Before we get into today’s episode, I wanted to share a story:
It’s a Monday morning in December in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The year is 2019, and I am sitting in my car that’s laying sideways in the ditch as snow pours in from the broken windows and my glasses are nowhere to be found.
I am in shock. I start to frantically look around for my glasses and my phone. My car is still running. The seconds seem to drag on for hours as I focus on all the wrong things.
Eventually, after about a minute in reality but a lifetime in my head, I take a deep breath.
1st: Shut off the car. Let’s not get blown up or set on fire Steven.
2nd: Feel around for any signs of injury. Am I bleeding? Am I hurting? If so, where? How badly?
3rd: Talk to the lady that came running down to help. Feel your faith in humanity swell inside a small part of your brain that’s still thinking about all of these dumb things during a time like this. She’s wearing fucking leggings and she came running into twelve inches of snow to check on me.
4th: Call work. Not going to be able to come in today as I’ve been in a car accident.
5th: Call 911? Already done by the nice lady that’s letting me use her phone.
6th: Call my mom. She’s always ready to save me and that day was no exception.
7th: Wait for rescue, since I’m a big guy and I can’t just climb out the window willy-nilly.
It took about an hour to get rescued by my mom, the firefighters, the police officer, and the ambulance crew. One moment for my life to change, one hour for it to be resolved. I was lucky. I walked away with one scratch on my left hand as the price I had to pay for the stupidity I exercised that day. I still have that scar, though it’s faded a lot in recent months.
It was an accident of one person, it involved my car and my car alone. It didn’t involve anyone else or any other property. Thank God, or whatever was watching over me that day.
I’ve struggled driving since then. I took an online course to sharpen my skills (would’ve been in person if not for Covid). I’ve gone to a therapist. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the mistakes I made that day and focused hard on rectifying them. Regaining respect for driving these death machines was a critical first step for me to resolve my struggle (or at least start to). I’d gotten complacent. No more.
I share this because it was a critical pivot point in my life.
Things changed significantly for me because of that rollover.
I moved to the town I worked. This gave me 24/7 access to the internet (for the first time in my life). Also living right next to work would save 3 hours of driving time every day. This free time allowed me to start learning about all sorts of things that I now share here such as the stock market. I didn’t have an interest in it before, but now I had time and access.
I saw the writing on the wall, I moved money into Fidelity to prepare for the impending doom in the market that was recognized by the inverting of the Yield Curve Indicator. In early 2020, I thought for sure that the student debt would blow up as mortgages did in the late 2000s.
When the market dropped, I was ready. I didn’t know what Covid-19 meant for the world, but I knew that this event would discount my own stupidity. Fear and greed would shift from long-term time horizons to the short-term. I would be able to take advantage and secure a foothold for my future.
Since then, my life has gotten better. I’ve seen progress in countless areas of my life due to that nearly deadly experience that still haunts me on occasion.
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That’s what this decade can do for all of humanity. The growth projections from many global organizations all point towards the 2020s being a critical pivot point for humanity. Lots of bad things are going to happen, lots of bad things already have happened… But these bad things do not preclude the overall positive trend of humanity.
The Return of The Great Gatsby
The story of the Great Gatsby tells the tale of a wealthy man (Gatsby) who is mysterious, charming, and handsome. A man who has more rumors than truths and is mostly known for the lavish parties he hosts regularly. It’s through these parties that events unfold into a more personal and romantic nature. Here, Gatsby finds himself tangled up in a lover’s quarrel, and eventually, he meets his maker in a most unfortunate way.
This story may be the most significant cultural reference to the Roaring 20s and all that it represents, but the story is nowhere near complete. It focuses mostly on grandeur and love. It glamourizes the past and ignores many of the horrible events that happened in this uproarious decade in order to maintain its glamourous spectacle.
There’s a lot more to the real history of the 1920s that’s worth remembering, via History:
The Roaring Twenties were a historic period of dramatic social and political change that emerged as a seemingly natural response to a global pandemic and the first World War. Women could vote. Mass communication (radio and telephone) connected people from coast to coast. Cars were becoming commonplace. Prohobition, the Red Scare, and a cultural Civil War caused much socioeconomic strife within this uproarous decade.
For the first time, more Americans lived in cities than on farms. The nation’s total wealth more than doubled between 1920 and 1929, and this economic growth swept many Americans into an affluent but unfamiliar “consumer society.”
People from coast to coast bought the same goods (thanks to nationwide advertising and the spread of chain stores), listened to the same music, did the same dances, and even used the same slang.
Many Americans were uncomfortable with this new, urban, sometimes racy “mass culture;” in fact, for many–even most–people in the United States, the 1920s brought more conflict than celebration.
When accounting for this bigger picture, it becomes clear that we are on a parallel path that Americans experienced a century ago.
Let’s take a look at the parallels in closer detail:
World War? We’ve been in a world war for over two decades now, and not against any one enemy but against the enabled extremists of many various demographics. Terrorism has plagued most of the globe in three distinct ways: Global security, cultural response, and rising nationalism.
Many of the most powerful nations have attempted to tighten their grip over their own populace and their foreign interests in the last couple of decades.
These “squeezes” have led to a cultural response that becomes opposed to the ideals of these powerful nations.
The more foreign powers try to forcibly influence local culture, the more likely it is for that culture to turn xenophobic. And obviously, with rising distrust comes a rising “need” for nationalism.
Pandemic? Covid-19. Need I say more?
Mass Communication? The internet, smartphones, and social media all have given rise to a new human experience that allows everyone to grab ahold of the megaphone. With this megaphone, human beings (individually and collectively) become more powerful than ever before. Sometimes that power creates a Meme stock, other times a Meme president.
Socioeconomic Strife? In the 1920s, there was rising strife between city-dwellers and small-town residents, Protestants and Catholics, Blacks and whites, “New Women” and advocates of old-fashioned family values. Today we continue to see urban and rural residents, the faithful of any two religions, and people of many different ethnic/cultural backgrounds battle it out. We also have rising strife between straight and LGBTQIA orientations, the economic classes, political preferences, and the young and the old. All in all, we’re seeing tensions rise once again to dangerous levels due to the millions and millions of things that have happened in recent human history.
Coming off of the heels of a global pandemic, there seems to be a renewed vigor for fun in many different demographic segments. This has manifested itself into the returning concept of the Roaring 20s. But what does that mean for us, today?
The Wild West of The Internet Will Soon Be Tamed
I believe that the Roaring 20s were roaring because of two reasons: the pain of the 1900s & 1910s and the drastic boom in the American lifestyle during the 1920s due to infrastructure developments. I talked at length about the first one above, now I would like to focus on the second.
But first, a quote: “Privilege is like oxygen. You don't realize it's there until it's gone.”
I think about this quote a lot, especially when I’m feeling particularly gloomy. It can be painted onto many of the creations that dot our daily lives.
Cars, mass manufacturing, the radio, electricity… These were all brand new creations for mankind in the late 1800s - early 1900s that finally became practically useful in the 1920s-1930s.
By becoming practically useful, these things eventually gained as much importance in our lives as the existence of oxygen. Practical utility turns something ridiculous into something critical.
The internet was an amazing idea back in the 1970s but didn’t really have anything of purpose until the 1990s. Even then, the purpose was mostly for show and it took a lot of effort to make the most basic of functions (that we now take for granted) work. The internet didn’t become useful until the early 2000s. And if you think about it, there’s not much that makes up the internet:
It’s made up of just 12 functions: Search, Social Media, Productivity, Visual Media, Audio/Music, Writing, Gaming, News, Collaboration, Financial, Automation, and Research/Thesauruses. These functions were mostly rudimentary until the mid-2010s. The internet and smartphones are finally practical.
I estimate that once the foundational internet functions get to merge with some more useful iterations of the “smart infrastructure”, our century’s Roaring 20s will begin in earnest. This smart infrastructure, such as artificial intelligence and blockchain technologies, will enable our entire digital experience to evolve yet again.
The Re-Roaring 20s won’t last for long though.
What followed the Roaring 20s (1920s) was another calamity of epic global proportions (The Great Depression) and forced evolution of governance throughout the world. Another World War killed millions. Social strife led to clashes across every notable demographic.
We already know the impending calamity (Climate Change) that will shake the world to its core. Human response to calamity seems to be alienation and cruelty, so we can also expect conflicts to rise in response to the chaos caused by climate change. If today’s political environment remains, then the governmental response will be a very partisan and divisive experience.
Governance isn’t going away and the wild west of the internet will soon become nothing more than a memory.
Regulating the New Internet
After all of these pieces get to play together a little bit, governmental regulation will finally appear (in its more mature form) to enforce a very sectorial internet experience.
Here’s my prediction of what that sectorial internet could look like:
The Wild West of the Internet will be no more, as the sheriffs will arrive to maintain specific standards around the behavior of various entities (corporations, individuals, and representatives).
Borders will be further defined online, and countries will draw their own lines in the sand that will change things slightly. Some governments may work closely with each other, while others will increase/maintain isolation.
Subversion of these borders will become a criminal offense (sorry VPNers, your days are numbered) and you’ll have to pay a toll AND/OR submit some sort of identification to move from sector to sector. ID will become critical and you’ll find that anonymity will be treated as “suspicious”.
Data and privacy will be a question for governments to define and manage (instead of defaulting to corporate preferences). Some countries will allow these corporations more power while other countries will restrict corporations. Either way, the agreements we accept without reading will hold an actual bearing on our lives moving forward. Personal liability will skyrocket. My blog will require a million different disclosures.
The future of the internet is ultimately all about connecting your real-life identity and existence to the identity you have on the internet. Where you live will matter more than it ever mattered because that’s where the author of your story gets chosen. Some countries will let you self-publish, others will assign a ghostwriter, and many will write your story for you.
Scared yet?
One Final Thing
Here’s a song that I haven’t been able to get enough of, Is It Any Wonder by Durand Jones & The Indications:
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