Existentialism in 2199

There’s a lot of talk about how technology is going to disrupt everything and change life as we know it — all within our lifetime in the next sixty or so years. Well, they’re not wrong. More has changed in the last decade than in the last century (and more has changed in the last century than in the last millenia). I mean, we’re literally just about to have the ten-year anniversary of the iPhone. In a time of lenses, face filters, selfie apps, emojis, and VR spaces, it’s hard to believe that you couldn’t even get your hands on an iPhone exactly ten years ago. And things are about to get even crazier.

Self-driving cars, job automation, genetic engineering, and machine learning are about to cause some serious changes that I don’t think evolution has properly prepared the human brain to face. But despite that, life is going to get better. We’ll be able to get around faster, everyday tasks will be incredibly convenient, and planning life is going to get better. In the twentieth century, most of humanity’s basic needs were met in the developed world. In order to sell products, companies and brands started to leverage “better design” to gain a competitive advantage in the marketplace. In the twenty-first century, all of our needs as well as wants are going to be met with such astounding accuracy that we’re going to have very little to do as a species.

Let’s expand on that a bit more. The more we automate jobs and the more we make life convenient for ourselves, the fewer jobs there will be for humans to do. Entire industries are going to disappear but new ones won’t necessarily form to replace them. If things get automated to the extent that humans aren’t “needed” to do the operational work anymore, then humans simply won’t have much to do. With universal basic incomes rising in developed nations, being unemployed would become the norm. Many would take up hobbies and create a meaning for themselves, but the larger majority would have bigger philosophical problems to deal with.

It’s true that the more time man has to ponder about the nature of life and the Universe, the more existentialist he gets. Thoughts of purpose and being flood the mind with powerful emotions. Man tries to impose structure and order onto the Universe, but the Universe doesn’t respond. It never responds. And thus, man is left with contemplating his existence for his entire lifetime. Some take up religion and take solace in the fact that this “higher power” has been ascribed to some mysterious deity with unknown powers. Others who choose to face the reality of the situation grapple with this existentialist cognitive crisis for years.

In a matter of time, existentialism turns to nihilism. When the Universe consistently fails to return your missed calls, you’re likely to draw the conclusion that nothing really matters. We’re told that our purpose on this planet is to figure out why we’re here, but a nihilistic approach tells us that there is no reason. Stuff just happened and we’re here. Hydrogen turned to stardust and eventually led to multi-cellular organisms. Humans evolved, and one day we’ll be gone. Something else will come along, and other stuff will happen. We’re just a small part of a long random process that started nowhere and is going nowhere.

With thoughts like these, we’re bound to get a little depressed in a future. Science will also progress further enough that we’ve got more answers to things we currently don’t fully understand yet, like black holes and dark matter. So humans will have even more reason to believe in rational, logical thought and less of a reason to ascribe unknown happenings to religious beings. With a global bout of depression comes an entire industry to dispel it. An industry focused on “feel-good drugs”. Basically, things that give you a dopamine rush to stave off the feelings of nihilist purposelessness.

Everyone will take it to keep their mind off of things like what the meaning of life is, and everyone will be constantly high. A steady state of bliss and euphoria will sweep the world. Machines, self-learning robots, and natural language processing robots will do all the work. Humans will just walk around ecstatic and joyous. New-age sentiments of elation and gratification will propel movements of change in lifestyles that shift towards doing more interesting and efficient work focused around space exploration and space travel. The motivation for this will not be a paycheck that you receive every two weeks, but instead a feeling of excitement and delightful glee to race into the heavens and see what lies beyond.