“A prophet is not someone with special visions, just someone blind to most of what others see.” - Nassim Taleb
The whole Twitter 2.0 debacle seems to be re-energizing the culture wars that persevered throughout the 2016 and 2020 elections. But this time, the line has been moved and the axis tilted. Like I have written about previously, many near-future political debates will revolve more around Top vs Bottom issues rather than traditional Left vs Right ones. In the media, however, the axes will appear to be conflated. Pro-1A Bottom Lefters are already getting lumped into the Right from the perspective of the Top Left MSM. I think this is a poor tactical error on the part of Democrats, but I don’t know if it is within their control at this point. Is the culture running the Party or is the Party running the culture? Progressives need the MSM to get elected, but the MSM may have it’s own agenda (ie staying relevant against the tsunami of Big Tech/Social Media/Advertising revenue behemoth). Unless the Democrats move closer to center, they will further alienate moderates, narrowing the Overton Window, and along with it their voting base. The last time this happened it pushed Donald Trump into office.
As this blog progresses from Finance to Marketing to Tech to DeFi and back again, I cannot ignore how politics plays an integral role in all of these macro trends. As the Top vs Bottom narrative plays out and sides get chosen, Cryptocurrency and along with it web3 will eventually be vehemently opposed by the establishment. I can foresee a near future where proponents for Crypto are labeled as far-Right extremists, despite many of them being socially liberal quasi-Marxists! I hope by continuing to write from a non-biased perspective I can convince readers consuming both the far-Right and far-Left media echo chambers to step outside their worldview and witness a reality where most people are actually moderate, most people would be in favor of ranked choice voting, and most people would like more decentralized power in politics (ie more than 2 parties).
Since history doesn’t repeat, but it does rhyme, I am going to take a page from Ken Wilber, the psychologist/philosopher, author of The Spectrum of Consciousness and Integral Theory (The Theory of Everything). In his book Trump and a Post-Truth World, he has a smart articulation of the events that led to the 2016 from an evolution of consciousness perspective. I believe the same thing is happening again.
It starts with the concept of the Spectrum of Consciousness.
Every human goes through this development as they are born, and evolve through life. Humanity also had to progress through these stages collectively over many thousands of years to get where we are today. It is important to not think of this as a single ladder that travels upward, but many parallel ladders. It is possible for a single person to be at different levels simultaneously in different parts of their own psyche. If you are unfamiliar with Ken Wilber’s work, I highly recommend it. He marries science and spirituality in a way that no one else does. The end game of Wilber’s theory is that 100% of humans eventually become completely enlightened (should we survive long enough). See the below chart for visual reference and rough generalization on where we “stood” as of 2017.
To quickly summarize the stages:
Everyone is born at Infrared (0-1) and know only the physical self, unable to even conceptualize that others are different. Soon, in Magenta (2-4), they develop attachments to others, understand symbols, and start to develop an identity. It isn’t until they develop an ego at the Red (5-8) stage that they can really differentiate themselves from others. Now that self has been established, groups can form, which is why this stage is rooted in tribalism. The Red stage favors the nuclear family, and can aggressively protect that, but it does not extend its protection outside of its small group, for any number of evolutionary protectionisms as you can imagine. The Orange (9-12) stage transcends and includes much larger groups of people as actual societies are formed. Religion takes shape here, along with it bureaucracy and authority structures to keep (for early humans) such a massive group of people in line. Orange is still rooted in what Wilber calls the “Magic” phase, relying on thoughts and feelings to explain the world in terms of gods and faith. As you can see from the chart, Orange is potentially where 25% of Americans live in their base stage, defined (but not confined) by their ethnocentric and nationalistic traits. Eventually in the Yellow (13-20) stage, science develops and we enter the modern world. People are able to think independently and compete over resources while still including all the levels beneath them. Transcending while including is an important theme here. In order for humanity to progress from one phase of consciousness to another, the leading edge must both transcend with new ideas and include all preceding stages. What happens if you transcend but don’t include? There is a shock to the system. This becomes apparent at the Green (21-59) level of post-modern, where we currently reside today. Groups become decentralized and can thus see other people’s perspectives more clearly. There is such a diversity of people and perspectives that it becomes difficult to know which perspective is actual truth. At this point in human development there is an abundance of understanding and compassion for other humans (the majority of which that we don’t even know personally!).
The real world example for the “green leading edge” as Wilber terms it, is that there was transcendence without inclusion. People got carried away with “social justice”. Admirably standing up for people with lesser means then them (transcending above the rational Yellow and ethnocentric Orange), they rail against anyone who does not join them on this quest (ie not including). The canonical example of this was when Hillary Clinton called Trump’s base a “basket of deplorables” during a debate in 2016. This “we are better than you” phrase enraged and enflamed every level down the spectrum, provoking a return to “baser instincts”, or their “base stage”. Anyone rooted in the stages that favor Red nuclear family, Orange religion, ethnocentricity, nationalism, and even Yellow logic, were alienated. The result of which we are all familiar with: Hillary lost, in what was shocking fashion to the Left at the time.
Now, it is easy to take this line of thought and conflate what I am saying with “Progressives are more consciously evolved than Conservatives”. That’s not what I am saying. I am also not saying there are no Republicans in the green leading edge of consciousness. Caring about making the world a better place for others is an evolved perspective, period. Both sides can agree on this issue. The fact of the matter is that human consciousness must collectively evolve through this space to reach total integral consciousness (see the chart for how many levels are after Green - we have a long way to go). However, we cannot get there without actual inclusion. Superficial inclusion that rebukes others who do not conform to your beliefs is actually antithetical to the real progressive movement. With this type of misguided or superficial compassion combined with the time and place of our mis-and-disinformation news cycle used to propagate its ideals (again - on both sides), it is no surprise that a cohort of people are so adamantly calling bullshit on it all.
Of course there are many other factors at play here in a complex modern geopolitical/economic/social/technological/ecological world. Covid exposed our globalized supply chains and is now forcing everyone to become more resilient, which is expensive and now relies on heavily on our Orange/Yellow instincts. Resiliency is not efficient. Additionally the trillions of dollars printed between both the Trump and Biden administrations have led to a recession that now requires massive interest rates and a slow down of the economy. Since Presidential elections are largely decided on economic conditions, Biden and the Left are already at a disadvantage. That is why I think it is a gross misstep on their part to lean further into the Progressive agenda (which is possibly just the MSM’s the anti-Tech agenda), alienating the center.
Quick aside - it is not a debate that Tech threatens Media. Media companies have been absolutely annihilated over the past couple decades and despite massive consolidation are still only eeking out a fraction of the revenue they once were. Harvesting clicks through political division is their only remaining source of income so it’s really really hard to maintain cognitive dissonance that that would have no effect on their journalistic integrity.
So how exactly are they leaning further into their agenda? By lumping Elon Musk and Twitter into the same bucket as Trump, Kanye West, Andrew Tate, and Alex Jones.
This Twitter saga is drawing a new line in the sand of perceived cultural appropriateness. Trump is so decisive a figure, that allowing him back on the platform is essentially an act of war against Progressives. Nuance is required here. The stated Twitter 2.0 policy on free speech allows “anything that is with in the scope of the law”. Inciting a riot is obviously illegal, but for that, individual Tweets can be removed, warning signs can be displayed, suspensions can be enacted. An outright ban, however, serves no purpose other than both a signal of virtue and power. I am betting that the intersection on the Venn Diagram of Democrats and those think de-platforming Trump was a bad look is much larger than most people think. It plays right into the hands of the Right talking points, that MSM has a cultural chokehold on America, and anyone who speaks up against the “regime” (an allude to communism) gets silenced.
Now, literally anything that Elon does from this point out will be mocked as stupid no matter how brilliant. The jokes I am seeing about his Twitter takeover are comical to those who don’t regularly consume MSM. I wrote an article about how there was an extractive layer of middle men bubbling up in the economy, and that layoffs were coming. We have since seen major layoffs or general efficiencies created by Meta, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and many others. But when Elon Twitter does it, it’s suddenly a catastrophe and he doesn’t know what he’s doing. When Trevor Noah (one of my favorite comedians) goes on a rant making fun of Elon Twitter, as an objective analyst, I can’t help but draw allusions to the reddit subforum The Right Can’t Meme. The subforum is moderated by the Progressive Left and contains a collection of memes created by the Conservative Right that are hilariously bad takes or otherwise incoherent. They are funny due to their ineptitude. This is now what I see when I see Trevor Noah (one of my favorite comedians), making fun of Elon. The Left Can’t Meme. Eeek.
Side note - as a huge consumer of standup comedy, I have noticed a growing trend over the past few years where the Overton Window is actually increasing, in rebuke to what is considered politically correct. Just a few years ago, every single comedian with notoriety was using Trump as a punching bag. There were no (and still are no) great “overtly Republican” comedians. However, there is a growing trend of what I would call Independent comedians that are gaining incredible notoriety for their objectivity and ability to make fun of both sides. Andrew Schultz, Tim Dillon, and Kyle Dunnigan have emerged out of the last 6 years with increased popularity. Like Elon, Dave Chappelle also seems to be a continuous litmus test of PC. If you are reading this and think Dave went too far with his SNL monologue, please check out Jon Stewart’s appearance on late night TV where he discuss the importance of free speech and creating a dialogue.
The conclusion of my political analysis on the upcoming Culture Wars: the Left won’t win unless they transcend AND include, which, first and foremost, means finding common ground on the First Amendment. Modifying the Second Amendment has already proved to be a non-starter for the Right, and I would argue that 1A is much more deeply meaningful to a much larger group of people.
The other stated goal of Twitter 2.0 is to be the “digital town square” where people are free to debate ideas in a civilized manner. This echo’s Jon Stewart’s sentiments that things need to be discussed openly, lest they be subjugated to their corners to metastasize. The thing that stinks about being a Trevor Noah fan is that his take, and many others like him, is likely not going to age well. If Twitter becomes the global version of WeChat, China’s “everything app”, what are all of the doubters going to say? When video gets added to compete with TikTok and YouTube, and ad revenue sharing becomes competitive, influencers and content creators are going to flock. Encrypted DMs will make Snapchat obsolete. Longform Tweets could usurp Substack and Medium. Plus, a payments system (that almost assuredly would enable Crypto transactions) done by a private company? Sounds like a path to a billion users to me.