The Coming Singularity by Gary A. Freitas

Author:Gary A. Freitas
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
Published: 2022-08-05T00:00:00+00:00

I would offer that all of us, today, function in a more confused and less predictable world than those in the past. (Can that really be true?) But only because our lives are confounded by the daily onslaught of choices and decisions. The consequence is self-induced anxiety. While we have successfully reduced external threats, we have exponentially internalized worry and concern about how we are functioning in a complex and dynamical network—-one forever cueing us about our social status. We should ask ourselves: Where does balance and order reside in our lives? How about something as abstract as mindfulness? Why do we become anxious watching the evening news? And how come our thoughts always start racing as we toss and turn trying to go to sleep?

Because there is only the illusion of order and stability, it makes anticipating the future, not only more difficult, but more stressful and anxiety-producing. The sense of threat is no longer as direct or specific—-you no longer worry about poisonous snakes now that you have stopped sleeping on the ground—-but now a viperous work climate threatens your job security. The sources of our anxieties have become increasingly diffuse and unknown to us—giving rise not only to a unique dread, but to conspiracies as well. How else can we account for all the invisible things happening to us?

So, what is different today than before, you ask? Without getting all statistical, I would offer that incessant change has become the stasis of daily life. Every day we get into cars, buses, subways, trains or planes and commute great distances as a routine part of our lives—-eating up time like tortilla chips and creating continuous moments of transitions. And the sheer passivity of interacting with the world through an electronic medium defies millions of years of evolution.

Perhaps even more significant is the rate at which we change jobs (average of every three to four years), as well as divorce (50 percent within eight years), and move (11.7 times over one’s lifetime)—often with the illusion that life will be better. In a worst-case scenario, we find ourselves in free fall—-transient nodes in an economic order that is either scaling up, making us more relevant, or scaling down, making us redundant.

The modern life in transition poses chronic instability and disconnects us from the people and environments that likely nurture and support us—-resulting in a chronic state of disconnect. A marked function of our economic system is supply and demand—-but it’s also the primary driver of social instability. We are all independent contractors adapting to the market or a new relationship. Income and benefits are unpredictable as are emotional connections (swiping right too much recently—acting a little desperate). As the market fluctuates and changes course—-so do we all. Work schedules are continually changing—-is this the day your boss announces on a Zoom video conference that everyone is being fired?—-and that once promising online relationship just ghosted you.

Psychology researchers in university labs learned years ago how to induce fear and anxiety in lab rats.

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