In 2022, I turned 40, and with that mid-life milestone came a rush of deep, often uncomfortable, reflections on the circumstances that have defined my unusual path. I was so absolutely single-minded in my pursuit of activism during the first half of my life—from the age of 13 when “activist” became my identity and up to the end of 2019 when I accepted an invitation to attend the World Economic Forum in Davos and the pandemic began—that many of the personal issues I previously repressed have returned.
Now I find myself tussling with racial difference, neurodiversity, homeschooling and continuing Covid vigilance. I reflect on the ways my skin’s brown color has overdetermined how I am mis-seen. And I grok that neurodiversity means I neither perceive the world like others nor interpret those perceptions in a way they would. (Case in point: I exercise great care in keeping myself and family from being infected by Covid-19. And we’ve created an outdoor+masked forest school for like-minded local families.)
Meanwhile, as I continue to work from home in the cryptocurrency industry, I have felt, on the one hand, like a sober version of Guy Debord who, after disbanding the Situationist International, become a reclusive in a rural cottage and, on the other, like Jerry Rubin, who transitioned from counterculture icon to entrepreneurship with early investments in Apple. (Here too my self understanding is hindered by being overly knowledgeable of the history of white activists and too ignorant of the history of brown activists.) I’ve reached that stage in my journey as an activist—over a decade since Occupy—where the rebel archetypes who speak to me are the ones whose most famous contributions to activism were in their past.
And yet, I know intuitively that I will make another memorable activist intervention in the second half of my life. But not until I slough off who-I-was and embrace who-I-am.
Heading into 2023, I am reminded of a saying in the hermetic tradition:
“As above, as below.”
And, floating away from my individual self, I see human civilization also engaged in a struggle to let go of the “before times”—the pre-pandemic world’s expectations of the future—in order to discover a path forward that is authentic to this new reality.
What is this new reality? In broad strokes, it is defined by:
The Forever Pandemic and Long Term Illness Crisis: Covid-19 continues to evade immunity as more and more people are permanently disabled by Long Covid.
Unleashed Climate Catastrophe: fifty years of environmental activism failed and now the intensity and tempo of killer storms is increasing with few places safe from the climate apocalypse that is happening right now.
Dangerous Artificial Intelligence: a major breakthrough in AI research has occurred, exemplified by OpenAI’s GPT-3/Dall-E/ChatGPT, which will not only unemploy large swaths of the economy but also has the potential to birth a highly intelligent AI which manipulates humans with words and images, posing an existential threat to humanity.
Crypto’s Takeover of the Global Financial System: an economic transition is underway as cryptocurrency technologies, blockchains and smart contracts, become increasingly integrated into the global financial system. The ultra-wealthy, banker elite and crypto early adopters will benefit tremendously while the majority of everyday people’s wealth will be destroyed through fiat inflation or investing in the wrong cryptos.
Disclosure of Extraterrestrial Life: there have been well documented stories of Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena for over a hundred years, and now the U.S. Military acknowledges that they have footage from multiple sensors of otherworldly craft demonstrating technological abilities that exceed human imagination. If disclosure or contact were to occur in 2023, it could fundamentally shift humanity’s destiny.
If I were writing this in the before times, I would now put forward an argument in favor of the existence of this new reality. I’d use rhetoric, critique and citation to sway the reader… But that didn’t work before and it won’t work now.
Most people will not see this new reality. Many of those who glimpse it will be paralyzed by normalcy bias. And that is the real problem: the inertia of the before times is leading to society-wide maladaptive decisions that are often incentived because they are either cheaper (like, buying a gas-powered vehicle during the climate catastrophe) or socially rewarded (such as, hosting indoor gatherings during an ongoing pandemic).
The only solution I see is the same on a personal level as it is on a social level: withdraw attention from the concerns of 2019 and focus on adapting to the reality of 2023.
Thanks Micah, This writing touched on pivotal societal queries that ..have/ are / will … impact life. Added benefit is this a ‘study outline’!