What’s a Meta For? — Part Two

Longtermism, and Metamodernism, and Optimizing Twitter for a Post-Human Future

Photo by Craig McLachlan on Unsplash

Continued from What’s a Meta For, part one, which defined the concept of “going meta” on our reality, and showed how capitalism and technology both inspire an urge to “level up.”

“We are as gods, and might as well get good at it,” counterculture and technology visionary Stewart Brand famously declared in 1968. And today’s most hubristic tech bros took the metaphor literally. Like players of a video game, they seek to level-up and then lord above humanity as technocratic gods playing SimCity, writ large. They will eventually leave behind automated programs, platforms and blockchains to orchestrate whatever activity still matters down below, and in a fashion that still delivers up to them the cash and data they need to maintain their distant empires.

Yet as the techno elite seek to realize their dream of self-sovereignty by establishing seasteading nations and Mars colonies, those of us left behind will have to confront the environmental degradation and economic inequality they leave in their wake. And we will attempt to do so on anti-social, psychologically abusive digital platforms they sold us as technological empowerment. Just as we need to achieve some sort of solidarity and consensus, we are ushered into algorithmically operated Skinner boxes designed to alienate and disorient.

To the rescue come the self-proclaimed “sensemakers,” who see the fall of the neoliberal order, the climate emergency, social unrest, and — of course — crisis of masculinity as opportunities for sharing their rebellious wisdom. Many of these guys are quite smart, really do mean the best, and offer their audiences comfort, entertainment, and food for thought. Objectively, they’re just a contingent of men who go on each other’s podcasts or Substack blogs and share a common belief that we are in a crisis of meaning, lacking a narrative or metaphor through which to make sense of our experience. The best of them get on Joe Rogan.

Mixing two parts systems theory to one part (spiritual teacher) Ken Wilber, a dash of Carl Jung and a sprinkle of (masculinity poet) Robert Bly, they engage in from-the-neck-up conversations that remind me of the ones I had, stoned, in my…