Are the lifeboats here?
Hurry! Drugs, tech, breath work, save us!
It's not difficult to find information about the kinds of existential threats we're facing. Climate change, nuclear war, AI, the end of democracy, you know the spiel. Reading the news makes it seem like humanity has hit the proverbial iceberg and we're taking on water, rapidly.
If we can agree that we're in deep shit as a society, then one of the best questions we can ask is: "What else is true?"
For the past few months, I've been working at a new Southern-themed brunch restaurant here in Salt Lake. I was looking for an off-screen job that would give me some income and structure. So far, what I've found is a renewed respect for service industry workers and an unexpected highlight in the form of the dish pit. While I don't particularly enjoy coming in contact with bleach or the back-splash of food bits from an endless supply of cutlery and cookware, what I'm loving are the podcasts.
The tactile nature of dishwashing puts me in a perfect headspace for absorbing complex information. I've been fascinated, thrilled, baffled, and inspired by what I've been learning. What follows is an effort to connect some dots, what-ifs, and maybes.
If we are on the Titanic, then maybe GLP-1s, AI agents, and a steadily building drumbeat towards Game B are some pretty kick-ass lifeboats.
In a recent Plain English podcast, our boy Derek Thompson asks if GLP-1s are "the greatest medical breakthrough of the 21st century." He dives into a conversation with researcher Ziyad Al-Aly about how, beyond helping people lose massive amounts of weight, GLP-1s have been shown to be effective across an incredible spectrum of ailments. But the bit that sparks most of my curiosity is the psychological aspect of GLP-1s. It's about so much more than junk food. It seems they work to curb our desire to consume quick-hit substances more broadly- you know, the stuff that we as a society are addicted to. If over-consumption is a symptom at the root of our meta-crisis, and I think it's pretty clear that it is, this is a drug that is only just beginning to have an impact on our culture. And holy shit, what if it was profoundly positive as it relates to our collective health and wellbeing?
But then there's the techno-optimist side of AI. One of the most prolific figures in Silicon Valley, Reid Hoffman, talks about AI as 'amplification intelligence.' Basically, AI hasn't even really started to flex. In the next few years, Hoffman predicts that we'll have widespread access to personalized AI agents, or "co-pilots." Your imagination is the limit as to what these things will do for us. One of the key ways it seems like these AI agents can help us is in making better decisions. Where before we were mostly guided by our ego’s passing desires for short-term gains and avoidance of discomfort, AI is going to help us act with much more tact. When we start to see the tangible benefits from better decision making, use of these technologies will spread from early adopters to the bell curve faster than the smartphone. This is going to change the human game.
Finally, we have things like the second renaissance: emergent ecosystems born of the meta-crisis. A resurgence of ancient wisdom and practices. The normalization of things like mindfulness meditation, ritual, soul, therapy, and psychedelic-aided healing. These tools can act as potent glue as we seek meaning amidst the chaos.
Whether or not any of these ideas hold water, something I feel sure about is that spending deep time together in nature, away from screens, is a powerful antidote to the problems we face. Finding our way through the icebergs isn't easy. Obstacles are everywhere. But when we sense into what else is happening, we find that patterns, clues, and opportunities are too.
