30 Days Challenge Fall 2018 - Day Fifteen: The Next Major Social Disruption Will Be Technological
During the last 2-3 years, a certain social trend became more and more visible. A mix of far right and traditionalism, spreading around the world and popping in places you'd never thought something like this will ever exist.
In Europe, Hungary and Poland (and, coming strong from the backyard, Romania too) are slipping into an authoritarian regime, mixing xenophobia with populism.
In Italy, the government is made by the far right.
In Brasil, the new President is also from the same so called "extreme right" ideology.
Looks like the world wants to slip back into social structures that killed millions of people just to protect a certain status quo. Seems like nationalism is on the rise.
Only I think it isn't.
Don't get me wrong, I don't believe these regimes aren't toxic, on the contrary, I think they are extremely dangerous. Only I don't believe their support is ideological. On the surface, it looks like we're seeing far right and nationalism all over again, but these are just circumstance clothes, something that makes these new regimes recognizable, but they are not defined, nor built around these ideologies.
They aren't in fact built on any ideology.
The fracture that the world is experiencing right now is generated by technology. Or, to be more precise, by the variable speed of adopting and mastering technology by various social structures. The faster is a certain group to understand and adopt a certain technology, the bigger the gap from the ones that can't.
The pace at which technology is changing the world is insane. In the most clear sense of the world: it can create disease if it's not properly managed.
Cognitive pressure is huge. The effort necessary to understand, let aside to use, new technologies is overwhelming for the vast majority of people. Think about the fact that many of us didn't use a mobile phone until 10 years ago. Just 10 years ago.
So, I think the rise of the authoritarian regime means in fact, that an increasing part of the world is lagging behind in technology adoption. Because they can't control what's happening around, they turn towards paternal figures to protect them and towards violence-enforced regimes. Because they can't adjust, they strive to protect what they already have, and they choose familiar symbols and characters.
At the beginning of the last century, communism and capitalism fought for supremacy, and, for decades, they split the world in two. I don't think capitalism is what we may call the winner here, but what is sure is that communism died.
I think we're witnessing a similar revolution, one that will impact humanity for at least a century, in which the catalyst is not ideology, like in communism versus capitalism, but technology adoption.
And yes, I'm writing these disparate thoughts on a platform built on the most advanced technology for information distribution and governance, and yet, just a few thousands people have access to it.
The rest of the world is afraid of it.
Previous posts in the challenge:
- 30 Days Challenge Fall 2018 - Day One: All Ultramarathons Start With Just One Small Step
- 30 Days Challenge Fall 2018 - Day Two: How Much Garbage Do You Carry With You?
- 30 Days Challenge Fall 2018 - Day Three: Pushing Things To Happen Versus Letting Them Happen "Through" You
- 30 Days Challenge Fall 2018 - Day Four: The Rain In Spain Stays Mainly On The Plain
- 30 Days Challenge Fall 2018 - Day Five: Books, Coffee And The Smell Of A Gentle Autumn
- 30 Days Challenge Fall 2018 - Day Six: Revisiting The Harry Potter Trees In Turia
- 30 Days Challenge Fall 2018 - Day Seven: Sand Castles
- 30 Days Challenge Fall 2018 - Day Eight: Be Careful Of New Beginnings
- 30 Days Challenge Fall 2018 - Day Nine: Tuesday's Free Writing
- 30 Days Challenge Fall 2018 - Day Ten: The Power And Toxicity Of Lists
- 30 Days Challenge Fall 2018 - Day Eleven: Unblocking Writer's Block - A Primer
- 30 Days Challenge Fall 2018 - Day Twelve: Riding The Wave Of Change
- 30 Days Challenge Fall 2018 - Day Thirteen: When All You Have Is A Hammer, Everything Looks Like A Nail
- 30 Days Challenge Fall 2018 - Day Fourteen: Sunday Stillness
Steem on!
I'm a serial entrepreneur, blogger and ultrarunner. You can find me mainly on my blog at Dragos Roua where I write about productivity, business, relationships and running. Here on Steemit you may stay updated by following me @dragosroua.
Wanna know when you're getting paid?
|
I know the feeling. That's why I created steem.supply, an easy to use and accurate tool for calculating your Steemit rewards |
Hey, @dragosroua.
Interesting topic. I think what we're experiencing, at least in the Unite States, if not the greater world, is a pendulum swing. For eight years under President Obama, there are those who would argue that he took our country the farthest left it's been (though a review of history would probably throw that into doubt), economically, socially, and in terms of governance and national identity.
So, when things are deemed to go to an extreme, there is push back. In some ways, it's society seeking balance, but mostly, the correction goes too far, and the pendulum swings back. So now, nationalism and populism is ascending under the guise of a hard right, or alt right facade.
I do agree, though, it's less about the ideology of the politicians (you could question their ideology period, since perpetual power is what most are after), as it is a plurality of the people, and even then, a significant amount would rather live and let live than see laws created that might favor them now but stop others from their own life pursuits.
I agree that capitalism in its truest sense has not won, and that in certain aspects, communism is dead. However, I would probably temper the latter by saying, in some ways, communism has merely crept attached itself and is inhabiting parts of capitalism/democracy. Certainly the ideals of communism continue in many ways, even if the number of countries under its complete rule has dwindled.
I would consider two groups on the rest of the world.
1.- Those who see the technology changes coming and do not want to adapt as they do not want to lose control. I include in this group, big centralized traditional governmental institutions. These are the ones who are afraid.
2.- The vast majority of the population who doesn't even know what is going on. These just prefer things as they are although they may not fair, but just because they do not understand the coming future, they are afraid of change.
That should be very interesting
I'm writing only in that pseudo anonymity of the internet. So when they come with pitchforks looking for the "few thousand" people here, I can slip away unnoticed. lol well written and thoughtful post for Day 15 :)
Nothing to the extreme brings anything new, this news of the new president in Brazil was a big news the town turned around and decided, we will see what happens
Who knows what people are thinking, I do not think that in my country there is socialism and a bit of communism and the truth is that this does not work, right now it is a disaster