Let's Raise a Glass of Tears to the Future

---

Lately I've found myself pondering the question; what makes a man a man? The curiosity was most likely prompted by the fact that I have been brought to tears more times in the past six months than in the thirty years prior. Society would certainly have me - and you - believe that this means I'm not a real man, but an honest self-analysis has revealed otherwise.

I do not weep because I've yet to evolve from a boy to a man. I do so because to step into one's manhood and accept the responsibility that comes with it, is to realise just how far short of fulfilling those responsibilities we have fallen, and also to become aware of the suffering others will experience because we have not done all that we know ourselves to be capable of.

Empathy and foresight makes for quite the cocktail, but clearly one that was intended for a better world than ours. I say this because it is the loneliness that is to be felt by beings who do not yet exist that is the source of my recent sadness. I've felt what life feels like for a human being living half a century in the future, and I recognize that their pain is our fault.

Sure, many might suggest that I am simply paranoid, and that I'm imagining a dystopian future that has never been intended, and will never come to pass. But to any who think that, I would suggest that you simply take an honest and diligent look at the last couple of decades.

You needn't be a conspiracy theorist to observe the effects that technology has had on humans. We rely on our phones or computers to remember things for us now, and our memories suffer because of it. Predictive algorithms have allowed us to block out the things we disagree with, and now people cannot endure a conversation with someone who holds a differing opinion without getting emotionally distressed. We've even allowed the simplicity of dating apps such as tinder to negate the need for us to do any of the hard work ourselves, and so now half the men out there can't even strike up a conversation with a woman without breaking into a sweat. The "gamifcation" of every new piece of technology doesn't help either.

Every step towards technology has proven to be an equally measured step away from one another. So how can we deny any longer what blockchain technology will do to us? What will happen when we embrace and integrate into society a technology that negates the very necessity for us to establish a rapport with one another? When we don't need trust anymore, why would we seek to build it? The obvious answer is; the overwhelming majority of us won't.

You might think that such trust between humans would develop as a natural byproduct of participating in a community, but you'd be making the mistake of thinking that the communities of the future will look anything like the communities of today. The parameters that define a community are changing very quickly. Steemit's answer to this ought to show us that in the future, our people won't be those who live in close proximity to us. Our sense of community will survive only within the bounds of the internet - a people truly divided.

The internet was once utilised as a tool for informing oneself, so that they might then walk out into the world knowing a little more, and being a little more than they had been beforehand. Now, however, reality is used as a tool for one to gather content they can share when they step into the digital world, so that they might get more followers, earn more money, or get more likes from their "friends." Stranger danger is evolving into nefarious neighbors as vigilante paedophile hunters uncover and expose all the sick bastards who live just around the corner from us. Even the average idiot is now learning not to trust the police finally, so who will our descendants have to turn to after a few more decades of technology?

For one living in the future, their neighbours are going to be terrorists, rapists, or murderers. Those lonely bastards are going to be so disconnected from one another, that if the internet were to go off and severe their only connection to community - even for a few minutes - a good portion of them would be dead by their own hand by the time it was working again.

Perhaps you think I am joking, but I am certainly not. I know they shall feel this, because I have felt it too. But they shall feel it only if we allow such a world to exist. It's easy for us to say to ourselves that we're not at fault, because we haven't actively sought to construct such a future for them - but that'd be bullshit. What makes a man a man - and what makes an adult an adult - is understanding and accepting that the responsibility does indeed lie at our feet.

It's time to stop being so polite. We teach our children to respect their elders, even though one look around reveals the very simple truth that our elders did not do enough. Perhaps we can buy ourselves some escape from self-judgement by telling ourselves they did everything they could, because then when we don't do enough, we can just pretend to ourselves that we also did "what we could." Again though, this is bullshit. I know how powerful each and every one of us can be. If we want a different future for ourselves and our descendants, it is not beyond our power to seize it. I once believed that it was greed and envy that prevented us from putting this septic society out of its misery. Now I realise that it's just fear of failure.

These cunts have somehow managed to convince you that you're weak. But if you were so weak, why would they need to control you with money, drugs, insecurity, propaganda, water, food, weather, WIFI and a million other things? Why do you think they need to assault your mind and your body with so many creative types of poisons? The answer should be evident.

We are far more powerful than we could ever come to understand or to realise.

I cry because I see us running full speed towards a world I know not to be inevitable. I suffer because I have to, and because I could never draw the inspiration I need to do what I must do, without first acknowledging the potential for suffering begotten by my repeated inaction.

Perhaps we should all cry for the worst possible future we're capable of imagining. But let us hold a glass under our cheeks while we shed a tear for the billions we've tried so hard to forget, and let us toast to the alternative future that only we possess the power to create.

Then let's create it.