No One Can Keep Up

You should not even try.

When Ray Kurzweil talks about the singularity, he means a point in time in the distant future. The day of the singularity is when artificial intelligence will be superior to the human mind on all levels for the first time. From that time on, we will no longer have a chance to understand the world’s rapid changes.

As far away as this day may be for humankind, it is already today no longer possible to keep up with all relevant changes in the world for the individual human being.

We all live our lives as if the world is still as we remember it. But that is not the case.

Technological and social progress has long since assumed a pace that all of us, as individuals, can no longer keep up with.

Even the Generation Z children are no better off in this respect than the Millennials or the Baby Boomers. Or is there a young person here somewhere who has a good understanding of all the following issues:

- Artificial Intelligence

- machine learning

- Blockchain technology with all its implications

- cryptocurrencies

- climate change

- cancel culture

- Black lives matter movement

- nanotechnology

- self-driving cars

- platform economy

These are just some of the things that concern us all, although most people don’t know it. They can’t know because that would require a deep understanding of each phenomenon. None of us can achieve that.

The information on these subjects is available, but to perceive and process it all is impossible for any of us.

Nevertheless, we feel a compulsion to have an opinion on everything and anything and to express it. We are often confronted with other people who want to force us to take a stand in the multi-layered discussions on all these topics.

What is your position on transhumanism?

How do you see the future of bitcoin?

Do you say black lives matter or all lives matter?

Take a deep breath and dare to say: hell, I don’t know.

The problem with our fast-moving times is not that too few people know too little about too few things. The real problem is people who think they have to take sides in every case.

Why do we even think we have to keep up? The world has been changing so fast since at least the beginning of the industrial revolution that no one can keep track of everything. So why do we get the feeling now, of all times, that everything is overtaking us?

I think it’s because the rapid, exponential change of everything today is continually being held up in front of our eyes everywhere.

Rapid change has always existed. Today it may be a hundred times faster than it was a hundred years ago, but it was too fast for the individual even then. The big difference is that our ancestors learned about these changes only slowly and sometimes not at all. Today, after a glance at the news ticker and our social media channels, we have more earth-shattering information to process shortly after breakfast than one of our ancestors did in several years.

Of course, I’m not saying we shouldn’t stay informed. I’m just saying that we should free ourselves from the pressure to be up to date everywhere. That is neither possible nor necessary.

We, individuals, have never influenced most developments in politics, science, and culture. Nevertheless, all these areas are constantly developing — whether with our attention or without it.

So instead of trying to understand everything, we should ask ourselves which of these areas is really important for us personally.

No one needs to deal with Bitcoins unless they are fascinated by the subject and dream of becoming wealthy.

No one needs to have an a priori opinion on whether children are allowed to dress up as Indians or Bedouins, or whether that’s already cultural appropriation. It’s enough to deal with the subject if you have children of the appropriate age yourself. But then the question should very well be discussed.

There are too many know-it-alls. The comment columns under articles and newspaper reports show this quite clearly.

I prefer to be the one who admits that I have no opinion because I lack too much information.

I know that I know nothing. And that will always be the case. I have no problem with that. Nobody should have a problem with that.

René Junge a published author writing on ILLUMINATION.

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