Chapter 4 - The Grim Present and a Glimmer on the Horizon (2)

The fact that our world is becoming increasingly interconnected is perceived negatively by many. However, I see this as a unique opportunity: From a systems theory perspective, diversity leads to contradictions and thus to instabilities. Instability and high feedback effects, which occur with high connectivity density, are extremely helpful for creativity, or in other words, for the emergence of new cultural patterns, which, if we do it right, can better match human nature.

In the past, foreign cultures were often distant to us. Cultural exchange was mostly limited to geographically close countries. When changes reached further away regions, it usually took considerably longer.

With the advent of the Internet, distance became irrelevant. This remained the case until governments, intelligence services, and corporations artificially intervened. Examples of this are the Great Firewall of China, online publishers with their paywalls, streaming services with geoblocking, and social networks that block their content for external search engines and unregistered users.

The challenge with complex views is that they become harder to understand and communicate as their complexity increases. If our worldview is too simplistic compared to the challenges we face, we lose the ability to find solutions. Complicated systems like airplanes or nuclear reactors can be mentally broken down into their components to grasp their overall functioning. However, if you try to do this with complex systems like humans, patterns in social networks, cultures in general, ecosystems, or the weather, you jeopardize the applicability of your model in reality.

In the 11 months that I have been working with ChatGPT on this script, which you are now either hearing as a voice-over in this video series English or German, or reading on my website, my personal challenge was not only to share my solution for the problem I see with you, but also to resonate within you. Furthermore, working on this script in the context of today’s world allowed me to gain new intuitive insights. Intuition can be described as the brain's ability to recognize patterns in complexity that go beyond the current limits of our understanding.

With the explosive increase in participation in Web 2.0 in recent years, the volume of published content has also multiplied dramatically. Although this theoretically represents an enrichment, in practice it often means the opposite: Valuable and meaningful content is increasingly drowned out by a deluge of trivial and less relevant posts. The challenge no longer lies only in finding information, but especially in discovering the few pearls in the ocean of triviality. The people who could be valuable contacts for us are swallowed up in the virtual world by the flood of data, just as city canyons in our physical environment do. - At best, we can see the illuminated windows of the city from a height or plateau. But we can only guess at the people behind the facade. And even if we walked through the virtual and/or physical streets, would we recognize each other?

The human cortex is so powerful that we can maintain relationships with 150 to 250 people. However, current studies paint a much bleaker picture: Three-quarters of all Americans are dissatisfied with their circle of friends. In the UK, loneliness has even been declared a pandemic. The constant feeling of loneliness is about as harmful as smoking 13 cigarettes a day. Between the ages of 20 and 30, we have the most acquaintances on average, about 25 people. But from the age of 30, we lose one friend every five years. Just a few decades ago, it was common to have five close friends. Today, the average is only two, even though the majority of people demonstrably yearn for deeper relationships.

We have managed to make our lives steadily more efficient. However, I fear that in doing so, we have not only lost our youthful joy of discovery, but also our awareness of beauty, whether in architecture, literature, or a flexible mind. It is impressive that we established global air travel half a century ago, but 90% of people have become so efficient that they now move only an average of 10KM per day. So why do we need networks that keep showing us the same people, or algorithms based on such 'profound' criteria as 'I like this' or 'I don't like this'?

I had always imagined exploring the world as a glorious adventure, with real expeditions across continents and through the oceans. Of course, we could all set aside our drive, our hopes, and our knowledge about the pressing problems of our time. We could give up our desire for deeper meaning, more intense relationships, and intellectual growth, and succumb to disorientation. We could continue to lose ourselves in consumption and just let life go on as before. But we all know what happened to the Titanic, don't we? For me, such a life is unacceptable.