The Hyperideological Age
We are increasingly organizing ourselves around ideas instead of land. As our tools for thought, communication, and collaboration develop, each individual develops a grasp of the world and, ultimately, a high-conviction worldview. We can consume global news and commentary so easily now, and with those inputs, we develop our own strong opinions. Each person is walking around with a clearer vision of exactly what the world should be, or perhaps more what it should not be. Thanks to Twitter, we’re all amateur geopolitical/economic/technological commentators now, and we have very strong opinions. Americans, for example, have sorted themselves into distinct, warring ideological tribes.
Finding your corner of Twitter is a way to plug into a networked super-brain where you can, ideally, co-create a vision of an ideal future for you and the people in the world most aligned with you. So far, though, this kind of aligned online group tends to be more focused on criticism and idle chatter than working towards a positive, ambitious goal.
The Present
What does it look like when a system of ideas successfully migrates from the noosphere down to Earth? What happens when an idea machine, to use Nadia Asparouhova’s term, lands on the ground? Perhaps the current wave of progressive policies is a good example.
It is surreal to see what used to be a set of fringe ideas become the governing ideology of a major city. In cities like San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle, the woke left’s dream and the traditionalist right’s nightmare are simultaneously playing out live, with raw footage instantaneously distributed across the globe. The results of this particular set of cloud-to-land experiments are up for furious debate.
It’s like a game, the game of ideas. Like sports fans arguing over last night’s game, Team Woke and Team MAGA fight it out in Twitter threads over the latest viral video. Occasionally this tension manifests as violence in the streets. This cloud-to-land process has been painful so far in the US, as we are coming apart online while still stuck with each other on the same chunk of land. Clashes are to be expected.
The Future
So we are moving into a more ideological era. But so far, there doesn’t seem to be much good that has come of it, mostly a lot of chaos and rage. Why are the current options so limited? We are in transition. The process of developing ideologies online and implementing them in the real world is still difficult and limited to only a few very motivated groups. We need more iterations and more experiments. Eventually, good ideas will emerge.
It’s a matter of developing the tools and techniques for innovating in governance, society, and even morals. The preeminent framework in this area is Balaji Srinivasan’s Network State. The idea is of an online community that is tightly aligned around one commandment, a bold, likely divisive moral declaration. Examples might be a keto society or a CrossFit society. This kind of online community is projected to start online, collaborating on more and more significant projects until they eventually crowdfund land and buildings. Just having this framework might help inspire efforts in this area.
Another important kind of tool that is still somewhat lacking is tools for organizing and collaborating online. Online communities tend to gather in Discords. But often, it seems to be difficult for real projects to be completed. There tend to be a lot of ideas thrown around and not a lot of real results to show for it all. Some hope that cryptocurrencies and NFT’s will help reward activity in these groups.
Whatever shape it takes, progress in this area is very important. It determines the shape of the world to come.