Amen. USA is a living proof of how democracy is actually fragile even in 21. st. Something that we thought we nailed by now in the west is being challenged. Mostly by the emergence of new technologies.
We’re in a new and unexplored digital age that we can’t point to any history to learn from and it seems we always have to learn the hard way.
It always seems that with every new thing people first try to take advantage of it, then society collapses and then we rebuild on a newly found knowledge and implement rules to “ensure” for it to never happen again. And even if the breakdown of society is predictable, it’s only just a theory until it actually happens.
It’s the same thing with everything. Atomic bomb, chemical weapons, slavery, exploration, pollution, food industry, deforestation, banking, trading, holocaust, eugenics, Internet.
Basically we’re now in the age of information warfare and I don’t mean Alex Jones and Infowars but this is a real military term. Our minds are being influenced in all kids of ways online. To make money, to get votes, to get support, to deny support, to love, to hate, to confuse, to scare and most importantly to misinform.
Basically anyone with an agenda and money can start achieving his goals by influencing world’s society trough social media and the rest of the web. And if he’s crafty even news channels will pick it up and go with it.
One day, if we’re not careful, this will lead to a collapse of western society. Could be moral, could be political, could be economic etc. But I guarantee you it’ll happen because everyone is more focused on taking advantage and wielding the power than containing it, regulating it and focusing it on good.
And we can predict the outcome, but nobody will lift a finger until it actually happens and when, in the famous words of William Daniel Jones, shit hits the fan.
Does anyone watch series The Expanse? It’s as SciFi series where Earth, Mars and the asteroid belt colonizers couldn’t find a common language and were so divided that they stared to fight for it’s independence and then force its rules upon each other depending on who was stronger at the time.
If we continue on this path politically and morally, I’m afraid we’re heading for that kind of future if we can even get to that.
In the past these large divides would be solved with a world war and a large destruction after which everyone grows closer and comes together. Only problem is, the next one would likely be nuclear. We would all be wiped out. So it probably won’t happen. Then again where does this human tension and divide go? It’s bound to release itself somewhere. I just hope it won’t be at you or me.