I think this is my best playlist yet. Listen to it when you get the meta-crisis blues…
France was on fire a few weeks ago. The riots from the death of Nahel Merzouk caused civil unrest with an estimated cost of €1 billion to businesses across the country. Seeing France burn, a video released from the Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations University comes to mind, foreshadowing megacities' "unavoidable" dystopian fate.
After watching this video again, I looked at the "Hey Friend Listen" meme, reflecting on the future of city living.
This meme is my favorite meme. It sits on my desktop, ready to open at a moment's notice. I like to look at it when my life feels too cozy. I look at it to remind myself that things can get gritty, fucked-up, and crazy-inducing. It is foolish to be an impotent doomsayer and keep our eyes off the heavenly prize, what social philosopher
calls "the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible." It’s also foolish to be ill-prepared and ignorant of the collective risks we face.There are many risks present from our so-called “meta-crisis”—supply chain collapse, nuclear war from the Ukraine-Russia conflict, misaligned AGI (“superintelligence”), or the overreaction to its perceived risk from the “TESCREAL” crowd (transhumanist-friendly and singularity-wishing rationalist types) and the Davos class they influence. There are many more.
The hellish attractors of the meta-crisis - collapse and totalitarianism - seem to be inching closer in the light of France’s fire and all the risks we face.
We can trust our governments and the Davos class that influences them to respond. We can also trust ourselves. This self-trust does not include an arrogance to think we can propose a solution to the meta-crisis and "save the world" with our superior rationality. Nor will it consist of the naivety that people who govern us will not capitalize on what seems like a permanent crisis - what military analyst
calls the “permacrisis” - to gain greater power and control.Instead, I see this trust through a Stoic lens, focusing on our power, which is in our control in the here and now. Something interesting occurs when switching on Stoicism in light of the meta-crisis: a world is still at risk, slowly falling apart, aka things “getting way worse.” It also demands focus on what is in our control. A magical thing happens when this is done: things get way better.
When focusing on what’s in our control, things become clear; there is less to do, which brings less stress. We stop worrying about things that are not under our control, bringing attention to things that are. We burn away our attentional deadwood. We become happier and more peaceful, with greater discernment of where our focus should go.
Things are getting way worse and way better. It feels paradoxical that both of these things can be true. They can both be true. It boils down to choice, a choice of focus. What are we putting our focus on? The things that are crumbling or the things being created? The former should only serve the latter because the latter is where the ones who are spirited put their focus. And where the spirit puts its focus, life will be the focus.
I looked at my favorite meme again. The Russian soldiers' eyes are unforgiving, allowing reality to peer through them to us. However, his friendly warning is a blessing; it encourages us - the less foolish ones - to meet reality with a loving gaze, regardless if it's gonna get way worse, steadfast in our focus that our worlds are gonna get way better.
