One of my concerns for the future of my daughter, isn't about my daughter directly at all. Rather, it is about the ecosystem she will be contained within, and the people who will be there with her. We are products of our environment and we will be continuously influenced by it, until our death. So in some way, it doesn't matter how well I raise her, she is going to be affected by many people who were not raised in the same way, with the same values, or with any values at all. She is going to enter into a world of potential mayhem, and the best I can do is try and instil in her the skills she might need to navigate it successfully.
More than math and reading is needed.
When I write, I often feel somewhat alarmist in the way I see the direction of the world heading, but at the same time, I believe I would be remiss not to at least try and talk about these things. When it comes to the future of our society and the young as they grow into it, I am sceptical if they will on average have what it takes to survive what is to come. Perhaps I am wrong and it will all shake out for the better, but I don't see that happening and I suspect that it is going to get much worse in ways that we are yet to imagine.
Or perhaps we can imagine it, but like a fantastical dream, we never expected it to become a reality. Yet, here we are, life imitating art, with people eating themselves to death, believing obvious identity misnomers, and falling into love with robots. Straight out of any number of science-fiction novels. People cite flying cars as the failure of science-fiction prediction, but when it comes to predicting how a lot of our behaviours would shift, many have been accurate.
We are predictable by nature.
Through nurture. We are conditioned by our environment to become even more predictable by adhering to a set of learned rules and behaviours that guide our thought and decision-making processes. We act on what we have been conditioned to think and believe, even when it is unhelpful or harmful. We default to what we know, rather than having the curiosity to discover what we don't, and prove our beliefs wrong.
The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.
The Merchant of Venice
And while in Shakespeare's time scripture was the go to guide, now there is the internet where there is a line to support or denigrate any position. We have built an information system that has all we know, but all we use it for is to support our purpose. And for most, the only purpose there is, is to make oneself feel good.
Or less bad.
For those who are old enough to have walked the streets of a city thirty years ago, go for another walk down the same streets today and take stock of what you see. Notice what has changed, and look at the faces you see pass you by. What do you notice? For me,
People used to smile more.
Now, they are all frowning, wrinkles on the forehead, as they stare at the phone in their hand, as if they are looking at something important, some bit of news that is so consequential and troubling, it has darkened their mood and sucked all of their attention. But catch a glimpse of the screen, and they are just scrolling the endless stream of inane content that they say they enjoy so much.
It is not the face of enjoyment.
And this is the world that my daughter is going to grow into. One that is filled with people who do not actually enjoy their life, except when they feel they are scoring points against their enemies. And the enemies are plentiful, because that is anyone who doesn't agree with them on any particular topic. She is going to have to deal with what I predict will be a majority of people who do not like their life, nor do they like themselves, but they keep lying over and over to try and fake it until they make it. But there is no making it on that path. There is just the postponement of misery until it cannot be held back anymore.
All children blame their parents for some part of their upbringing, and I wonder what the ten year old kids of today will mention in a decade from now, or two. Will they be glad that their parents fed them as they did and gave them all of that screen time? Will they be glad for the time spent playing computer games and scrolling social media? Will they be grateful for their childhood?
Or will they feel damaged by it?
Parents can only do the best they can, but what does that actually mean in practice? When parents look in the mirror of their parenting, do we really think that is our best? Do we not know any better, or are we unable to improve for tomorrow?
Children are our future.
The future concerns me.
Taraz
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