The rise of dystopian entertainment, or dystopia-as-entertainment has gotten me thinking, and while I think it's sometimes educational or insightful, it tells a lot about the hopelessness and nihilism of today.
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I think since circa 2014 we have entered a triangular crisis, consisting of: the fall of democracy (politics), the fall of neoliberalism (economics), and the fall of humanism (ideology/religion).
The fall of democracy is the deterioration of democratic politics in the West as people with power discovered new tools for psychographics and highly targeted ads, as well as the polarization of political views made worse by social media with boosted content.
The fall of neoliberalism is the growing disbelief in capitalism as people learn how it has reached its scientific limits, how it worsens climate change, and how it leads to monopolies (such as tech giants) and staggering inequality.
There are people who make a firm stance against capitalism and there are those who don't appreciate capitalism but admit "they need work to survive". People who genuinely believe that neoliberal capitalism is the right way for humanity are (in my experience) decreasing in number.
The fall of humanism is barely beginning, but it can be seen already as a generalized loss of faith in humanity as the fear of automation and job loss increases, putting in question the value of humans in the face of high-tech.
More generally, there is more widespread misanthropy because we're learning more about how humans work, and learning that we're not so special animals, and we're witnessing a basically irreversible destruction of the planet's (legacy) ecosystems by human activity.
All of these three have to do with the internet, although the internet doesn't get full blame. In politics, we know that democracy has gotten fragile because of social media.
In economic models, internet giants pre 2010 were good examples ("don't be evil"!) and big motivators of neoliberal capitalism, but in 2019 the expression 'tech giant' is likely to cause caution at best, anger at worst.
In ideology, the gig economy coupled with the prospect of AI and automation have been a challenge to the principles and dogma of humanism.
Some of these are good riddance, such as neoliberal capitalism. But democracy, despite its flaws, would be good to keep. And humanism, despite being idealistic and romantic, at least makes positive and uplifting assertions about a person's identity and potential.
Overall the triangular crisis is a loss of direction, a loss of stable principles on which to build society. Democracy in western states (at least between 1989-2014) used to be a solid foundation. Neoliberal capitalism stood victorious and unchallenged post Cold War. Humanism too
So I understand that in 2019 nihilism is a logical next step, but I'm not sure it's the last bus stop. At the moment it's just an intuition, but I think we're in transitional moment of renewing our belief systems, and the transition looks like nihilism.
I think there is still hope that we can find a good direction, good principles, and the ability to make sense of the world, but we need to arduosly pursue it until we find it.
