Humanity 2.0: INTRO
A 7-part series examining both the ultimate source of ‘the’ problem, and the single critical building-block ingredient needed for the inception of a powerful and very imminent new way of being.
Intro: Get Out of Jail Free
Depression has been described as ‘anger-turned-inwards.’ If we look around we can pretty much corroborate that nearly everyone we know is either angry or depressed at the moment.
We know, we’re all feeling it, wondering ‘what the fuck’s going on and who’s gonna fix it??’ That’s the rage: an obviously broken playing field with no hero in sight. Something fundamental is breaking. We feel it at work, in society, our relationships — everywhere. But what if this were part of a bigger picture? What if there were a through-line connecting all of our crumbling dynamics, and what if we could actually spotlight the simplest and singular source of every problem? This is a series about organizations of all kinds: what fuels them and then what tears them apart (like clockwork).
This series is about markets and relationships — the two universal underpinnings of human civilization — and the recurring cycles that we can see dictating them as algorithm.
Most importantly, this series is about us: ALL of us, and what really matters to ALL of us so we can make that our conversation, our north-star, and our destination (without fear).
WHY NOW
More than a shit-load, there’s a shit-storm going on and whether we have the energy left to follow it, it’s still going on and rising at scale daily — at the same time we feel the most powerless. Bad combination.
Take for a second the perspective of a baby — an infant abandoned and wailing in distress (that’s been you for a while now). The longer your cries go unresponded to, the more desperate you get — rising and rising … (until you stop).
The instinct to cry is matched to our adult instinct to want to run and quell that distress but as the crying drones on with no one rushing to the rescue, our child begins to shut down and desensitize. Crying is an instinct to raise alarm, but no one responds, we will eventually stop crying but we’re in purgatory — swallowing it all internally. Uncertainty and suspense generates unbearable tension, like a water-boarding of the human spirit.
So getting to source of the problem will require getting to us — individually & collectively: how we’re wired and tick (and tick, and tick — until we pop). After finally accepting that no cavalry is coming, our hope is to draft a plan together. We, collectively, are now the adults in the room, and by stepping back together, we’ll see that we, collectively, are actually in charge. Like Dorothy’s ruby slippers, we can go home anytime we want once we cool our heels and see the big picture first.
LET’S BEGIN WITH A RIDDLE
*(for those who know the answer — please don’t share til the end.)
You come to consciousness in a circular dark room and you hear a voice:
“Prisoner. You are being offered a chance to determine your own future. In front of you are two doors. One will open to immediate and blissful freedom and the other to an immediate and excruciating death. Beside you are two guards: One guard who will always tell the truth and the other who will always lie. Your guards know which door is which, but you don’t know which guard is which. You are permitted to ask one guard one question, to which they will answer to the best of their ability. You have 3.5 years.”
Despite the dystopia, I’d bet at-least some of you heard a 50% chance for a pure and blissful future — something odds-makers aren’t even giving us right now — an homage to ‘the magnitude’ of it all.
But now let’s put a spin on it. Let’s imagine this situation was real. Yeah, we’ll get to that ‘3.5 years’ thing soon but given that amount of time, rest assured, you would find the solution when confronted with life or death. Pure logic and deduction will eventually lead to the source of the problem.
What’s the reason for this mind-game? Mainly because the following conversation will ask you to question everything you think about yourself, your civilization, your core identity and your rational perception to see the world as it really works. There’s ample evidence that we as a species may still not be ready to abandon our reptilian cortex impulses and recognize this seismic elephant sitting on our chests, but spoiler alert, there is no boogieman. It’s us. And that’s where the hard part starts: the big picture: Us.
And to do that, we’re going to have to forget about our-selves for a moment — forget about our careers, our political views, our religions and relationships that we see as our own lives. Our arrogance is that we’re just a few hundred years out of nature, when disease, food scarcity, weather and war determined our every outcome, but we take even our problems for granted today and treat every current normality as a birthright. That’s something we call The Power of Less — a vestigial instinct we’ll get into because it consumes a myopically vast amount of our minds for the benefit of no-one anymore. Simply put, self-obsessive self-interest is not getting us much anymore because post ‘Mother Nurture’ is asking for something very different and much more difficult from us all now.
Don’t worry. We promise not to make this a philosophical lecture, hyperbole or conspiracy — there’s no time for that. We’ll lay everything down with plain-as-day facts that you won’t see much to dispute. What will be in doubt is our ability to see the patterns, the dominoes, and our own heads stuck in holes, conditioned to not see ourselves clearly.
We don’t start this conversation lightly or without confidence that we have a very real and radically simple new perspective to offer you at the end of the tunnel along with a big fucking quantum suprise that will be worth the wait, but to get there we’ll have to go back 7000 years to the most seminal singular event in your post-genetic history — which has determined every moment cascading us to exactly where we are today — on the brink of systemic destruction.
The good news?: If we can play the (semi) long game, there’s a solution to this situation waiting for us with certainty, but it’s going to require us to accept the rage of living in this straight-jacket for a little while longer and not shut down. That unbearable tension comes from nature, too, but is currently our worst enemy. We’ve got one chance to get this next chapter right and reveal a new ‘opening’ — hopefully thanks to the help of a little genie we have to offer, which again, we’ll share with you at the end.
SERIES OVERVIEW:
IN PART I - we’will go back to the beginning —of who we are and literally how we were made. how we emerged from an apex class of creatures to not only dominate like no other, but also evolve into the most enigmatic and ‘pavlovian’ sycophants on the planet (it’s ok — it takes one to know one).
IN PART II - we’ll trace our footprints after we were cast violently out of a 40 million year old, unbroken cycle of social evolution only seven-thousand years ago — into our world today where the alphas have become too big to fail. cast out of our small simple gardens of 20-50 hunter-gathers — into cities, and towns, and a new governance system, which was invented overnight, and is still with us today.
IN PART III - we’ll zoom in you … and on me… and show us the reality of how and why we do everything today — locked in a purgatory of sophisticated primordial wiring of risk and reward designed for alpha-heirarchical small tribal life where where being liked determined your ultimate life and death — but also where our innate collectivism gave us the ultimate control of our destiny.
IN PART IV - we’ll explore the inevitability of collapse as a feature, not a bug, of evolution. a distinct series of rebirths of civilization has been our legacy since the beginning of civilization, so understanding where we are in the cycle will help us know when the time is right to strike. (‘don’t pull your punches and you can’t push the river — v Morrison).
IN PART V - we’ll take stock of how we got here today, and it is not a surprise. humanity is like a train keeping a very tight schedule. we seem to be arriving at the final station for this final go-around right on time as could be predicted. breaking that down will help you see the forest from the trees and begin to see a light - of logic and possibility for change in the shorter term that you may be ready for.
IN PART VI - we’ll grieve as we release possession of today and accept it as scientific destiny. we will explore the “power of less” and why it took us so long to act (dw, it always does). we will compare our collective journey to a 12-step recovery: first ‘we’ have to accept rock bottom.
and last, IN PART VII - we’ll show you the only inevitable next step but with a twist. an introduction to a whole new little dragon that will be emerging from its womb far sooner than AGI to give us a head start and show you that a truly bright and collective future is incredibly close … just beyond our (current) finger tips … and right behind the right door.
Each article stands on its own but together, they will form a map of where we are, how we got here, and the only logical next amazing direction we’re heading if we have the guts to see it.
We hope to see you right back here next week.
—mink (us/we)