How Young People Can Survive

The key is a specific form of agency.

Image by Ryan McGilchrist

(“How the EU Should Approach AI - Part 2” will be published on Thursday. See part 1 here.)

The Western millennial generation was raised with an American pop culture that elevated individualism, consumerism, and encouraged young people to live in a self-absorbed way. We were subliminally and overtly told it was “me, myself, and I” against the world and that ego-gratification was the highest ideal in existence.

This self-centered culture was brought about in a time of relative peace and stability. The US won the cold war, distributed Western culture via channels such as Hollywood movies, MTV, and the first internet companies, and took charge of world politics with its “peace through strength” dogma. Under these circumstances, Western millennials could live in a fantasy world where we thought our personal satisfaction mattered more than anything else.

This time of relative peace and stability wouldn’t last. Peace and prosperity is not a new norm; it was a brief footnote, an anomaly in the otherwise violent track record of human beings. Western civilization is no longer in a peacetime. We are back to normal; a new time of upheaval and great suffering, too great to distract from, marked by idiotic wars, significant loneliness, mental health disorders, and palpable risks of economic collapse, climate disasters, and a new deadly pandemic.

Beyond imminent, catastrophic risks, young people are struggling to find jobs, relationships, and housing. Nothing indicates it will change soon as the boomer generation (Trump’s age and older) refuses to share its wealth and wants to live forever. Old people are not just overly represented in wealth statistics, but in politics too. Their stubbornness and antiquated worldviews may explain why we still resolve conflicts with war, sustained by the lives of young men as raw material if necessary, and insist on generating energy with coal and crude oil even though science shows the excessive consumption undermines the conditions for life on earth.

The whole secure and seemingly unbreakable infrastructure which allowed millennials like me to live comfortably and carefree is now shaking beneath our feet. This means that ignorance and complete self-absorption are not luxuries young people in today’s world can afford. To survive in this time of upheaval, younger generations need to cultivate the same qualities American pop culture tried to destroy when I was growing up.

How The Attention Economy Fried the Brains of Millennials

To succeed, Generation Z and Generation Alpha will need to be knowledgeable about how the world works, possess the ability to concentrate, think independently, critically, and long-term. They will also need moral clarity, ideological conviction, discipline, courage, self-sacrifice, community-mindedness, and love for humankind regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, political and religious beliefs. The exact opposite of those personality traits displayed by modern American folk heroes such as Donald Trump and Elon Musk.

An in-field report by Sam Kriss reveals that young tech entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley are taught to cultivate “high-agency”. Allegedly, this is the most important personality trait in the age of AI. Those who don’t possess it are at risk of becoming part of the permanent underclass when the great “bifurcation event” happens which will separate those skilled with AI from those who are rendered useless.

I agree that agency is important, but without knowledge, moral principles and clear direction, it’s a dangerous quality to have. Evidently, assertiveness without a moral standpoint creates shitty people, harmful products and ultimately, at a large enough scale, threatens the survival of our species.

To cultivate agency in a meaningful sense of the word here are some simple, practical tips that will prepare new generations for a dignified life in the tumultuous, confusing, and dangerous time ahead: limit exposure to social media as much as possible, practice digital minimalism and switch from using commercial LLMs to local LLMs.