Swimming against the tide of history

Discussing recent political developments as well as longer-term societal trends in my recent blogs has got me thinking, and my speculations have made me somewhat fatalistic.
I (and others of similar opinions and disposition), can hope, in the short term, for the amelioration of the current crises afflicting Western society. We can hope for a rational resolution of the Brexit issue domestically, we can hope that a Democrat is elected as US president in 2020, we can hope for a lot of things…
But there is such a thing as the tide of history, deeper and more fundamental changes that occur underneath short-term political developments. In my last blog I referenced a shift from what I referred to as a written culture to new culture mediated by artificial intelligence. Now I’m not arrogant (or ignorant) enough to suppose that I’ve come up with an original idea, but I think it’s likely that many cultural commentators and theorists writing on this matter will have a different standpoint to me. Many will welcome the change that appears to be happening, rather than regretting or fearing it.
But the point is that, irrespective of your standpoint, this is happening and the way people think, feel and act will change accordingly. People of my generation and way of thinking will rapidly become cut off, isolated in a culture that no longer understands them, and which they feel little or no affinity for. Small changes are straws in the wind; I still have a cheque book which I intend to use to pay some outstanding bills, pretty soon this won’t be an option; I like reading books and I spend some of my time writing them, but how long before a post-literate culture emerges where all books are audio books? Where people rely on virtual helpers such as Alexa to conduct all their transactions; I also like physical shops, but I fear for their survival.
All in all, I feel that pretty soon I’m going to be like an updated version of the protagonist of the 1960’s television series Adam Adamant Lives, an Edwardian adrift in contemporary society…
Of course, another trend, one that is proceeding quietly under all the sound and fury of contemporary politics, may put a stop to this ‘Brave New World’, at least for the majority.
I refer, of course, to the various elephants in the room, climate change, sea level rise, resource depletion, all the issues that drive the narrative in Lights in the sky. I note that in today’s press various scientific institutions, as well some obscenely-rich private citizens, are again discussing possible fall-back strategies should our actions make our planet uninhabitable. It’s the usual guff: NASA wants to colonise the Moon, Jeff Bezos wants to build vast environments orbiting the Earth, where the climate will be, ‘..like Maui, but every day!’, as last on seen the SF flick Interstellar, Elon Musk wants to nuke Mars etc…
I think it’s quite likely that at least some of these ideas will come to fruition, but on a strictly limited basis; probably consisting of a few scientists and military personnel living out barren lives underground on Mars or the Moon, while the rest of us left on Earth mostly die, and the unlucky survivors descend into savagery.
I recently bought the DVD (another soon to be obsolescent piece of tech) of Stanley Kubrick’s brilliant Cold War satire Dr Strangelove, and I think that Kubrick was being prescient here, just not in any way he could have imagined!
But that’s the problem with futurology, things never turn out quite the way you anticipated…
Which, of course, may mean that I’m being unduly alarmist.
Time will tell…
The Author September 2019