Covid acted as a wedge driver. Forcing digital age trends together and bringing about tectonic-like societal change. And in the process revealed the conflict that exists within a society shifting from one age to another. That is – a conflict between the people that see, understand, and embrace change and those that reject it.
This ongoing pandemic is an outlier type event.
It’s an accelerant.
Forcing ordinarily slow moving societal changes to happen simultaneously. The outcomes seem extreme because many of us were living in blissful ignorance of what was taking place under the surface of society.
The sad truth of this emerging conflict is that no one can tell you that the world is changing. You have to see it for yourself. But rest assured, we are living through an accelerating digital transformation. And this change has profound consequences for our lives.
Yet many people are unable to see the changes and as a result, they miscalculate how they manage their lives.
This denial began changing on a massive scale because of the pandemic. Covid is the red pill of the digital age. Reformatting our reality to emphasize how deeply we’ve entered the digital age.
And Covid policies also forced an unsettling realization that the rapid digital transformation that occurred at the apex of the pandemic cannot be rolled back.
It’s what caused of the “Great Resignation“, the mass resignations caused when people were asked to return to policies of the previous age. Triggering a realization that we are unable to go back to blissful ignorance once we’ve seen the digital transformation.
Let me show you why COVID-19 has sped up society’s irreversible transition to the digital age. And why this accelerated transition matters to you.
Status Quo & Inertia Resist Uncertain Futures
Lets start with some background context.
We are moving from an age of mass production and consumerism to one of niche, personalized, and fragmented culture. Moving from an age with a tight range of choices to a time of infinite ranges of choice. And from a time of 3 tv-channel mono-culture – to a time of tribal neo-medievalism.
But the transition from a range bound lifestyle to infinite optionality has been slow and chaotic.
Changes happened piecemeal over multiple decades. Dial up internet, mobile phones, smartphones, on-demand services, democratization of the means of producing and distributing information assets. These changes and their cultural adaptations took many years.
Impacts were gradual and required considerable time to achieve mass adoption. And because they took so much time to diffuse through society, gradual progress lulled us into a sense that life goes on as it always has.
Which makes understanding that the digital transformation is here, that it’s accelerating, and that it’s reshaping society a tough pill for many to swallow. It signals that our future is uncertain and people with something to lose are often fearful of uncertainty and change. They have an incentive for things to stay the same.
Change in this capacity, is an inconvenient and undesired reality. It becomes easier to overlook the subtle changes than to acknowledge and adapt.
In a sense, the nature of our reality is a prisoner to our comforts and circumstances. Our comfortable lives create a state of inertia. We become addicted to the predictability of life and the comfort it provides. And predictability creates a blind spot for one of the most universal truths of the universe. Change and evolution are inevitable.
Once you’ve awakened to reality of inevitable change you learn its a truth you cannot un-see.
COVID is the Redpill That Broke Our False Reality
And societal change is accelerating. Faster than ever before.
Over the past 10 years we had the mobile smartphone revolution, it brought us on-demand services, constant digital connectivity, and social networking. Simultaneously, we were introduced to crypto assets and decentralized digital infrastructure. And quietly in the backdrop and at a small scale, we had remote work and gig style economies begin to form.
But these changes didn’t impact overall societal makeup immediately. Inertia kept life progressing as it always has. These changes seemed like fads and trends at the periphery that supported the late industrial society and did not signal the reshaping of the world.
And yet, they were quietly working in concert, under the radar, reshaping society.
That is until COVID happened.
Forcing us to quickly reshape how we live and interact with one another.
Covid brought unprecedented lockdowns and forced solitude. But this lockdown policy was in fact the primary accelerant to the digital transformation. In an effort to maintain continuity of society and a sense of normalcy, we injected digital tools to maintain the status quo.
Large portions of the population adopted remote work. Zoom video chats brought us digitally face to face. Immersive digital gaming environments saw record users. And new digital first business models like play to earn allowed blue collar labor to transition from physical work to digital work.
Lockdowns took trends from a gradual transition at the fringes of society and dropped the entirety of civilization into the deep end of the digital age. And for many people, this was an awakening to the possibilities that the digital age has to offer.
Mainly – that we don’t have to go back to the lifestyles of what was. Instead, we can explore what is to come.
Blue Pill Reactionaries – “Getting Back to Normal” & “Nature is Healing”
But despite the radical awakening many experienced – there are many people that resist this digital transformation.
These people are metaphorically speaking – blue pilled.
Unable to process the transformation underway. Content to embrace the status quo. Characterized by their ignorance of the stagnation of institutions and their subservience to the system of the late industrial age.
This group experiences anger and resentment at the ground shifting under their feet. Seeking any narratives that perpetuate the cycle of conformity, of what was the status quo. Seeking to punish agents of change.
They consistently rationalize societal problems away using excuses of ages gone by.
One example: “we need to go back to the office to maintain productivity”. Translation – we have expensive office space and our management team only understands in-person styles of control.
“Building back better”, “getting back to normal”, and “nature is healing” are all other examples of the blue pilled sayings of our time. A desire to get back to blissful ignorance. A need to return to the familiar routine. The people that say these things are the incumbents of the systemic machine of the previous age. The drones that have been programed to operate on an obsolete system.
The Digital Transformation is A Rebellion of Sorts
The late industrial age system will resist progress and generate an immune response to change. Resisting through inertia, leveraging fear of uncertainty to combat the digital age systems of technological progress.
The people that still embrace the ways and means of the industrial age will resist digital change. They are rule followers. Most are still so ingrained with the ideologies of the passing age that they are unable to process what comes next.
And in truth, most people are still wedded to the late industrial age. Only through first hand experience of the new digital age reality can they alter their perceptions.
And these digital age, reality bending events seem to have happened with greater frequency during the worst of COVID. Narrative breakdowns, kayfabe violations, agitprop, and transparent retconning created a genuine awakening throughout the world. A growing sense of unhappiness at the status quo became juxtaposed with an increasing prevalence of digital technologies.
This group of people waking up to our changing times is still small. They are Sovereign Individuals and agents of change. They embrace the digital awakening.
That makes the emerging Sovereign Individual community somewhat of a ragtag band of rebels and rule breakers. And Covid has accelerated their awakening, growing the ranks of people in pursuit of digital age lifestyles.
So What Does it All Mean For You?
The red pilled and blue pilled groups will find themselves increasingly at odds on policy choices. When it happens, it will happen across a variety of industries and sectors of society. Remote work, crypto, what constitutes fake and cancellable news and so on. It will become a battle of policies and choices supporting old ways of thinking versus new ways of thinking.
It’s important to analyze these policy arguments to find the thread of digital transformation. Where does the choice fall within the changing digital narrative? How might it impact the digital transformation?
As you go through life and find yourself at odds with a blue pilled person resist the urge to argue with them logically. Most arguments to retain the ways of an age gone by are built on a foundation of emotion. A fear of change and uncertainty. Logical arguments will only push these people to an irrational inability to reason.
It’s important to remember that change is inevitable and that we can only experience this changing reality for ourselves. While you cannot convince people before they’re ready to be convinced, you can prepare for society’s transition. Seek out digital age opportunities, advocate for pro digital policies, and learn skills of the digital age.
Take the red pill, jump doing the rabbit hole, and join the rebellion to promote a digital age reality.
I’m tracking a new narrative that makes sense of society’s shift to the Digital Age. The goal: documenting how to becoming a Sovereign Individual. Giving you the facts and tools to successfully navigate digital life. I cover topics you can’t fully appreciate because you’re in the thick of it.
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