Is Techno-Optimism a Mental Illness?

“The vessel, though her masts be firm, beneath her copper bears a worm.”- Henry David Thoreau

American society doesn’t seem to have any shortage of techno-optimists and cheerleaders for the cult of infinite progress. You can pick your brand. There are the bitcoin bros, who want to create an even more abstract system of money than the one based on the abstraction of paper dollars and coins. There are the blood doping vamps who think they can beat death by taking the life force of the young. There are the nuclear enthusiasts who keep waiting for a breakthrough in fusion, but they are still waiting. There are the AI worshippers who think that regurgitated machine language is some kind of oracle to which they should bow down, and cast off their own human creativity. The problem isn’t their hope for a better future for themselves and their kids. That’s understandable. It’s not a popular view to take that the future won’t be better for yourself or your kids. The problem is the seemingly permanent state of glee over the very modest “accelerations” in a rather limited suite of technologies, and a devotional sincerity to overlooking the downsides of their widespread adoption.

Don’t get me wrong. I believe in the American experiment and I am excited about the possibilities of our future. But that doesn’t mean I can’t cast doubt on the inherited notion of infinite progress inculcated by our society over decades. It doesn’t mean I can’t prepare for a looming second great depression. It doesn’t mean I turn a blind eye to the multiple climate change amplified natural disasters that leave communities devastated. Some never recover from those. It doesn’t mean I have to believe that a finite fossil fuel resource is somehow infinite just because we want it to be. I guess that makes me a doomer.

The techno-optimists don’t like to see the good that can come from embracing an outlook, that yes, every person, and every nation, and every civilization, has a life span of birth, growth, and decline. Looking around America right now, from my home in the Midwest rust belt, its hard not to see signs of decline all around me. There is still a lot of good stuff happening too, but it’s patched over failing infrastructure, declining mental health, and people glued to the technology that is somehow supposed to be their digital savior. Looking at these things, and seeing them for what they are, I guess that makes me a doomer.

​Here in the Ohio valley I’ve also visited a few locations known for their scary nuclear antics. Mound Laboratories in Miamisburg. Fernald. Jefferson Proving Ground. 

​Yet, despite the direct effects on the people in the area where I live (cancer, cancer, cancer), I get called a doomer if I don’t go rah-rah-rah for nuclear energy. The track record for nuclear isn’t very good. Just ask Sun Ra. 

Furthermore, nuclear energy has always existed hand in hand with the nuclear weapons industry. The one supports the other. Personally, I just don’t happen to be a fan of either.

That said, I actually don’t believe a nuclear apocalypse is that likely, at least not on the scale seen in doomer movies and read about in doomer books. Like the devastation left behind in Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana there will be patches and places destroyed by nuclear power or weapons, but I don’t think Armageddon via nuclear weapons is likely to occur on a large scale. But whole areas might be destroyed, and that is sad to think about.  

Opting out of new technologies remains an option. Walking away from the notion that not everything is going to get better and better is a viable choice in face of the evidence at hand. I was born in 1979 and the standard of living has gotten lower and lower since that time.My personal wage at the place where I work has gone up, but so has the stagflation, meaning the ability I have to provide for my family is not as strong as it was for the boomers when they made the same wage I do, and who continue to hold onto a greater share of wealth. The oligarchy is also a gerontocracy, in case you hadn’t noticed.

Consider these prices: "Gasoline: In 1970, the price of a gallon of gasoline was 36 cents. Today, it averages around $3.65 per gallon—a nearly 917% increase.

New Car: A new car in 1970 cost around $3,500. Today, the price of a new car is approximately $47,000, a 1,243% increase.

Average Home: In 1970, the median home price was $23,000. In 2023, the typical home costs around $413,800—a staggering 1,700% increase.

Loaf of Bread: In 1970, a loaf of bread cost just 25 cents. Today, it costs about $2.50, reflecting a 900% increase.

Movie Ticket: The cost of a movie ticket was $1.55 in 1970. Now, it costs around $12.00—an increase of roughly 673%.

Postage Stamp: In 1970, a stamp cost just 6 cents, whereas today, it’s 66 cents—an increase of 1,000%."

That said, it does not mean I give up on doing good work for my employer, on continuing to do my own personal work, on continuing to be there for my family and friends, and make a go of things in the world. I volunteer with my ham radio club. I do special projects for the library. I continue to write and talk about all the great music coming out in the world, much of it, paradoxically, electronic! I babysit my grandkids. I visit my elders. Yet, I think that the crises around us will continue to unfold as we go down the staircase of decline. It’s a slow staircase and ragged. Gibson noted the future isn’t distributed evenly. He was right, but it’s the deindustrialized future, one where the internet might be gone in ten or fifteen or more years. Except as a plaything for the rich inside a gated community, and then limited again to the military-industrial complex, where it originated from in the first place. 

Doomers still create and make things. They just might not be advertising what they are making or doing. The things they make might just be for themselves, their families and friends. They might not be posted about online because many of them are off-grid. So in one sense they don’t exist for a lot of people. But a lot of good things can be made that are never intended for public consumption.

Other so called doomers are making businesses. Witness The Anarchist Workbench. Witness County Highway making a real newspaper when digital reading was supposed to be the gateway to the future.  Things can be done now to improve the quality of life in a declining civilization with less energy stuff and stimulation. Doing things about it is a counterweight against depression and acedia.

At the same time the techno-optimists continue to prognosticate on things that have never panned out. Somehow, though, they are always just around the corner. A few big ones include:

-nuclear fusion
-fully automated luxury capitalism-communism
-uploading ourselves into the cloud
-flying cars
-cities on the moon / mars

Everyone can look to the Soviet Union and see that it collapsed as then organized in 1991. Dmitry Orlov was there to witness it. The same has happened to other countries. The fact that it is a real possibility of happening here, in some manner is real. 

Will all technology go away? No. There is good reason to believe we can keep some limited technology going. The limit is the key though. What will the earth support and for how many people?

Techno-optimists in a way can be seen as mentally ill. They are mere consumers, waiting for the next thing to come down the pike and be fed to them, rather than learning what they can do to live when the power goes out, or some unexpected black swan wipes out their stock portfolio.

Where are all the people who told me they would become millionaires by investing in crypto? They are still working like everyone else, and not living a life of fully automated luxury. Yet that doesn't mean alternate forms of curreny aren't worth thinking deeply about, working on, and implementing. Whatever path there are no quick fixes. 

Techno-optimists get caught up in marketing hype, the belief that someone will do or discover something that will allow them to live inside the fantasy that things can just get better and better and better forever. So far, I'd say, human nature stays consistent across the millennia, no matter what technology we have, and that the technology we have now has made it easier to allow the worser demons of our conscience too much leeway. They may say doomers are the ones on a downward spiral. Maybe I listened to too much Trent Reznor in our teenage years. They like to think they are in a virtuous cycle where every experience can be optimized. Reality hacked.

Here in America, one of the great things we have going for us is our ability to disagree, to do our own thing, and despite other people not jiving with a particular worldview, our freedoms allow us to have that view and do what we can to live it out. In many ways America is a third world nation, and we are still coming to grips with our identity as such. We only climbed out of the backwater of the world thanks to the reordering of empire that occurred following World War II. Now as it schizophrenically disintegrates we are struggling from the stress of multiple personality disorder. Yet the paradox is that our dissensus and disagreement actually can lead to our resilience. It's part of what makes this countries experiment worth continuing. We are allowed to choose our own reality tunnel. And there are a plethora to choose from.

The view from one tunnel frequently contradicts the view from another. It can be helpful to try and see from another persons point of view. But the doomer reality tunnel might have something to offer the techno-optimists. We can help them zoom out to see that every nation, every age, has a natural life span. Western industrial civilization is going further into its dotage. What we do about that is up to us. But there is much to be done and save and passed on that is good from the life it has lived, saving what works for whatever societies come next.

In the meantime go outside and take a hike in the woods or do some forest bathing. Hang out with your loved ones. There is still so much worth doing.

.:. .:. .:.

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