The term 'future shock' explains or attempts to explain the mental state that a person can slip into when the changes in their world happen so rapidly that the person can't map out their own future. This concept was first introduced in 1970, by social scientist and author Alvin Toffler.
The last two years has impacted the entire world in the most dire of ways. While many people will point to the spread of a virus; a small portion of mankind lay the blame for the chaos and the resulting situation on the reactions to the virus. Both the official and public reactions to the virus were panic based and lacked a level of critical examination and also lacked much in the way of risk reward analysis. It has been posited by some that the entire situation may have been concocted or manufactured as a means to an end, though many people see those sorts of thinkers as conspiracy theorists; though that doesn't make those people wrong, just heterodoxical.
One strength in the argument of those outside of the orthodoxy is the sheer effort made to which they were silenced. There was, and still is a massive effort to censure those to dissent against the ever changing narrative being presented to the masses. The presented narrative was built on one single message - 'Survival through Unity. Unity through Faith.' and most people just ate it up and still do at the time of this writing. In the story of V for Vendetta, the faith was religion while in the last two years, the faith was in the science.
When the fear machine was cranked to eleven people didn't know what to do and so they all too easily forget how they got into the situation they now find themselves in - when all they have to do is look in the mirror and see that they traded in responsibility for the cheap, the comfortable and the easy. It is cheap to have Chinese people work to build their iPhone while earning a fraction of the pay an American would demand. It is comfortable not to be called a racist and so international flights helped spread the virus globally when this whole thing started. Finally, it is easy to ignore acts that go on every day around world, most of which are not tolerated in most Western countries, and yet there are benefits constantly reaped by those acts.
Do people ever wonder why so many of the Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) tend to be feeding children in countries and areas were child slavery and child sexual exploitation run rampant?
Returning to the main thesis of this article, what will be the fallout of the last two years? The two most significant outcomes have already come to fruition in the form of inflation and an increase in poverty. These two when coupled together will spell hard times for many people withing their respective countries; the hard times will be determined by to what extent monies were printed and businesses were closed down; never to be opened again. The cascading effects of printing money and closing businesses creates a circular situation that more resembles the post flushing water in a toilet bowl, rather than the eloquence of a Möbius loop.
Through careful planning and prudent policies, an economic recession can be lifted over in short time, and an economic depression can be avoided; tangible debts can be paid down. It also must be acknowledged that the outcomes from social and governmental actions have incurred some costs that must now be considered overreaching in a short time span if not outright irredeemable within a single persons life time or even across many generations.
Previous generations have striven to leave a better world to their youth over what was going on prenatal and this attitude seems to have been eroded in the Western World as of late. In fact, upon closer examination there is little wonder as to why so many people of child rearing age are not enticed into having children.
The problem in hand is both the number and variety of the non redeemable debts that were incurred and are now owed to so many people as a result of the governmental and social choices made over the last two years. The last two years also saw a plethora of non-economic depression related issues resulting in higher rates of suicide, heavy drinking, the use of recreational pharmaceuticals, and death by overdose. Additionally, another non redeemable debt was the forcing of both the young and the old to not to be able see each other in times of need and parting; all the while governments were saying 'we are doing this to save grandma.' Not once was it heard that grandma wanted to be saved; in fact some grandmothers shortened their lives out of simple loneliness. Can anyone say with 100% certitude that grandma would not have been willing to risk death over seeing her grandchildren; was grandma even asked?
'For the greater good' has long been a haunting and daunting phrase. Typically the phrase has been delivered by a small cabal of political elitists to the masses without any consultation of those same masses. So the current orthodoxy now seems to be that the minority gets to drive the majority, which begs the question of 'how does this represent the greater good when the majority is not part of the conversation?'
Returning to the title of this article as the conclusion:
Hanlon's razor offers up the idea that most people are rude or ill informed rather than malicious. The word 'ignorance' does have some flexibility in meaning, within the English language.
Conversely, Hanlan's Point has a clothing optional beach, where people can be naked, semi dressed, or fully dressed and those options are up to each individual. It is the experience of this author that typically each individual at the beach leaves all the other individuals alone; without confrontation or condemnation.
So, for this author the question is, would you prefer to be able to suffer a self inflicted sunburn or be staked out on the sand; if you don't choose now, you may not be able to choose later. Just think about that please, as you sip your next morning coffee...
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