the disgruntled democrat
Exposing the cultural myths underlying our political economy
Monday, October 13, 2025
Thursday, October 2, 2025
From the Great Acceleration to the Great Enshitification and Beyond: Part Two
Part Two: Missed Opportunities, the Great Enshitification, the Consequences for the Young, and the Age of Flux
The
Missed Moment
The end of
the Cold War in 1989 was supposed to open a new chapter. With the fall of the
Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union, Americans were told that
history itself had ended—that liberal democracy and free markets had triumphed
once and for all. For a brief moment, it seemed as if the United States might
redirect the vast resources once devoted to military competition into a “peace
dividend”: rebuilding infrastructure, expanding education, addressing poverty,
and perhaps even taking early action on the environment.
That moment
never came.
Instead, the
1990s became a decade of missed opportunities. The neoliberal consensus, now
bipartisan, turned away from social investment and doubled down on
globalization, deregulation, and the technological boom. Bill Clinton, elected
on the promise of a new kind of Democrat, embraced free trade, loosened
financial rules, and celebrated the market as the engine of progress. For
ordinary Americans, the message was clear: government would no longer guarantee
security or prosperity—it was up to the individual to adapt, hustle, and
compete.
Meanwhile,
the scientific evidence on climate change was already mounting. By 1988, NASA’s
James Hansen had testified before Congress that global warming was underway.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was established the same
year. The link between fossil fuel combustion and rising greenhouse gases was
no longer speculative; it was measurable, observable, and widely understood
among scientists. Yet the political will to act never materialized. The United
States signed but never ratified the Kyoto Protocol. Fossil fuel interests,
well-funded and politically connected, sowed doubt and confusion, successfully
delaying action at the very moment when intervention could have altered the
trajectory.
Culturally,
too, the 1990s revealed a shift. The decade was suffused with optimism about
the digital future—Silicon Valley promised a frictionless world of connection
and innovation. But beneath the hype, the social fabric was fraying. The
dot-com bubble inflated a speculative economy, while traditional industries
continued to wither. Communities built on manufacturing hollowed out, replaced
by service jobs that paid less and offered fewer protections. For many young
people entering adulthood, the promise of upward mobility felt increasingly
fragile.
The missed
moment was not only about economics or climate—it was about governance itself.
The flaws in America’s political system became harder to ignore. The Electoral
College allowed a president to lose the popular vote and still win the White
House. Senate representation gave disproportionate power to smaller, rural
states. And campaign finance—already awash in corporate influence—tightened its
grip. Ordinary citizens, seeing their voices diluted, began to disengage,
deepening a cycle of political alienation.
Then there
was the violence. School shootings, once unthinkable, became part of the
national landscape. Columbine in 1999 shocked the country, but instead of
catalyzing meaningful reform, it became the grim template for a recurring
nightmare. Sandy Hook would follow in 2012, and countless other tragedies in
between. Each time, the response was paralysis—thoughts and prayers instead of
legislation. The inability to address such a glaring public safety crisis
revealed a government increasingly incapable of acting on behalf of its
citizens, even in the face of horror.
Looking
back, the 1990s and early 2000s were a hinge point. The United States had the
wealth, the technology, and the global standing to redirect its trajectory—to
build a more sustainable economy, strengthen its social fabric, and restore
faith in democratic governance. Instead, the opportunity slipped away. Growth
was celebrated, but inequality widened. Climate warnings were heard but
ignored. Governance flaws were visible, but unaddressed.
This was the
missed moment: the chance to pivot from acceleration to sustainability, from
neoliberalism to renewal. Instead, America doubled down on a system already
beginning to show signs of strain. The consequences of that inaction would not
be felt immediately, but when they arrived, they would fall hardest on the
generations who had no say in squandering the opportunity.
The Great
Enshitification
The internet
was once hailed as humanity’s new frontier, a digital commons where knowledge
would flow freely and barriers of geography, class, and gatekeeping would fall
away. In the 1990s and early 2000s, there was a real sense of possibility:
search engines that promised to catalog the world’s information, forums that
connected strangers across continents, platforms that allowed anyone with a
modem to publish, share, and participate. For a generation, this was
intoxicating—the promise of democracy reborn in the ether of cyberspace.
But what
began as liberation has hardened into enclosure. The open, decentralized
internet has steadily given way to walled gardens controlled by a handful of
corporations whose business model depends not on empowerment, but on capture.
This transformation, which writer Cory Doctorow has memorably dubbed
“enshitification,” follows a familiar trajectory: platforms start out good to
lure users, then become exploitative to serve advertisers, and finally degrade
outright as monopolies extract value from everyone—users, workers,
creators—until little remains but a hollowed-out husk.
Social media
embodies this descent most clearly. What began as a way to connect with friends
or share updates became, by the 2010s, a system optimized to keep eyes glued to
screens. Algorithms were tuned not for truth, not for depth, but for
engagement—which often meant outrage, misinformation, or spectacle. Advertising
dollars rewarded the most inflammatory content, while meaningful discourse was
buried. For creators, the platforms promised visibility but delivered
precarity: one tweak of the algorithm, and entire livelihoods vanished.
E-commerce
followed a similar path. Amazon, once lauded for its convenience and selection,
consolidated power through predatory pricing, relentless surveillance of
sellers, and exploitative labor practices. Independent businesses were
absorbed, crushed, or made dependent on a platform that could change the rules
at will. Consumers enjoyed convenience, but at the cost of diminished choice,
lower quality, and a system where the profits accrued not to communities but to
a centralized behemoth.
Even the
search engines that once seemed like the great liberators have been corroded.
Where once search results offered pathways into the web’s vast archives, they
now increasingly prioritize paid placements, SEO-gamed content mills, and the
platforms’ own properties. The open web survives, but as a shadow of itself,
buried under a layer of corporate sludge. The promise of discovery has given
way to a kind of digital claustrophobia.
The deeper
cost of enshitification, however, is not technical—it is civic and
psychological. The internet that might have expanded our collective imagination
has instead narrowed it, filtering experience through metrics of virality and
monetization. It has eroded trust, blurred the line between fact and fiction,
and rewarded polarization over consensus. Worse, it has left us dependent on
systems we do not control. As ordinary users, we have little recourse when
platforms implode or pivot. Our digital lives—our communications, archives,
creative work—are hostage to the whims of executives and the imperatives of
quarterly earnings reports.
This was not
inevitable. Different choices in regulation, ownership, and design could have
fostered a more democratic digital sphere. But as with earlier moments in
America’s trajectory, profit was prioritized over stewardship. The internet was
not nurtured as a public good; it was strip-mined as a private asset. And so
the cycle repeated: early abundance followed by consolidation, enclosure, and
extraction.
By the
2020s, the pattern had become impossible to ignore. What once felt like
progress now felt like decay—an acceleration into diminishing returns. The
promise of the digital frontier had curdled into a system where everything
worked worse, cost more, and left its users more isolated, surveilled, and
exhausted.
The great
enshitification is not only a story about technology. It is a parable of late
capitalism itself: how systems built on the logic of endless growth inevitably
turn parasitic, consuming the very resources that gave them life. The missed
moment of the 1990s meant that by the time these dynamics were clear, the
infrastructure of daily life—from communication to commerce to
entertainment—was already entangled in systems designed for extraction.
In that
sense, enshitification is less an aberration than a symptom: a mirror
reflecting the deeper exhaustion of the American project.
The
Consequences for the Young
If the Great
Acceleration promised a future of rising tides, and the Neoliberal Turn
recalibrated that promise toward individual risk, the Great Enshitification has
made clear that the deck is stacked against most young people today. The
rewards of society’s labor and innovation, once broadly shared, are now
increasingly concentrated at the top. For the generations coming of age in the
2000s and 2010s, the American Dream is no longer a horizon toward which they
can steer—it is a mirage whose shape constantly shifts.
Economic
precarity defines much of their experience. Student debt has become a
millstone: the promise of higher education as a pathway to prosperity is now
undermined by loans that often exceed the starting salaries of graduates.
Housing, once attainable in a postwar boom fueled by unions and a growing
middle class, is now prohibitively expensive in cities where jobs cluster.
Renting consumes ever-larger portions of income, while homeownership feels out
of reach except for those who inherit wealth. Jobs themselves are unstable,
increasingly automated, and often offer no benefits, leaving young people
juggling gig work, temporary positions, and the perpetual fear of displacement
by technology.
Health and
well-being have also deteriorated. Obesity, diabetes, anxiety, depression, and
other chronic conditions reflect both lifestyle and systemic factors:
ultra-processed food, sedentary work, and an environment saturated with
stressors. Mental health crises have become normalized, yet support remains
inadequate. For many, the intersection of financial insecurity and societal
neglect cultivates a constant low-level anxiety, a sense that the future is
something to survive rather than shape.
Culturally,
the erosion of trust extends to institutions that once promised guidance and
protection. Politics feels distant, skewed by money, structural inequalities,
and procedural quirks—from the Electoral College to Senate
malapportionment—that amplify the voice of the few over the many. Young people
witness elections decided by the narrowest margins or by systemic quirks that
ignore the popular vote. Decisions about the environment, healthcare, and
social welfare are dominated by lobbying and campaign finance, leaving ordinary
citizens to absorb the consequences. The sense of agency, once foundational to
civic engagement, is undermined.
Social life,
too, bears the scars of historical choices. The dispersal of families in the
postwar suburban migration, combined with the dissolution of stable community
networks, has produced isolation. Loneliness is pervasive, compounded by
digital engagement that connects superficially while amplifying comparison,
envy, and disconnection. School shootings and mass violence reinforce the sense
of vulnerability and powerlessness, while the failure of policy interventions
signals that safety is contingent on wealth or luck rather than collective
protection.
All of this
shapes a worldview that is fundamentally different from that of the postwar
generation. Whereas the youth of the 1960s and 1970s believed in their capacity
to change the world, today’s young adults and teenagers are more likely to aim
for survival, stability, and incremental gains. Their horizon is constrained by
debt, climate anxiety, and the fallout of policy choices they did not make.
Dreaming big is difficult when the scaffolding of opportunity has been removed.
And yet,
even amid these challenges, the human capacity for adaptation persists.
Networks of activism, mutual aid, and technological savvy show that young
people are not entirely passive recipients of systemic failure. They are
learning to navigate, hack, and sometimes resist the structures that constrain
them. But the weight of history—of missed opportunities, neoliberal policy, and
societal erosion—presses down relentlessly, shaping a generation whose
expectations are measured not in the grandeur of achievement, but in the
mitigation of harm.
In short,
the consequences of the previous decades—the Postwar Dream deferred, the
acceleration unchecked, the neoliberal turn embraced, the missed moment
unheeded, and the enshitification realized—land disproportionately on those
least responsible for creating the system. The young inherit not a dream, but a
landscape defined by constraint, compromise, and crisis management.
The Age
of Flux
We live now
in an era that defies simple description: an Age of Flux in which the
foundations of society, economy, and environment are all in motion, often at
once. The forces unleashed by the Great Acceleration, the Neoliberal Turn, and
the ensuing enshitification have produced a world in which stability is no
longer the default, and certainty is a fragile illusion.
Economically,
globalization and technological transformation continue to reshape labor
markets at dizzying speed. Automation, artificial intelligence, and platform
economies are replacing and restructuring jobs, often faster than workers can
retrain. Financial systems are increasingly abstract, global, and
interdependent, with shocks propagating rapidly across continents. Economic
inequality, having widened for decades, is now a structural feature of society
rather than a temporary aberration.
Socially and
culturally, the consequences are profound. Trust in institutions—government,
media, education, and corporations—remains eroded. Digital platforms mediate
much of life, shaping perception and discourse while simultaneously enabling
both connection and manipulation. Climate change, resource scarcity, and
biodiversity loss present challenges that are both global and existential,
forcing humans to confront limits that were invisible to the postwar
generation. The youth of today inherit a world in which the future is
uncertain, fluid, and often threatening.
Yet within
flux lies possibility. The very systems that destabilize can also catalyze
adaptation and innovation. Movements for social justice, environmental
stewardship, and participatory governance demonstrate that citizens can reclaim
agency, even in constrained conditions. Digital tools, while imperfect and
often exploitative, also enable unprecedented communication, collaboration, and
mobilization. The challenge—and opportunity—of the Age of Flux is to navigate
complexity while retaining sight of shared purpose.
This age
calls for creative resilience: the capacity to imagine, experiment, and act in
ways that do not rely on the old scaffolding of stable growth, linear progress,
or inherited privilege. It asks us to recognize interdependence rather than
individual ascendancy, to cultivate systems that prioritize stewardship over
extraction, and to balance human aspiration with ecological and societal
limits.
In many
ways, the Age of Flux is a reckoning with history. It is the culmination of the
Postwar Dream’s promise, the Great Acceleration’s momentum, the neoliberal
recalibration of the social contract, the missed opportunities of the 1990s,
and the enshitification of digital and economic systems. It is the world shaped
by choices—collective, political, and technological—that were made over the
last seventy-five years.
But it is
also a world of agency. While the past cannot be rewritten, understanding the
threads that brought us here allows for deliberate intervention, for designing
societies, economies, and technologies that serve broad human and planetary
well-being. The Age of Flux is, paradoxically, both a warning and an
invitation: a warning that the status quo is fragile, and an invitation to
imagine, innovate, and act in ways that renew possibility rather than diminish
it.
Monday, September 29, 2025
From the Great Acceleration to the Great Enshitification and Beyond
Part One: How the Great Acceleration Gave way to
Neoliberalism and Globalization
The Postwar Dream
In 1945, the world exhaled. The devastation of the Second
World War left cities in ruins and millions dead, but it also left a strange
kind of clarity. Out of the rubble, there emerged a vision of a future that
might at last deliver peace and prosperity. In the United States, that
dream took on a distinctive shape: stable jobs, modest but growing wealth, a
single-family home, and the promise of upward mobility for one’s children.
This was not a dream pulled out of thin air. It was built on
the hard-won foundations of the New Deal, which had established the principle
that government bore responsibility for the welfare of its citizens. Combined
with the unprecedented economic engine of the Petrocene — the age of cheap oil
and seemingly limitless energy — the stage was set for what the French would
later call les trente glorieuses, the thirty glorious years of
postwar growth.
For ordinary Americans, this translated into something
tangible. The GI Bill sent millions of veterans to college, giving them access
to professional jobs that had once been closed to their families. Unions were
strong, wages rose steadily, and productivity gains translated into broad
prosperity rather than being siphoned off into the pockets of a few. The fiscal
architecture of the era reinforced this balance: progressive taxation, both on
individuals and corporations, meant that wealth was not allowed to concentrate
in quite the same way it would later.
Culturally, the suburban home became the icon of the dream.
The postwar migration to the suburbs was not simply about shelter; it was a
reshaping of American life. The little house with a yard symbolized stability,
autonomy, and entry into the middle class. Yet it also carried with it
consequences that were not immediately obvious. Suburbanization tied prosperity
to the automobile, embedding car culture into the nation’s DNA. It also
restructured family and community life, dispersing extended families and weakening
older neighborhood ties in favor of nuclear households orbiting around highways
and shopping centers. What looked at the time like a promise fulfilled would
later contribute to the loneliness epidemic of the twenty-first century.
The optimism of the period was palpable. Children born in
the 1950s and 1960s grew up with a sense that each decade would be better than
the one before. They lived in an America that had defeated fascism abroad, was
engaged in building the Great Society at home, and seemed poised to extend its
prosperity indefinitely. It was not naïve to believe in progress; it was the
common sense of the age.
This was the Postwar Dream: a belief that
collective effort, guided by government, powered by industry, and spread across
society, could deliver a good life for all, an underlying promise that
shaped a generation’s imagination of what was possible.
That dream, however, would not remain untouched. The forces
that made it possible — the energy bounty of the Petrocene, the discipline of
progressive taxation, the faith in collective action — would all, in time, be
undermined. What began as a dream would slowly mutate, first into acceleration,
then into something far more precarious.
The Great Acceleration
By the mid-twentieth century, the Postwar Dream had found
its fuel. The vast energy bounty of oil, coal, and natural gas — combined with
technological innovation and an industrial base untouched by the devastation of
war — propelled the United States and much of the Western world into
a period of breathtaking expansion. Historians now call this period the
Great Acceleration: a rapid and near-exponential surge in population,
production, consumption, and environmental impact.
It is difficult to overstate the scale of this
transformation. Global population doubled between 1950 and 1987. Car ownership,
air travel, electricity use, fertilizer application, and plastic production all
shot upward in curves so steep they look almost vertical on a chart. What had
been linear growth in the early twentieth century became exponential in the
decades after the war. For a generation raised on the promise of endless
progress, this looked like vindication of the dream.
In the United States, the suburb became the primary
stage on which the acceleration unfolded. The migration outward from cities was
fueled by cheap mortgages, new highways, and the promise of safety and space.
The suburban landscape demanded cars, and cars demanded oil. Daily life became
inseparable from the rhythms of the internal combustion engine. For a while,
this dependence felt liberating — mobility meant opportunity. But it also
locked American society into a high-energy, high-consumption pattern that would
prove difficult to reverse.
The Great Acceleration was not only material; it was
cultural. The promise of upward mobility became a kind of social contract. The
children of working-class families expected to go further than their parents,
and often did. University enrollments soared. Home ownership expanded. Consumer
culture blossomed with television, advertising, and mass-produced goods that
symbolized status as much as utility. From Tupperware parties to Disneyland
vacations, the markers of modern life were suffused with a sense of novelty and
abundance.
Yet beneath the optimism lay contradictions. The benefits of
acceleration were not evenly distributed. Redlining and housing discrimination
locked Black families out of the suburban boom. Indigenous communities bore the
brunt of resource extraction. And the prosperity of the industrial West was
underwritten by a global system that treated the Global South as a reservoir of
cheap labor and raw materials.
Most ominously, the environmental consequences of
acceleration were already becoming visible. Rachel Carson’s Silent
Spring (1962) sounded the alarm about pesticides and ecological
fragility. Smog choked Los Angeles, rivers caught fire, and oil spills stained
coastlines. Scientists were beginning to warn about the link between fossil
fuel combustion and atmospheric change. Still, for most citizens, the
exhilaration of growth drowned out the early signals of danger.
In retrospect, the Great Acceleration can be seen as a
high-wire act: a dazzling display of human ingenuity, powered by finite
resources, premised on the assumption that the Earth could absorb limitless
extraction and waste. For those who lived through it, it was often thrilling.
But it also set in motion the crises that would later define the twenty-first
century — climate disruption, ecological collapse, and a social order
increasingly unable to deliver on the promises it once made.
The dream had become a race, and the pace of that race left
little room for reflection. The sense of inevitability — that tomorrow would
always be bigger, faster, and better than today — was intoxicating. But it was
also a trap. When the momentum faltered, the consequences would be profound.
The Neoliberal Turn
By the late 1970s, the confidence that fueled the Great
Acceleration was starting to crack. Stagflation — an unfamiliar mix of economic
stagnation and inflation — shook the assumptions of endless growth. The oil
shocks of 1973 and 1979 made it clear that the Petrocene’s bounty was neither
stable nor inexhaustible. Industrial jobs began to vanish as manufacturing
moved offshore. For the first time since the war, a generation looked ahead and
doubted whether they would be better off than their parents.
Into this climate of uncertainty stepped a new ideological
project: neoliberalism. Popularized by figures like Margaret Thatcher in the
United Kingdom and Ronald Reagan in the United States, it promised to
break free from the burdens of regulation, taxation, and government
intervention. The narrative was seductive in its simplicity: government was the
problem, not the solution. If markets were liberated — if taxes on the wealthy
were slashed, unions curbed, industries deregulated, and finance unleashed — then
prosperity would return, and “all boats would rise with the tide.”
What made the neoliberal turn so effective was its emotional
appeal. It harnessed the frustration of citizens who felt left behind and
reframed it as a revolt against bureaucracy, inefficiency, and welfare
“dependency.” It aligned itself with cultural conservatism, draping free-market
ideology in the language of freedom, patriotism, and even religion. In Reagan’s
America, laissez-faire economics became bound up with the idea of American
exceptionalism itself.
The economic sleight of hand was profound. For three
decades, prosperity had been measured by rising GDP, but it had also been
sustained by progressive taxation that ensured wealth was broadly shared.
Neoliberalism rewrote the script: by cutting taxes on corporations and the
rich, it claimed, growth would accelerate and benefits would “trickle down.”
The Laffer Curve, with its laughably simple promise that lower taxes could
increase revenue, became the talisman of the age. The public bought in, fueled
by the dream that anyone — if they worked hard enough, or got lucky enough —
could be rich.
In practice, the effects were corrosive. Wealth concentrated
at the top. Wages stagnated for the middle and working classes. Social programs
were rolled back under the banner of fiscal responsibility. The bipartisan
embrace of free-market policies — from Thatcher and Reagan to Clinton and Blair
— signaled that the social-democratic vision of the postwar era had been
decisively abandoned.
Culturally, the ethos shifted. Where the youth of the 1960s
had believed they could change the world, the prevailing mood by the 1980s and
1990s was “look after number one.” The mantra of Wall Street — greed is
good — escaped into popular consciousness, no longer a cautionary line
from a movie villain but a guiding principle of economic life. The promise of
collective uplift was replaced by a lottery mentality, epitomized by reality
shows, stock-market speculation, and the rise of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs
as cultural icons.
Neoliberalism also reshaped governance itself. Campaign
finance laws were loosened, culminating in the Citizens United decision of
2010, which enshrined the power of money in politics. Electoral institutions
already skewed by the Electoral College and Senate representation became even
more distorted by the influence of corporate lobbying. Increasingly, politics
became something done to people, not for them
— a performance staged by elites with the financial means to shape outcomes.
In retrospect, the neoliberal turn was less a solution to
the crises of the 1970s than a redirection of power. It stabilized inflation,
restored profits, and fueled globalization, but at the cost of deepening
inequality and hollowing out the social contract. The Postwar Dream had been
one of shared prosperity; neoliberalism recast prosperity as an individual
gamble, where the risks and burdens fell on ordinary citizens while the rewards
flowed upward.
The consequences of this turn were not immediately obvious.
For a time, the stock markets boomed, consumer goods became cheaper, and credit
cards extended the illusion of affluence. But underneath, the foundations were
eroding. When the cracks widened, as they inevitably would, the cost would be
borne not by the architects of neoliberalism but by the generations who came
after.
In Part two, I’ll explore the opportunities missed during
the 1990s and the Great Enshitification that ensued.
Thursday, September 25, 2025
Monday, September 22, 2025
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice Syndrome: Why Gen Z Inherits Chaos Instead of Progress
Shadows of the Depression, Glow of Victory
The trauma of the Great Depression shaped an entire
generation. It left behind not just economic scars but a cultural longing for
stability, prosperity, and abundance. When the guns of the Second World War
finally fell silent, it seemed as though the long nightmare had ended. The
postwar boom — what historians now call the Great Acceleration — appeared to
fulfill those desires. Economies surged, suburban housing spread, consumer
goods multiplied, and families who had once struggled to put food on the table now
filled their homes with televisions, refrigerators, and automobiles.
This material abundance became the stage for a new kind of
mass culture. Radio, cinema, and later television created a shared vocabulary
across vast populations. Popular music, Hollywood movies, and televised sports
didn’t just entertain; they offered a sense of belonging and identity.
America’s cultural exports — from jazz to Coca-Cola — spread across the globe,
projecting an image of modernity and freedom that was often more persuasive
than its armies.
This was the golden age of American soft power. At home,
prosperity was celebrated as proof of the system’s success. Abroad, American
cultural influence became a potent weapon in the Cold War, countering the gray
conformity of the Soviet bloc with blue jeans and rock ’n’ roll. And yet
beneath the glow of domestic triumph lurked a stark contrast: America’s foreign
policy record was riddled with failures and contradictions. While it spoke the
language of liberty, it orchestrated coups in Iran and Guatemala, fought to a
stalemate in Korea, and later mired itself in the tragedy of Vietnam. The world
could see the gap between the promise of freedom and the practice of power.
Triumphs of Science, Selective Listening
The same duality played out in the realm of science and
technology. Nothing symbolized the triumph of scientific ingenuity more vividly
than the atomic bomb and the moon landing. One promised security through
destructive power; the other embodied humanity’s highest aspiration, reaching
for the stars. These moments defined the zeitgeist of the postwar period:
science as the ultimate engine of progress and prestige.
But the celebration of science was selective. When
scientific discoveries carried the promise of profit or geopolitical advantage,
they were heralded as milestones. When they warned of restraint, caution, or
long-term risks, they were brushed aside. The dangers of cigarette smoking were
known for decades before they were acknowledged. The early warnings about
greenhouse gas emissions in the 1970s were actively suppressed by the fossil
fuel industry. In each case, science that complicated the narrative of growth
and prosperity was muffled or ignored.
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice Syndrome
This pattern reveals a deeper problem, what might be called
the sorcerer’s apprentice syndrome. Again and again, society has conjured
powerful technologies into being without considering how to contain their
consequences. Nuclear power, chemical agriculture, fossil fuels, plastics, and
later digital platforms were each introduced with little thought to their
potential downsides.
In the fairy tale, (not familiar with the tale? Watch the
three-part video series of Disney’s Fantasia version on YouTube) the apprentice
loses control of the magic he unleashes, only to be saved when the master
returns to set things right. In our world, there is no wise magician to rescue
us. The technologies we release become grand cultural and environmental
experiments, their outcomes unknown, their risks often denied. The
precautionary principle — the simple idea that we should err on the side of
caution when consequences are uncertain — was rarely applied. Instead, we
behaved as if growth itself were justification enough, as if the market would
sort out any problems.
Cycles of Promise and Disappointment
Each wave of innovation began with a rush of promise, only
to end in disillusionment.
The Great Acceleration promised prosperity, stability, and
peace through technology. For a time, it delivered. But by the 1970s the shine
had worn off. The Vietnam War exposed the limits of American power. Oil shocks
revealed the fragility of energy dependence. Inflation eroded living standards.
Environmental degradation — smog-filled skies, polluted rivers, endangered
species — exposed the hidden costs of industrial abundance. The dream of
endless growth had a bitter aftertaste.
The information and communication technology (ICT)
revolution offered a new promise. The internet was supposed to democratize
knowledge, empower individuals, and create a more connected and creative world.
Social media promised to bring people closer, amplifying voices that had long
been silenced. For a brief period, it felt as if history had turned a corner.
But the disappointments piled up quickly. The internet became dominated by
surveillance capitalism, harvesting personal data for profit. Social media fueled
polarization, disinformation, and political extremism, while exacerbating
mental health crises among young people. Instead of empowerment, many
experienced addiction, alienation, and manipulation.
The pattern was clear: the promises of new technologies were
overstated, the risks underestimated, and the disappointments borne by those
who had the least power to influence the outcome.
The Moral Failure
At the root of these cycles is not simply bad luck but a
moral failure: the refusal to heed scientific warnings and the consistent
neglect of the precautionary principle. When the evidence of harm became
overwhelming — whether with tobacco, fossil fuels, or social media’s impact on
youth — leaders responded slowly, reluctantly, and often dishonestly. Economic
interests, political calculations, and short-term gains outweighed long-term
responsibility.
COVID-19 provided yet another example. Despite decades of
pandemic preparedness reports, many governments were caught flat-footed. Early
warnings were ignored, investments in public health were insufficient, and when
the crisis struck, political leaders often downplayed the danger. Once again,
society had chosen not to prepare for a predictable risk, leaving millions
vulnerable.
The moral failure lies not in ignorance but in willful
blindness. We listened to science when it promised power or profit, and ignored
it when it demanded sacrifice or restraint.
Betrayal and Broken Scripts
For Generation Z, these cycles of promise and disappointment
are not distant history; they are the conditions of their lives. Unlike their
grandparents, who experienced postwar optimism, or their parents, who witnessed
the birth of the digital age, Gen Z came of age in the aftermath of
disappointment. Climate instability is no longer a warning but a lived reality.
Economic precarity, from student debt to unaffordable housing, is widespread.
The mental health crisis among youth is not a marginal concern but a defining
feature of their generation.
The traditional life scripts — steady employment, home
ownership, upward mobility — no longer feel attainable. Instead, Gen Z
confronts a future marked by uncertainty and vulnerability. The sense of
intergenerational betrayal is sharp. Boomers, in particular, are seen as having
enjoyed the benefits of the Great Acceleration while ignoring the mounting
evidence of its costs. They reaped the rewards of cheap energy, mass
consumption, and suburban expansion, but left behind ecological crisis and
social fragmentation.
For many in Gen Z, the story of the past seventy-five years
is not one of progress but of squandered promise. They inherit not only the
environmental and economic debts of their predecessors but also the
disillusionment of repeated technological letdowns.
Where We Stand
Looking back, the narrative of the last three-quarters of a
century is one of brilliance without wisdom. Science and technology gave
humanity extraordinary powers, but those powers were harnessed more for
short-term gain than for long-term stewardship. Each wave of innovation was
launched as a grand experiment, its risks brushed aside, its costs deferred.
The benefits were concentrated, the harms distributed.
Now, at the end of this cycle, a vulnerable generation faces
the compounded consequences of decades of moral failure. They know that
yesterday’s promises will not secure tomorrow’s future. The question is whether
they — more skeptical, more adaptive, more painfully aware — can break the
cycle.
The sorcerer’s apprentice story has always ended the same
way: with chaos barely contained until the master returns. But in our story, no
master is coming. The responsibility to reckon with the forces we’ve unleashed
rests with us alone. Whether we can finally listen to science not just when it
promises power, but when it demands restraint, will determine whether the next
seventy-five years repeat the cycle — or begin something genuinely new.