Cultural Change in Technology

As our modern dinosaurs crash down around us, I sometimes wonder what kind of humans will eventually walk out of this epic transformation. Trump and the populism that’s rampaging around the world today, marked by xenophobia, racism, sexism, and rising inequality, is greatly amplified by the forces the GDE has unleashed. For someone like me who saw the power of connection build a vibrant, technologically meshed ecosystem distinguished by peace, love, and understanding, the polarization and hatred empowered by the internet today is like watching your baby turning into the little girl in The Exorcist.

Nonetheless, the same tools of post-internet collective action that fueled Trump and #gamergate also gave the kids from Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, the tools they needed to inspire students at some 3,800 schools across the country to walk out in protest over lax gun regulations, and to push stores like Dick’s Sporting Goods to stop selling guns. That sustains my hope. I see the #MeToo and Time’s Up movements also using new versions of the same methods to begin the long path to ending centuries of patriarchal power. Just as the photosynthesis used by plants that feeds most life on Earth is a direct descendant from the original cyanobacteria that caused the extinction event, the tools being used to spread progressive social change are derivatives of many of the tools that Trump and #gamergate have used.

The hippie culture that drove the rise of the GDE failed to completely fulfill the promise of new technology, but those anaerobic hippies did leave Gen Z a whole new set of tools to deploy. The new generation are the warm-blooded mammals able to thrive in an environment no longer appropriate for their cold-blooded ancestors. My generation and the hippies are the anaerobic bacteria heading toward the mud.