Peacefully waiting, just to the north, Canada knows Trump and MAGA will continue to destroy the U.S. economy, then American society. At some point Canadians will be able to take over, clean up the mess, and create a functional country out of what is now the United States. It's only a matter of time.
Mindwalk, a movie made in 1990. A poet, a politician, and a scientist walk around the unique island fortress of Mont Saint Michel in France, and talk. That's it, that's the movie, they walk around and talk.
A Facebook friend in Spain, whom I've never met in person, posted a photo of Mont Saint Michel today. That reminded me of a movie from 1990, that I first heard of in about 1994. This is one of the two most intelligent movies I've ever seen, the other being What the Bleep Do We Know? . I heard of this movie from this guy, about 15 years after that video was shot. Bryan Gregory, best known as one of the founding members of The Cramps, was every bit as sarcastic when I worked with him in the mid and late 1990's, but also incredibly intelligent, and still highly creative. He told me about this movie one day, at work, when we both worked in a porn store. The movie blew my mind. I just watched it again, now almost 20 years after I first heard about it. The ideas expressed in the movie stand up well to the test of time.
We need to move past stereotypes, like your image of "punk rocker" or whatever came into your mind when I said I worked in a porn store. I probably had more intelligent conversations at that job than any place I worked. Really. And, as Sonja says in the movie, we also need a new way of looking at the world. If you're a person who thinks, this movie is well worth watching.
I've started a new blog, about side gigs, and ideas and info for small businesses. Check it out.
What will "the future" look like? Here are Lori Petty and friend, from the intro of Tank Girl, which came out in 1995. The movie is set in 2033, just over ten years from now. I'd say we have about a 50/50 chance of this future, at this point. Here's the trailer for the Tank Girl movie, just in case you somehow missed it. This post is about the 20 chapter look at our future, that I wrote 2 1/2 to 3 years ago, called Welcome to Dystopia: The Future is Now. I'm going back and reading it, chapter by chapter, to see how it's holding up. Let's do it.
As I wrote in the last post, I woke up one morning in October 2019, with this big idea for a writing project. That project would bring out a whole bunch of nebulous, somewhat connected ideas, that were bouncing around my brain. These ideas were based on three big theories that I had come across, 10 to 30 years earlier, and what I saw playing out in the real world, in the late 2000's and 2010's. That project turned into Dystopia, as I now call it in shorthand.
I started writing this group of ideas on paper, in late October 2019, before Covid-19 sprang up in China. I was writing about a major period of economic chaos, 3 to 5 years long, likely more that I saw coming in our future. By the time I finished writing the 20th chapter, in early June 2020, Covid had hit the U.S., and the rest of the world. The stock markets had crashed, mandatory business closures and lockdowns were in effect, and 25 million people were laid off, working from home, or out of work for an unknown period of time.
So... uh... yeah, I called the chaos part pretty well. To be clear, I DID NOT see the pandemic coming. But I expected some "black swan" event to lead us into economic chaos. Covid became the first black swan. Actually, because of the pandemic, things got way crazier, much faster than I thought they would. When I finished writing Dystopia, in June 2020, we still thought the pandemic would probably be over by late summer 2020. We still had no idea how bad things would get.
As I'm writing this post, just before Thanksgiving 2022, I think we are now headed into the worst couple of years of this decade, 2023-2024. The Fed stepped in and created about $6 trillion to help everyone through the pandemic, particularly the banking system and corporate America. All that money kept the real, underlying economic issues from hitting bottom, and being dealt with. Ultimately, that money caused our current inflation. So now we're headed into the "real" recession, and it's going to get ugly. Er. Uglier.
Welcome to Dystopia: The Future is Now (Book 1) is completely new ideas to most people, though the theories have been around quite a while, and it's a hard read for most. But I still think I got the underlying Big Picture of why the 2020's will continue to be so crazy, pretty well explained. If you read any of these chapters, let me know what you think on Facebook (Steve Emig- North Hollywood) or Twitter (@steveemig43). Here are links to the individual chapters:
Intro to the idea that several long term trends are converging, which will lead to a long, crazy, economic downturn, and much chaos, in the 2020's. Also, because pretty much all of us were raised in "civilization" as opposed to some indigenous culture, we really don't understand the environment, and everyday destruction of the natural world is simply normal to us. But ultimately, it's unsustainable in the long term. In this way, we are "mutants" on Earth.
In the short chapter 2, I tell how I woke up with the idea to go back and watch a bunch of dystopian moive trailers from my childhood and teenage years. I also discovered that I was writing this project in the exact setting and time, Los Angeles, November 2019, that the 1982 movie Blade Runner was set in. I realized I was living in my high school self's future. So I had a real world comparison, of the Blade Runner vision of Los Angeles in 2019, and the real thing, that I was living in.
In the 1970's, it seemed like we would all have flying cars, like the ones used in Blade Runner, in the 21st century. OK, technically, flying cars do exist, there have been many variations, going back 80 years. But the cool movie type hover cars are not available. The Moller Air Car, which never made it past a hovering prototype, is the closest real world version to that idea. In addition, I link the 35 movie trailers I looked at, to gauge what 20 century writers thought "the future" would be like. They were mostly wrong.
Of all the great minds who wrote about "the future" in the 20 th century, it was an early 1960's cartoon that got more things right about the future, than all the novels and movies. And yes, George Orwell was right in 1984 about the Big Brother state with surveillance everywhere. But there was something, just as powerful, that Orwell didn't see coming.
This chapter takes a look at the husband and wife futurist team of Alvin and Heidi Toffler. Alvin wrote the books, though he mentions often in interviews that he and Heidi worked together thinking concepts through. I write about his first major book, Future Shock, published in 1970, and The Third Wave, published in 1980. Even three years after is 2016 death, much of what they forecast came true, and some is still playing out in today's world.
Why do people watch weather reports? We watch weather forecasts to get an idea of what is coming our way in a few hours, or maybe a few days. By watching a weather report, we get an idea of whether we need ot take different action. If we see rain in the forecast, we can take an umbrella or a raincoat when we go out, and maybe put boots on. If it's going to snow in a couple of days, we know we need to get up early to shovel some snow, and warm up the car before going to work. Reading books or watching videos by futurists is the same idea, their forecasts give you a look at what's coming. Then you can make better decisions, taking their information into account, if it makes sense to you.
In high school, I got into the brand new little sport of BMX freestyle. Doing tricks on "little kid's bikes," that's how most people saw freestyle in 1984-85. It was dumb, it wouldn't go anywhere. That's what I was told. Instead, I was drawn into what I later realized were "creative scenes," small groups of creatively driven people trying something new. I spent my late teen years and 20's in a series of creative scenes. This post explains the idea, and shows a 1986 video of several of us riding in San Francisco, and what some of that group went on to do in the years since.
In the BMX freestyle world I first noticed scenes of riders here and there. This led to my interest in Creative Scenes, and how ideas and movements spread through society. In addition to that, my high school economics class, the SoCal real estate market of the late 1980's, and a book predicting a great depression, all fueled my interest in economics, social dynamics, how trends interplay with each other, and trying to figure out "The Future."
Our real world in Los Angeles in November of 2019 was much different than this setting that director Ridley Scott predicted back in 1982 in the movie Bladerunner. We don't have flying cars, the streamlined design buildings, or high caliber androids called replicants. We do have 30,000 homeless people, 10 million people (not 120 million), the internet, smartphones, and the Kardashians. Of all the TV shows and movies about the future in the 1950's, 1960's, 1970's, and early 1980's, The Jetsons cartoons from 1962-63 actually did a better job predicting the technology we have now. I explain that there are three big theories that I think really help explain the world of the 2020's, and lead into the next chapter.
In this chapter I introduce the first of the three big theories that I think help explain where we are in the course of history, and why the world seems so chaotic. I go back to the late futurist Alvin Toffler, and his wife Heidi, who brainstormed as a team. Alvin wrote the books explaining their ideas, and published The Third Wave, in 1980. I explain the first two waves of civilization they saw, and the long periods of time it took for each wave of change to sweep over human society, when they happened. The Third Wave is the transition from the Industrial Age to a new, Information Age. Not only is this transition still happening, but it's happening far faster than the earlier waves of change happened. I believe that understanding that this idea is still at work in our society helps people understand our chaotic current chaotic. It really helps set the stage for why the 2020's, in particular, will see more change than any previous decade.
The decade of the 2020's started much like any other. It kind of crept in quietly. Most people thought things would go on as they always had. And then...
We are now 27 months into the Tumultuous 2020's, probably the craziest decade any of us alive now will ever see. On August 9, 2019, I wrote the blog post below, explaining trends playing out that I thought would turn the 2020's into a really crazy decade. Check out the second to last paragraph in that post:
When I wrote that post, the business media was saying that we might have a mild recession in 2020. Nothing to really worry about. As a lifelong student of long term trends, cycles, and futurist thinking, I knew they were wrong. I just wasn't sure how wrong. In September 2019, the Repo Market crisis happened, and the U.S. banking system seized up, and a continuous, low key bailout of the banking system began. It's still going on now. But everyday life didn't change much, most people barely noticed the Repo Market crisis. Then Covid happened six months later. As we all know, everyday life changed dramatically, for almost everyone. 2020 seemed like the craziest year ever... until 2021 happened.
One of the big, underlying trends, is what the futurists Alvin and Heidi Toffler called The Third Wave. Very simply, we are making the long, sticky, messy transition from the Industrial Age into the Information Age. Many of our businesses and institutions have made the transition, like high tech and much of the media. Many other parts of society are still working from an Industrial Age mindset and business models. Like the difference between shopping at Sear's 30 years ago, and shopping online or on phone today. Old school businesses and parts of our world are breaking down, and new versions, usually using lots of tech, are being created, and growing. This is happening all around us, in schools, colleges, banking, government, political parties, and organizations of all kinds. It's really stressful to all of us. I call thisThe Big Freakin' Transitition. With this concept as a background, I see a lot of trends headed our way before they become really obvious.
2020 and 2021 have been nuts. So where do things go now? Here are some of the main things I believe will happen in the 7 years and 9 months left of this decade:
Prices on most things keep going up, though slower- For a whole bunch of reasons, it appears that prices on much of what we buy will keep going up for many more months. The money supply has been greatly increased, that's the big reason. I think inflation will stay pretty high, but slow down as we head into another recessionary wave. Stocks and real estate should drop quite a bit later this year. But I think consumer goods will keep rising. I wrote this yesterday, and the inflation rate came in at 8.5%, highest since 1981, this morning. Figure out how to earn more money people, because prices will keep rising for quite a while to come.
Another, bigger, "recession"- Simply put, we didn't let the 2020 recession (actually a depression, by definition) do its job. Recessions generally weed out poorly run businesses, small and large, and lead to more innovation and new business and social models. Instead, everyone, EVERY PERSON, EVERY BUSINESS, got bailed out, in some way, in 2020 and 2021. Because the entire banking system has been continually bailed out (and still is), we all got bailed out, in addition to stimulus checks, PUA, PPP, and other money the federal government handed out. So another recession was inevitable, and we're heading into it now (April 2022). This one won't be as deep, but it will be much longer, and harder to crawl out of.
Real estate slowdown- Instead of crashing during the 2020 downturn, the trillions in newly created dollars fueled the real estate market to go completely nuts. A low inventory of houses, millennial FOMO, and corporate/high tech home buying threw it into hyper drive. In early 2022, that is slowing down, and as interest rates keep going up (already up 1.5% from 6 months ago) I believe we'll see a dramatic slowing down in real estate, and price drops in most areas, in late 2022 and into 2023.
The College Apocalypse- After a conversation about colleges, with a couple friends in 2017, I looked into why student loan debt has soared so much since the Great Recession. The reason is because since 2009, student loans have been sold and repackaged as investments (called SLABS), just like the infamous "sub prime" home loans in the 2000's. Those sparked the Great Recession. Right now, banks and institutional investors are sitting on over $1 trillion in student loan SLABS (investments), which are pretty much worthless, because hardly anyone is paying their loans back right now. The system is in crisis already. This isn't something in the future, this is where we are at now. This will eventually lead to some colleges and universities going out of business, or closing smaller branch campuses. This has happened already happened to dozens of small colleges. Ultimately, I think we'll see 20% to 40% of today's colleges and universities close down in the 2020's and early 2030's, much like what already happened in the Retail Apocalypse.
Student Loan Debt Crisis/restructuring- Student loan debt is crushing Millennials, and older generations, too. It is one of the biggest, possibly the biggest drag, on the consumer economy. We will have to find a better way to pay for college, if we want people to keep attending colleges in large numbers. In addition, college itself will have to restructure into a model that works in today's high tech based, hyper-communication enabled world, where most information is available for free. A complete restructuring of the higher education financing system simply must happen. This will take 10-15 years to play, I believe. It's just getting started now.
Eds and Meds ghost towns of the 2020's- When colleges and universities do start closing down in numbers, this will have a major effect on the cities where these schools are located. These days, years after the loss of high paying factory jobs, a lot of small and mid-sized cities are known as "Eds and Meds" towns. That means the local college or university, as well as the hospitals, are the main employers in town. There are probably 100-150 cities in this category across the U.S.. When colleges get shut down, many of these cities, will shrink dramatically. I believe most of these will be the second and third tier cities, far from the major cities and large metro areas. Put it this way, if your mall and your discount store have shut down, check to see how strong your local college is. There will be a lot of ghost towns ten years from now.
Blockchain/crypto goes mainstream- The global banking system crashed in 2008, and hasn't been truly functional since. We've basically been in continual bailout mode, since, living on the government's credit card, so to speak. While the central bank centered, worldwide banking system uses a ton of high technology, the basic structure of banks goes back to the Medici days of the 1400's. Crypto, smart contracts, decentralized finance models (DeFi), NFT's and all kinds of new fintech have been invented and implemented since. Since the banking system doesn't work well for MOST people at this point, we will all keep trying to models, until we find a system, using many of these building blocks, that works in today's world. It will be pretty chaotic for a while, as some of these things go mainstream, and others fall by the wayside. 10-15 years from now, we will have a completely different worldwide monetary system, and it WILL NOT be based on central bank digital currencies. We probably won't have central banks at all.
What will this system look like? I have no idea. But many of the technologies, like crypto, phone based payment systems, and other pieces of today's world, will be parts of it. Again, the old system is breaking down, and a new system is being built, like in every other industry that hasn't made the transition already.
A new standard money- Warren Buffet, one of the world's best investors, recently said that the U.S. dollar has lost 94% of its value, in his lifetime (he's 91). The Fed is testing a "digital dollar" it will try to force on us soon. That's fact, you can google it. But a central bank digital currency, any of them, will be an even more fiat form of fiat currency, They ARE NOT cryptos. And they won't work for the long term. They'll just lead to hyper inflation and more problems, most likely. We will have some new form of currency in the coming years, but we don't know what it will actually be. Or we may have many private-based currencies, because right now, a lot of people have more faith in things like Bitcoin and Ethereum than central bank digital currencies. Basically, the world will figure out some new kind of currency that will actually work in today's hyper connected world. We just don't know what it will be... yet.
A heck of a lot of protests, marches, and a few riots- The U.S. Constitution acknowledged that all people have certain inalienable rights, rights which CAN NOT be taken away by legislation or the government. But, in practice, many groups are harassed or have been victims of all kinds of prejudice for decades. We've seen Black, gay, and trans rights groups rising up a lot in the last couple of years. We will see many more groups fight for rights that have been stripped of them in previous decades. Simply said, I believe there will be a lot more protests, and fights for legal rights for many more minority groups in society. These may include immigrants, the homeless and poverty stricken, old people, young people, artists, thinkers, and creative people, and several small ethnic minorities. This will be a big decade for social movements and social change, in general.
Change. If there is one word to sum up what I call the Tumultuous 2020's, that word is change.
These are not the only things that will happen in the next 8 or 9 years. But these are some of the biggest trends I see headed our way, ones that will affect a large number of people. These are my thoughts. If they makes sense to you plan accordingly going into our weird and wild future.
When I was a kid, we were taught this was a likely future, by movies, TV shows, the news, and drills at school where we had to hide under our desks. Like a cheesy school desk would protect us from a nuke. The Soviet Union would launch its nuclear missiles, the U.S. would launch ours, and most people would be toast a couple hours later. There was a sense we might wind up living in a scenario like that in this Damnation Alley trailer, from 1977. That cool vehicle in the movie, the Landmaster, was parked at the top of Cahuenga Boulevard, above Hollywood, for years. I used to drive by it pretty often when working up here. It'd make a hell of an RV.
Homeless people, like me, everywhere. But we have devices that can send voice, photos, and video to half of the other humans on Earth. In parts of the country, people will openly carry an AR-15 into Starbucks to get a coffee, while mass shootings happen with regularity other places. We're coming out of a 100 year pandemic, and prices are soaring on housing, gas, and most everyday items. A couple days ago, one of the biggest movie stars got up at the Oscar's, and bitch slapped the comedian/host, on live TV, because his wife didn't like a joke. What the hell is going on?
I've written a lot on where I think human society is heading, based on a theory of mine that piggybacks on a couple other theories. It's complex, but here are the basic ideas I see playing out, in a nutshell.
My Theories:
The Big Freakin' Transition- I believe we are in an 80-90 year transition period BETWEEN the Industrial Age, and the Information Age. Some businesses, industries and institutions have mostly made the transition to the Information Age, and a lot have not. Many parts of our world are using a lot of modern technology, but still working from old ideas, old paradigms, and Industrial Age systems and processes. This creates a ton of chaos, because everyone's way of life is changing in multiple ways, on multiple fronts, all the time. It hard for anyone to take a breath and relax very long, because more change just keeps coming. More on this, The Big Freakin' Transition, here. This theory is a continuation of The Third Wave* concept, authored by futurist Alvin Toffler, in 1980. For those of you more visually oriented, I have a Pinterest board on this subject, showing photos of this transition over time, for different things. Start at the bottom and work up.
The Tumultuous 2020's- This is my name for this decade, because I believe the pace of change, both in The Big Freakin' Transition, and the change of dominant mentality predicted by P.R. Sarkar's Law of Social Cycle (see below), are peaking during this calendar decade. That means massive change on pretty much every front, over many years. As humans, we don't like change. We say we do, but we really don't. Have your partner, kids, or roommate change the drawers in your dresser, and see how you react to a small change. Right now, we are all dealing with many small and big changes. It's a stressful time for nearly everyone.
The Phoenix Great Depression- This is my name for the economic aspect of this crazy period of transition. Basically, we are in a period of major economic and workplace change, much like the Great Depression of the 1930's, but with even more types of social change going on. This period of economic turbulence and change started with the Repo Market Crisis in late September of 2019, and will continue until, at least, late 2026.
The economic downturn in the Spring of 2020 was, officially, a depression, not a recession. (A 33% drop in GDP, a 10% drop is a definition of a financial depression). Unlike the 1930's, The Federal Reserve created about 30% more U.S. dollars, vastly increasing the total money in the U.S., and the world. Other central banks in major countries did the same. That helped us through the Covid crash, but the result of all that newly created money is the high inflation we are seeing now, and will continue to see for a while.
Our financial system uses a ton of new technology, but the basic structure of the banking system goes back to the Medici era in the 1400's. In the coming years, we will transition into some financial system more in tune with today's technology, and our social habits based on how we all use today's tech. But in the meantime, it's another area of lots of change and chaos.
My geeky side looks at things very long term, and there are cycles and trends that can help us figure out where things in society are headed. This is stuff I geek out on, and have been reading and learning about for over 30 years now. That gives me a much different perspective on what's happening now, and where our world is headed, then most people.
So those are my main names for the chaotic period we are in as a society. I have a 20 chapter book/blog thing called Welcome to Dystopia: The Future is Now, written between October 2019 and May 2020, that goes much deeper into these ideas, as well as separate blog posts.
For more info on Alvin and Heidi Toffler's concept of The Third Wave, check out this interview, from 2007. Alvin Toffler died in 2016, after writing and speaking about the future for over 35 years.
P.R. Sarkar's Law of Social Cycle is from India, and I heard about it from the book The Great Depression of 1990, by Ravi Batra. He basically says that there are 4 mentalities in a society. The Intellectuals, The Acquisitors (landlords. large business owners), the Laborers, and the Warriors. At any given time, one mentality dominates and shapes a society, usually for decades, often hundreds of years. According to Batra's analysis of the U.S., using Sarkar's concept, we are in a period at the end of the Acquisitor Age (businessman's mentality is leading to mass corruption, and lower living standards for workers), when the Laborers rise up in several populist waves of revolt, and eventually the Warrior mentality takes over. It's really complex, You can find the basic info here.
I also am a huge fan of Richard Florida's concept of The Creative Class, which I believe explains much of the change in technology, the clustering of tech businesses in a few areas, and the changing world of work in general.
When I write about economic stuff, or things I see happening in coming months or years, I'm drawing mostly on these concepts and ideas, to give me a sort of road map of where society is headed.
I first saw this band play live a year or so after this local TV show performance. Most of the hundreds of millions of people who've heard their music since would be hard pressed to identify them from from this video if their name wasn't there.
People of all ages and all walks of life have an urge to create something. They start creating. Our school system, designed 130 years ago to turn kids into compliant factory workers, stamps the creative urge out of most people. But not all. Some continue to create, despite the pain and oppression thrown at them from the larger world. These people usually move out of their oppressive towns and cities and into creative scenes formed earlier by similar people, usually in large cities.
These little groups of people try new things, bounce ideas off each other, and progress in their crafts. Ideas are their commodities, and these people create our new pictures, paintings, music, sculptures, buildings, technology, software, games, businesses, sports, pastimes, and a lot of new products. In today's constantly changing world, these people create the new industries and the new jobs.
Everyone has seen this happen time after time, especially in the high tech world. Yet, most civic leaders still spend much of their time oppressing their creative people, and propping up the last vestiges of the Industrial Age that haven't collapsed yet. In doing so, the people running towns, cities, states, and much of the federal government are sewing the seeds of their own financial ruin.
A handful of large cities comprise most of the economy of the United States, and are literally carrying the rest of the country financially. Most of our country is struggling. Even worse, they don't want to admit they're struggling.
The economic future of EVERY small village, town, city, region or state is in the IDEAS in the heads of the people in that region. Civic leaders can't FORCE creative scenes into existence. But they CAN enable, support, and nurture the CREATIVE SCENES they have, and help those people rebuild the cultural and economic future of their region. If they don't, the MOST CREATIVE PEOPLE in their areas will move to the biggest cities where they can live and work with like-minded people.
No creative scenes, no economic future for your town, city region, or state. It's as simple as that these days. Do you want your region to have future or not?
My work in this world these days is to help people, find, create, build, and nurture their Creative Scenes. Why are you here?
The band above has sold over 39 million albums since that video was shot. I know for a fact that has helped the city where they lived most of that time. I used to live there, too.
