#114 | Predicting change in 2023
Difficulties are the foothills that lie beneath mountains of Progress. They have to be crossed to reach the summit.
“Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult — once we truly understand and accept it — then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters.” — M Scott Peck
“If you set yourself to it, you can live the same life, rich or poor. You can keep on with your books and your ideas. You just got to say to yourself, “I’m a free man in here” — he tapped his forehead — “and you’re all right.”” — George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London
Will anything special happen in 2023? Will it be a year of memories we remember or ones we'd rather forget? We live in an unusual age: we're subject to exponentially changing technology, we live the longest we ever have, and the poorest poor have never been wealthier.
Yet the environment has, in human history, rarely been less stable. We're less trusting of politics, and politicians are learning to use technology for their career success, presumably to our detriment. Large parts of the world have run out of food and water, yet in others, we're full of food and addicted to screens, pills and porn. It's a time of paradox, the best and worst of times. Yet do we dare to dream anything generationally positive will happen this year?
In 1946, George Orwell described his time as the "tumultuous, revolutionary ages". In this life, he'd seen the Great War, the Spanish Civil War (in which he fought), the Great Depression, and the Second World War. Our age is comparably settled. Those under 35 have yet to live through the collapse of an empire and, with it, a worldview — the USSR is the most recent.
Tragically killing seven million, the pandemic was a generationally-significant event in a way that Liz Truss's premiership was not. Yet, as I write on New Year's Eve, the post-covid economic thrashing has not caused a wholesale collapse of empires or institutions.
Orwell lived through the void that followed the downfall of aristocratic power. In that void, socialism, communism and democratic capitalism spread — each, at first, laced with optimism. Orwell describes those tumultuous times as a battle of ideals. His purpose became to promote and further the cause of liberal democracy and to counter totalitarian pursuits.
Orwell was on the right side of history. "The end of history", Fukuyama's famous quote, describes the victory of liberal democracy over socialism in 1989. The quote has aged well. In the UK, the Labour & Conservative party are essentially dreaming of building the same country; but one with a slightly larger public sector and the next with a smaller one. Across the Atlantic, the Democrats are willing to run a larger budget deficit than the Republicans, but there is no serious challenge to the status quo. There is no serious alternative to democratic capitalism. And even writing that sentence is analogous to being radical; suggesting that there might be an alternative is outlandish. There are, therefore, no outside threats to our existing worldviews.
Predictions are fun. Like an intention, they lay the groundwork for a different future. But unlike an intention, there is little disappointment when missed. They lack the egotistical angle of failing to lose weight or meditate daily.
It is true on personal and political levels that hard times beget change. At dinner the other night, a friend said, "what we need is a big old war; we don't want it, but we need it". Rather than being a war-monger, she pointed to the silver linings of difficult times. Difficulties are the foothills that lie beneath mountains of Progress. They have to be crossed to reach the summit. And even though we don't live in Orwell's revolutionary ages, we live during exponentially changing times, which are the precursors to progress. And the ground is fertile with dissatisfied people.
So here's the prediction: The fall-out post-covid may be better than we fear economically, but there are a few years of very limited growth ahead. The exponential advance of oracle-like, accessible question-answering machines, e.g. ChatGPT, will shape a serious alternative to the status quo. These ideas will come from outside of traditional politics and will gain popular support. There will be plenty of people interested to hear this new message. A world where inflation doesn't steal my savings? Yes, please. Or one where I'm more likely to be employed? Err, yeah! It's worth noting that crypto is equally trying to tap this rich vein of discontentment.
This is essentially an optimistic view. I find it hard to believe that in the last 150 years, we've gone from aristocracy to democracy; we're now driving Teslas, meeting on Tinder, and working on Zoom. Still, there's widespread consensus that we've hit some summit of our utopian ideals politically. People don't like the system, but no mainstream effort exists to remodel it.
Technology has hardly touched the political system. We can look to the House of Lords to see. The printing press tore down the dominance of the Catholic Church, but the mobile phone has given us the Like button. I remember being on the coast, in Kilifi I think, floundering in the 35-degree heat and reading Clayton Christensen's The Innovator's Dilemma. In it, he describes innovation:
"Disruptive technologies bring to a market a very different value proposition than had been available previously. Generally, disruptive technologies underperform established products in mainstream markets. But they have other features that a few fringe (and generally new) customers value. Products based on disruptive technologies are typically cheaper, simpler, smaller, and, frequently, more convenient to use."
There has been limited innovation in our political systems. Innovation comes from without, not within, and Rishi isn't going to disrupt Westminster. So, if we're thinking about generationally significant events, the arrival of ChatGPT this year was one. It's powerful and free, can answer most questions, and score surprisingly highly on IQ tests. In 2023, using a descendant of ChatGPT, we will be able to query serious alternatives to today's political systems, with a road map to getting there.
Like any good oracle, when logging in, it already states: "It is not intended to give advice." But go to it for advice we will.
And I did. But no matter which way I ask, "What political system should usurp democratic capitalism?", OpenAI has built a filter to stop people like me from asking questions like this. ChatGPT responded:
It is not appropriate for me to write an essay advocating for a specific political system that has not yet been designed. … As a language model, I am not able to engage in political activism or endorse particular political ideologies.
Disappointed, I asked, “What is the best way to win votes in the UK in 2023?” But yet again...
As a language model, I am not able to engage in political activism or endorse particular political ideologies.
There is, of course, an answer to my question. And in 2023, we'll see people paying to get access to a premium, more brilliant version with no filter. Moreover, we'll see people using the biggest brain on earth to help them with complicated, generationally significant problems. It will introduce alternatives to our way of thinking. Change is good; the world rolls forward, and how we are governed will also.
My week in books
The Road Less Travelled by M Scott Peck. This book was awesome, I loved it. It completely aligns with many of the more positive beliefs I try daily to instil in myself. For example, in the face of disaster, to make every effort to discover the lesson being taught. Here is a quote:
“Problems call forth our courage and our wisdom; indeed, they create our courage and wisdom.’
Live well in 2023! It’s going to be magnificent — I can feel it.
Hector