An Unpopular Essay: What’s Ahead 2025-2035
My views aren’t popular, and as logician Bertrand Russell observed, if they’re not popular, then they’re unpopular. Hence this is an Unpopular Essay.
The popular view of the next decade is we’re entering a “new Roaring 20s” in which new leadership, policies and technologies will deliver Super-Abundance without inconveniencing us in any way. It’s in our nature to desire more of all the good things in life and avoid sacrifice and inconvenience, so it’s no wonder this view is popular.
The question is whether this expectation is realistic or not, and if there is any possibility that it might not be, then what response we choose now will serve us best going forward?
The easiest choice is of course to alter nothing in our lives, on the expectation that whatever problems arise will be fixed by the authorities or technology.
The harder and therefore unpopular choice is to start altering our lives now in anticipation that the next decade may not be as rosy as commonly projected.
My analysis of the coming decade is based on the following conditions. I use “the system” as short-hand for the socio-political-financial-economic world-system (per Immanuel Wallenstein) as it is currently configured.
1. The system is optimized for infinite growth / expansion. If expansion falters, the system crashes.
2. The system is optimized for infinite substitution of whatever becomes scarce as the means to continue expanding essentially forever.
3. These optimizations only function in a narrow envelope. Should the system stray outside this envelope, it crashes.
4. The fundamental principle of the system is “no limits”: there are no limits on human ingenuity, and so there are no limits on technology and growth.
5. There are intrinsically contradictory dynamics in the system.
6. Scale and asymmetry are the core contradictory dynamics. Two ways to summarize this are 1) math and 2) “too big to care.”
7. The system’s optimizations mis-diagnose problems, so it selects “solutions” that accelerate its own dysfunction / demise.
8. The system lacks the means–the values, subsystems, feedback and institutional structures–to adapt to changing conditions. The solutions offered are based on misconceptions / misdiagnoses of the actual problems, so the problems only become more intractable.
9. As a result, the preferred “solutions” are all forms of play-acting, i.e. the notion that controlling the narrative / framing the “problem” as solvable with existing policy adjustments is actually solving the problem.
10. The system’s core mythology is Technological Progress is unlimited and unstoppable and so it will solve all problems by its very nature. We can remain comfortably seated and watch as Technology solves whatever problems arise.
11. This belief blinds us to the fact that technology also generates Anti-Progress. Since accepting Anti-Progress undermines our core faith in Technological Progress, we deny the existence of Anti-Progress. This denial renders us incapable of correctly diagnosing problems and choosing actual solutions rather than play-acting “solutions.”
12. Due to these conditions, the system is involuted: no matter what option we choose, nothing changes systemically. Real change is only possible at the micro-level of our own lives.
The core theme I will explore in 2025 is this question: what responses to these conditions will likely serve us best going forward? The popular view holds that remaining passive observers is all that’s necessary. The unpopular view holds that this choice of response optimizes dependence and an inescapable narrowing of options.
Changing course before we hit the iceberg is preferable to whatever actions we choose after we’ve hit the iceberg.
These topics are so big that it would take a book to address them–which is why I wrote my latest book The Mythology of Progress, Anti-Progress and a Mythology for the 21st Century. This is a systemic view from low-Earth orbit.
My focus in 2025 is: what responses can we choose as individuals and households that will serve us best if the popular view fails to manifest?
Today, I want to briefly discuss a few of these topics.
CHS NOTE: I understand some readers object to paywalled posts, so please note that my weekday posts are free and I reserve my weekend Musings Report for subscribers. Hopefully this mix makes sense in light of the fact that writing is my only paid work/job. Who knows, something here may change your life in some useful way. I am grateful for your readership and blessed by your financial support.