TTR - The Dark Ages Are Upon Us

The Decay Of Reason

The "Dark Ages" are commonly referred to as the period of intellectual deterioration following the decline of the Roman Empire. But this isn't a dry historical research article, its merely the backdrop for the shadows I see skittering across the landscape. The sun of reason is setting, and some of the signs are alarming.

Technology being an ever-present influence in our modern lives, its easy to see how someone could be tempted to "unplug" amidst the always-connected web that we find ourselves in. This reactionary urge isn't the problem in itself, because the result is restricted to individuals who make that choice, and their hermetic desires don't interfere with others who choose to embrace technology instead.

However, there are others that don't turn inward - instead, they attempt to spread fear of the unknown in various ways to undermine any technological progress.

The Orphans Of Technology

Being a luddite in contemporary sense of the term, is more of a pejorative than what is commonly known about their history. They were artisans, skilled at weaving textiles in picturesque-sounding english towns such as Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Lancashire - to name a few.

They faced the onslaught of machine-automated looms, which enabled less-skilled workers to churn out low-cost items, threatening their wages and driving down textile factory profit margins. One can imagine the horror of someone dedicated to their craft faced with the always-cranking loom powered by water mill or steam engine, pushing out a perceived inferior product in copious amounts.

While their reaction was to violently attack the machines, we can feel a tug of sympathy for someone seeing their livelyhood reduced to a punchcard-codified pattern in a tireless weaving robot.

You'd think that such an extreme backlash wouldn't be possible today, but there are dark clouds on the horizon that indicate otherwise. Movements spread - often defying rational logic trying to define them.

Disparity Fuels Frustration

People tend to preserve hierarchy.

For instance, there was a recent study that suggests when participants were asked to redistribute income from someone perceived to be "rich" to another that was "poor", they would do so, but not if the amount would mean the "rich" person would end up "poor" themselves.

(Reference: https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/07/intriguing-experiment-reveals-a-fundamental-conflict-in-human-culture/)

Put simply, people don't like rocking the social "boat". Even to their own detriment.

This allows forces to build that are only addressed in the most graphic ways - such as the luddite rebellion in the 1800's. Where the angst against technology was fueled by similar frustrations, resulting in wrecked machines and in some cases, burned out mills from collective rioting.

While I don't think we're at the point that people will be throwing their computers out the window in a wholesale re-enactment of the Luddite struggle, there are some rumblings on the social seismograph that indicate something else is brewing.

Infectious Infiltrators

As I mentioned prior, movements tend to spread. And when the conditions are right - just like a wildfire, they bloom and turn into a raging wall of violent transition.

What is so concerning?

A few things have floated across my radar. I didn't seek them out, they just started pinging on the horizon and made me more concerned about the source. While some were just usual media hysteria over drama-fueled events, others were a bit more personal in that they directly stomped into my sphere of daily existence, uninvited.

(Just a small and incomplete sample to illustrate my point.)

• Flat-Earthers - I really don't know how this movement started after Aristotle gave a famous proof for a spherical Earth centuries ago, but they seem very active and vocal about a perceived "lie" that technology apparently allows to be propagated.

• Anti-Vaxxers - This movement has other claims about the dangers of vaccination, usually coupled with emotional appeal tied to children and autism. Again, it seems that the argument is high on emotion, and sparse on scientific proof. Somewhat ironic that the first development of vaccines was to eliminate smallpox, but I digress.

• Fascism Disguised As Freedom Fighting - Groups around the world have been active in protests, which is their right, but when confronted with opinions they don't like, they often resort to violence. Just like what they are supposedly fighting against.

This isn't an endless essay on the stupidity of humanity, or whether or not there is virtue in any given movement. What it tells me, however, is that the pressure is building and coming to a full "boil" across the world.

Some react by regressing from progress, rejecting technology and by extension most of society - while others lash out in violent rage, without any true constructive end-goal in mind.

This shows me that the cognitive dissonance is very real - where the perceived reality in their heads is not matching what is actually happening in the "real world", and they don't know what to do about it.

What happens then, is that these movements tap into that primal human emotion - Fear - and utilize it as an infectious vector to string others along into their cause.

We may find in the not-to-distant future that we had an opportunity to address these concerns, but blithely ignored it until it blew up in our faces. Rather than assign blame, I'd say it is even more important to reach out to those who seem to be frustrated and offer something other than stoking their fear -- calm and reason can turn the tide when nothing else can.

If we can't mitigate these things, then I personally think we're in for quite an age of "interesting" history being made.

The only rational choice is to confront it, before it chooses the path for us.