a pleasant time to live in, a world in which you could travel across the nation and even the world in relative safety, in which the public educational system inculcated a common body of knowledge, and sorted citizens according to their merits. It was even possible to be reasonably certain of the quality of ones hamburger in unfamiliar cities! However, such institutions have degraded over the course of the past half century, at first gradually but then suddenly. As technological changes reduced the necessity for the written word, a culture was spawned with values alien to those of the West. This culture, largely rooted in the forms of communication originating in Web 2.0 may have produced a generation largely incapable of perpetuating Western civilization. It is defined by information endlessly mutable, resulting in a situation in which truth does not exist. For those who doubt this, I recommend that you search for a term with any of the leading commercial search engines, and compare your results with those of a friend. It follows that these changes lead to the rapid disintegration of those institutions peculiar to Organization Man. Therefore, it is time to prepare for a world in which such institutions have ceased to function.
At this point in time, making technological decisions for social or religious reasons still seems to most of us rather strange. It brings to mind small, isolated groups such as the Amish. As the internet evolves, the corrosive effects of social media have become increasingly clear to the general public. However, most users of these services feel trapped within them, since they believe that leaving would result in social isolation. Therefore, the only solution to this problem is to found voluntary associations of citizens who avoid these systems. Since much of the economy has become dependent on smartphones, it would make sense for these people to live near each other. It is also possible that different societies might develop based on different levels of technology, In time, this will seem no more unusual than similar societal limitations placed upon the use of alcohol and narcotics. I predict that even those with socially liberal inclinations will eventually view the effects of digital involution with deep revulsion.
I see a world at once varied and advanced, in which Organization Man has become forgotten as the Neanderthal. The key components of Western civilization can thrive, freed from an order which failed to perpetuate itself. Technology develops on one hundred different parallel paths. There are already some well-known societies which live in a way not far removed from the nineteenth century. While I do not expect this to become common, I predict that far greater numbers of people will seek to avoid those technologies which have characterized the turn of the millennium.
Some societies, such as the Amish, are well suited to agriculture, and are already responsible for nearly half of commercial egg production in some states and South American countries. However, the truly retrograde societies are obviously incapable of producing such goods as microchips and antibiotics. At the same time, it is also very unclear that the the children of digital involution will be capable of maintaining the technology requisite for doing so. Therefore, I predict that most advanced goods will be produced by cultures with a selective policy towards communication technology, perhaps culturally resembling the middle portion of the twentieth century. Therefore, the greatest social problem of our century will be the economic integration of different parallel societies.
Based on personal observations, a modus vivendi in which most food is grown by Amish and Mennonites, most construction and some engineering performed by traditional Catholics, and most software made by Hasidic Jews is quite conceivable. However, this is only one possible scenario given currently existing parallel societies. I fully expect more to emerge as the effects of digital involution become more widely known. The quality of life in this new environment is directly proportional to the number of people who leave digital involution today.
The fabric of this world will be quite different from our own; population centers will be smaller but far more numerous. Each center will derive much of its sustenance from the surrounding regions. This unit we will call the citadel. Each citadel is largely self-sufficient in providing its necessities but specializes in producing a particular product or idea. This could be anything from Amish buggy wheels to rockets for the American military. Due to a great population decline, there is much vacant land, and in some cases entire cities are nearly abandoned. In such an environment, one must adopt the mindset of a settler. As in the nineteenth century, the American continent is filled with experiments. Citizens settle based on their values, freed by a decentralized Internet from the confines of economic convenience. It is possible to build great structures more readily than in earlier ages, due to computer-aided design and artificial intelligence. For this reason can many towns be distinguished by their cathedrals. The most profound divisions between parallel societies will stem from divergent uses of technology.
Future material published on Tom Swift will be of a more direct and practical nature. Technology, and how we can harness it to our own ends will be the main subject of Tom Swift. Detailed plans for Great American Libraries will be available to subscribers. I plan to create a series of open source communication tools, starting with a Linux based message system. As I do not know of one that currently exists, I am putting out a poll to determine how many of my readers use flip phones, and if so, do they find it desirable to communicate with other flip phone users. Since I believe in being forthright and making my intentions clear, I will reveal the part of the reason Tom Swift was founded was to test the waters for a new electronics company. The goal of this corporation would be to enable computational independence through Linux based products, independent of cloud data storage or software subscriptions. There will also be free projects for aspiring inventors posted in the “Science and Technology” section
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As I am a Catholic, a new section of this publication will be created, in which I will discuss ways in which Catholics can adapt to this new state of affairs. It will roughly approximate the currently existing series of Parallel Society articles, and will describe problems and features specific to Catholics parallel institutions. From this project, I hope to gain insights which can be generalized to other such societies. At this point in history, the destiny of mankind is in the hands of those who build. It is for this reason that we fight digital involution.