People obsess over calling current events a rise in fascism, or communism, or authoritarianism, or whatever it may look like in their corner of the world.
Truth is, we don't have a name for what's happening.
The closest we came up with is "techno-authoritarianism" but this too falls short of properly including the ideologies behind it.
Beyond a fundamental restructuring and redistributing of power, we have also entered a stage where absolutely all of the old ways are turned upside down and the main rule of the new power play is "there are no rules."
After decades of simmering in the background of modern life, all bets are off and we're on to the most aggressive and highly speculative race for world dominance ever known.
Technology is there to support and accelerate a fight for power and control over all aspects of our civilization - from resources to ideology.
If the ones attacking the very way of life of everyone alive or yet to be born were compared with a deadly virus, then this would be the stage in the fight where our immunity was compromised and all systems have already begun to falter.
Where can we go from here?
First, we must define who "we" are. Second, to get anywhere we must realize where we're leaving from, if we actually want to leave, and how we can begin moving in a different direction.
Next, we must absolutely have an understanding of our destination from the perspective of who we are. When it comes to survival, meandering without a strategy is a recipe for disaster.
The two current active models are both driven by their specific ideology and vision for the future of our world, and they are both spearheading their strategy by means of military applications of cutting edge technology.
Human lives are secondary to this power struggle. Human lives are a statistical component. With no apparent selective process, we are all potential collateral damage to this global crash of ideologies.
Neither one of these two models include compromise. Neither seeks to reach across the ever deeper divide between the two. Neither can find common ground even if the common ground is the value of human life. Both profoundly operate from the belief that only an iron fist can move the world in the direction they envision.
Both operate with an "either or" strategy, and they perceive time diametrically opposite from the other. For one, time must be conquered now and there is no tomorrow to be considered. For the other, time is the very battleground of this power struggle.
One acts and will act with a deep belief that time is not on their side because they believe that the resulting future world being at the center of this ideological war belongs to them - it MUST belong to their side, unequivocally and unconditionally.
The other acts and will continue to act from the core conviction that time is the origin, the journey, and the destination of their ideological stance.
The bad news is that the destiny of these two ideologies, while apparently running parallel to each other, are in fact two intersecting lines, inevitably rushing toward a point of heightened direct conflict involving significant loss of life and tremendous suffering for hundreds of millions of people.
One sacrifices all life in order to achieve their goal of global dominance. For the other, all life is both the means and the way to achieve this dominance.
Neither path is actually good for us, but the only way to ensure that a third option is even possible, is for us to reach out to each other, to create networks of people actively connecting and sharing resources with the goal of slowing down and blocking any destructive tendencies and maneuvers while at the same time building a new emerging civilization based on cooperation and interconnectedness.
I believe that this third path is inevitable, but the cost humanity will have to pay for it depends solely on the sum of all minds taking a leap of faith in each other. It might very well come to be that a true path to progress and a peaceful global civilization is only possible after a near mass extinction of our current civilization. Or, we might find the courage and drive to learn a better way of being human - one where our personal lives include the lives of the collective, one where the destiny of humanity matters to each individual while humanity cares and nurtures the destiny of all individuals.
While we can still prevent disaster, time is running out, so ask yourself what do you hope the world will be like for everyone 100 years from now - and then proceed to help build it.
Somewhere along that timeline, your future loved ones will thrive or disappear.
You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.
~ Buckminster Fuller.
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