Another guest-article in list format from Gen-X prophet of gloom Douglas Coupland has appeared, this one at The Globe & Mail; cue the sort of bleak “it’s all uphill from here” head-shaking that appear to be the man’s stock in trade of late. Some samples:
1) It’s going to get worse
No silver linings and no lemonade. The elevator only goes down. The bright note is that the elevator will, at some point, stop.
Gee, thanks, Doug. I needed that. We all needed that. More coffee, anyone?
14) Something smarter than us is going to emerge
Thank you, algorithms and cloud computing.
The transhumanist lobby see that one as a net positive, provided we’re steering things in the right direction; on days less fraught than this one, I’m usually inclined to do the same.
20) North America can easily fragment quickly as did the Eastern Bloc in 1989
Quebec will decide to quietly and quite pleasantly leave Canada. California contemplates splitting into two states, fiscal and non-fiscal. Cuba becomes a Club Med with weapons. The Hate States will form a coalition.
Old news, whether you listen to sf authors or sociopolitical pundits. Or both.
28) It will become harder to view your life as “a story”
The way we define our sense of self will continue to morph via new ways of socializing. The notion of your life needing to be a story will seem slightly corny and dated. Your life becomes however many friends you have online.
Harder? I think it’ll become easier, because our definition of “story” will shift; indeed, it has already started. At this point I’ll bring in a guest rejoinder from Jeremiah Tolbert’s own responses, which are well worth a read:
Narrative structure didn’t invent itself, you know. We’ve been structuring our experiences as story since we could paint on cave walls, or even before. The idea that our life will instead be however many friends we have online, I just don’t buy it. It sounds like something Facebook would pitch to venture capitalists, not a real futurist prediction. Yes, your social network will be important. But we’ll define our sense of self by it? Is there going to be a fundamental alteration of our brain chemistry at the same time?
I’d add that Coupland seems to be buying into the persistent but poorly-argued riff about how online ‘friendships’ are devaluing the meaning of friendship itself; again, I think we’re just moving to a point where the spectrum of friendship is becoming wider, more granular. I think we’ll have a similar number of friends to what we’ve always had; ‘friends’ in the Facebook sense are something different entirely, something that people under the age of thirty seem to understand quite instinctively. Don’t let the kids freak you out, Doug.
Back to Coupland:
34) You’re going to miss the 1990s more than you ever thought
Again, I’m with Jeremy – I already miss the nineties a whole lot, and pining for the rootless and jagged freedoms of one’s adolescence is hardly a new development. One suspects Mister Coupland is projecting somewhat. He closes with:
45) We will accept the obvious truth that we brought this upon ourselves
And here, Jeremy hits it out of the park:
I thought this was supposed to be a pessimist’s guide? That’s the most optimistic prediction about a fundamental change in human nature I’ve read yet!
Exactly; if there’s one thing that could really pull our civilisational arse out of the fire, that’s it. It won’t be pleasant while it’s happening, granted, but I’ve long suspected that it’s the key to surviving the crescendo end-phase of the planet-bound stage for intelligent lifeforms.
This is probably old news to people who’ve followed Coupland’s output for longer than I have, but man, he really likes to wallow in that existential angst thing, doesn’t he? Which isn’t to claim that I’m not prone to moping myself (again, the nineties are never far away in this household), but this list is saturated with the same “everything sucks, not least of all being aware of how much everything sucks, and so there’s nothing to do but constantly remind ourselves of how much everything sucks” attitude that so repelled me while reading JPod. In my most secret of hearts* I pride myself on being more cynical and both-sides-of-the-story than most people, but there’s an odd relief in finding that I’m not actually the biggest pessimist on the planet. Perhaps it’s the easing sensation of realising I never had a crown to cling on to?
And just to complete the spectrum, BoingBoing has a guest-post counter-list to Coupland from one Jim Leftwich, whose treacly animated gif of an outlook makes me feel like I’m inhabiting the rational and considered middle-ground for the first time in my life to date.
3) Memes are going mainstream Every day new memes will appear, others will be repeated, remixed, and amplified, and others will fade. Cultural in-jokes will abound. Your grandma will send you image macros for the lulz.
My mother already does; sadly, spending twelve hours a day connected to the internet hive-mind means that I’m about five years ahead of her comprehension thereof. She’s just discovered LOLcats; I now understand how I managed to piss so many people off with them back in 2005**.
5) It’s going to get fresher and tastier The growth in farmers’ markets will make locally grown fresh produce more accessible to more people all the time. Neighborhood and backyard gardens and greenhouses, with heirloom varieties, chickens, and beekeeping combined with a more fun cooking culture will increasingly supplement and in some cases replace processed and commercially prepared foods.
Actually, I’d much rather this worked out than Coupland’s requiem for lettuce. Fingers crossed.
10) You’ll get by and make the best of it Because after all, that’s what most of us do. You can help by connecting to and sharing with the people around you, both locally and in your virtual common interest circles. The stronger we are socially and otherwise interconnected, the more effectively we’ll take on and respond to challenges. Shit happens, but remember to reach out to help when you’re able and receive when it’s necessary. We really are all in this together, regardless of how they slice us up into groups and categories.
Again, agree with the basic premise (“we’ll get by”, I mean – it’s what we do as a species), but I suspect the global village will have to get a lot more fragmented before we reach the point that we realise we’re all the same (ref. item 45, above). But maybe Leftwich is spot on when he says we can make things better if we reach out and help when we’re able to. So, let’s start right now: let’s all think happy thoughts in Doug Coupland’s direction before bundling the poor guy into the office hug machine.
[ * Well, that’s that cover blown, I guess. ]
[ ** Only kidding, Mum, you know I love you. But seriously, forwarding chain emails; not wise. ]
JPod by Douglas Coupland
Nothing divides opinion like the future – it’s human nature, we all love to take a stab at predicting what will come. But it’s also human nature to disagree over what cannot yet be proven (which is something we can be sure of by looking at the past).