Welcome to Turning Life!
Life is changing, and we need to pay attention
Godfrey Reggio, Philip Glass, and Ron Fricke made a cult movie back in 1982: Koyaanisqatsi.
It was a picture poem with accompanying music, as someone called it back then, talking about the time we lived in as challenging to the way of life as we knew it — and to life in general.
It was later to be followed by Powaqqatsi and Naqoyqatsi to form a trilogy of Hopi language titled movies about humans, nature, and technology, and how it all connects and influences each other. All in change, all in danger.
Change is still happening. It continued, even after 1982, not surprisingly. What maybe could be a surprise is the complete lack of action taken since then, and since many other times both earlier and later, when it has been stated clearly that we, the humanity, are in the process of destroying the Earth’s ability to host life as we know it.
On a smaller scale, we change things in both technology, life conditions, and the way we look at it all. What was considered immensely rude and almost unthinkable to say publicly back then, is now common speak among politicians. What was considered unacceptable by large cooperations or organisations, private or public, is now commonplace.
Especially the many developments in the communications and IT areas have led to surveillance and collection of sensitive information in a scale people hardly could imagine in 1982 — and that is said with an understanding of the knowledge people did have at the time about the massive registers of everything personal maintained by such countries as the Soviet Union and Eastern Germany. And with Western countries not lacking far behind, already then. Today, we hardly have any privacy left, mainly because we keep spying devices near us at all times: mobile phones and computers, TV sets with built-in microphones and cameras, intelligent virtual assistants (Amazon Echo, Apple HomePod and similar always listening and recording devices).
Companies grow big, and data grow big as well. Big companies often have many sources of data, and the market for data has exploded by the entry of social media, which, apart from offering doomscrolling through pointless non-information, also work as data collectors, allowing for ultra-precise demographics to be matched with sales history from web shops, travel history from mobile phones and GPS, and many other details about your life.
Big companies often have resources and access to gain solid influence on politics and both the technological and societal development of almost every spot on Earth.
With the increasing data collection and surveillance of individuals, it is becoming increasingly difficult to live a quiet life on your own conditions. Either you will be registered almost everywhere and have to deal with constant updates of data and approvals of more data collecting, or you will try to avoid it all but then see how others steal your identity and start acting on your behalf, often with very negative consequences for you.
We also see changes in the morality around almost everything we do. I mentioned how politicians speak, but it is today accepted that, e.g., the tax office gains insight in your travel patterns through data from the mobile phone network operators, and combine this with yet other data to draw a picture, and build evidence, that you should have paid a different tax than what you have self-declared.
Many borders of this kind have been crossed. Where we once considered the relation we had with one company to be between us, we now face that everything known about us, plus possibly some fabricated data as well, can spread to every corner of the society.
Understanding this can, at times, make us see how even world politics can be directed by commercial interests, and how individuals can be pushed around and prevented from living the lives they themselves would have preferred.
For these, and many other reasons, we should keep an eye on everything that changes in our world. And there is enough to get started with.
This Substack will contribute to the uncovering and description of how the world actually works and how this is different from previously. Which changes have been rolling in, often without anyone really noticing it.
It will do so by the means of my modest abilities and observations, thoughts, and considerations. It isn’t meant to be a scientific report that can be proved or countered by specific research, even though this probably can be possible at times. It isn’t meant either to be a nest for conspiracy theories or similar ideas that are very far from being scientific. It is, merely, meant to be inspirational, an eye-opener, a starting point for a debate.
Debate is a big word nowadays. I would claim that we hardly have any debate any longer about anything important. Instead, we have influencers and information campaigns, we have TV news and other news outlets that often set the tone and the public opinion in a matter of hours, with very little free debate afterwards. There will be those who eat the news raw, and those who are anti-everything, but these parties almost never listen to each other or try to find and add more different aspects to the debate.
But I am a bit naive: I believe that we can inspire each other on a thought-based level, not about picking an opinion and then sticking to it, or always following someone whose opinions we then automatically copy. I believe that we can, all of us, develop thoughts of our own, based on discussions, and always be ready to reconsider such thoughts when we get wiser and more informed.
These were the opening words. More will follow. Often about a specific topic, sometimes trying to describe some bigger perspectives, but always with the purpose of inspiring to thinking.
Welcome to the Turning Life by Inidox substack — I hope you will enjoy it!
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Thank you, Jorgen for your overview of where we've come from and how much has changed. You mention debate, which brought to mind my chance to see around 1964 William Buckley debate Ronnie Duggar, who was editor of the liberal Texas Observer. Buckley was concerned that Lyndon Johnson would get liberal legislation through Congress as a reaction to Kennedy's recent assassination. Fortunately Buckley was right. I'm looking forward to your new Substack.