Situational Assessment 2017: Trump Edition
In 2015, I took a swing at assessing the shape and state of our global challenges. Looking back, that essay is still well worth a read, but it is high time for an update.
While many things have changed in the world in the past two years, 2016 saw what looks like a phase transition in the political domain. While the overall phenomenon is global in scale and includes Brexit and other movements throughout Europe, I want to focus specifically on the victory of the “Trump Insurgency” and drill down into detail on how this state change will play out.
While many things have changed in the world in the past two years, 2016 saw what looks like a phase transition in the political domain. While the overall phenomenon is global in scale and includes Brexit and other movements throughout Europe, I want to focus specifically on the victory of the “Trump Insurgency” and drill down into detail on how this state change will play out.
I
use John
Robb’s
term “Trump Insurgency” here to highlight the fact that the
election of 2016 was not an example of “ordinary politics”.
Anyone who fails to understand this is going to be making significant
errors. For example, the 2016 election is not comparable to the 2000
election (e.g., merely a “close” election) nor to the 1980
election (e.g., an “ideological transition” election). While it
is tempting to compare it to 1860, I’m not sure that is a good
match either.
In
fact, as I go back and try to do pattern matching, the only real
pattern I can find is the 1776 “election” (AKA the American
Revolution). In other words, while 2016 still formally looked like
politics, what is really going on here is a revolutionary war. For
now this is war using memes rather than bullets, but war is much more
than a metaphor.
This
war is about much more than ideology, money or power. Even the
participants likely do not fully understand the stakes. At a deep
level, we are right in the middle of an existential conflict between
two entirely different and incompatible ways of forming “collective
intelligence”. This is a deep point and will likely be confusing.
So I’m going to take it slow and below will walk through a series
of “fronts” of the war that I see playing out over the next
several years. This is a pretty tactical assessment and should make
sense and be useful to anyone. I’ll get to the deep point last —
and will be going way out there in an effort to grasp “what is
really going on”. I’ll definitely miss wildly, but with any luck,
the total journey will be worth the time.
Front One: Communications Infrastructure.
Front One: Communications Infrastructure.
All
modern warfighters know that the first step of any conflict is to
disrupt the enemy’s communications and control infrastructure.
Our
legacy sensemaking system was largely composed of and dominated by a
small set of communications channels. These included the largest
newspapers (e.g., NYT and Washington Post) and television networks
(e.g., CNN, CBS, Fox, etc.). Until very recently, effectively all
sensemaking was mediated by these channels and, as a consequence,
these channels delivered a highly effective mechanism for coordinated
messaging and control. A sizable fraction of the power, influence and
effectiveness of the last-stage power elites (e.g., the neocon
alliances in both the Democratic and Republican parties) was due to
their mastery at utilizing these legacy channels.
It
is important for anyone planning in the contemporary environment to
recognize that the activities of the Trump Insurgency are entirely
different to all previous actors. Rather than endeavoring to
establish control over the legacy infrastructure, the Trump
Insurgency is in the process of destroying it entirely and replacing
it with a very different architecture. One that is intrinsically
compatible with its own form of collective intelligence.
It
is clear to me that the Insurgency is engaged in “total war”.
They are simultaneously attacking the legacy power structures on
multiple fronts (access, business viability and, in particular,
legitimacy) while innovating entirely novel approaches to the problem
of large scale communications and control (e.g., direct tweets from
POTUS). Their intent is not to play with or even dominate the legacy
media — but to eliminate them from the field entirely and to
replace them with something else altogether.
This
approach is strategically optimal. The Trump Insurgency represents a
novel model of collective intelligence in
general. It
is the first truly viable approach that is connected directly with
the emergent decentralized attractor that has been driving
technical/economic disruption for the last several decades. This form
of governance is structurally
incompatible with
the legacy media architecture. It is intrinsically dissonant with the
kind of top-down, slow, controlled, synchronized approach of the old
media. It therefore both must dismantle this architecture and replace
it with one that is in synch with its mode of operation and, thereby,
benefits massively by hamstringing any collective intelligence that
works in the old top-down fashion (i.e., all existing forces
currently at play).
To
use a concept from Gilles
Deleuze,
the Trump Insurgency is a nomadic
war machine and
it is in the process of smoothing the space of communication. To use
a simpler metaphor, if you imagine the Trump Insurgency as highly
effective desert guerrillas, they are currently in the process of
turning everything into a desert. The Establishment, optimized for
“jungle conflict”, is going to have a hard time.
From
where I sit, it seems evident that the Insurgency’s ability to
read-plan-react (their “OODA
loop”)
is simply of a higher order than the legacy power structures. For at
least the past 18 months, the Insurgency has been running circles
around the the Establishment and the old media. Accordingly, I fully
expect the Insurgency to win this fight. Specifically, for all
functional purposes, I expect the memetic efficacy of the New York
Times, CNN, the Washington Post, MSNBC and related channels to be
near zero within the next two to four years. I would not be surprised
to see several of these entities actually out of business.
Note,
the relative position of “new media” such as Twitter, Facebook
and YouTube is harder to predict. I suspect that most of the
important conflict of this front will take place here. Right now, all
of new media is controlled by forces broadly opposed to the
Insurgency. Yet the Insurgency must establish dominance on this
territory. They can accomplish this either by capturing these
existing platforms (aka “bend the knee” capitulation) or by
moving the center of power to new platforms that are aligned with the
Insurgency (e.g., gab.ai replacing Twitter). If you think that this
latter is highly unlikely, I strongly urge you to reexamine your
models and assumptions.
My
sense is that the decisive decision in this conflict is whether the
“new media” remain coupled to the legacy power structures (and
their OODA loops) or decouple and enter into a direct conflict for
“decentralized supremacy” (see my last point below). If they
choose the former, they will lose. If they choose the latter, the
outcome is hard to predict.
Front Two: The Deep State
Front Two: The Deep State
In
ordinary politics, an elected candidate is expected to integrate with
and make relatively small fine-tuning changes to the existing state
apparatus and the mass of career bureaucrats that make up most of the
actual machinery of government (AKA the “deep
state”).
Thus, while the Obama Administration might differ quite significantly
from the Bush Administration in political theory and intent, the
actual impact of theses differences on the real trajectory of the
“ship of state” is relatively small.
My
assessment is that the Trump Insurgency has identified the Deep State
itself as its central antagonist and is engaged in a direct
existential conflict with it.
Normally
this would be an easy win for the Deep State. However, I expect this
front to be the most challenging, uncertain and dangerous of the war.
The Deep State is massive, has access to vast resources and
capabilities and has been in the business of controlling power for
decades. But two things are moving in the Insurgency’s favor.
First,
the Deep State appears to be fragmented. For example, the “Russian
Hacking” scenario of the past two months looks surprisingly
uncoordinated and incompetent. I don’t know exactly what is going
on here, but it is clearly not the product of a unified and smoothly
operating Deep State.
Second,
it seems highly likely that the Deep State is prepared to fight “the
last war” while the Insurgency is bringing an entirely different
kind of fight. The Deep State developed in and for the 20th Century.
You might say that they are experts at fighting Trench Warfare. But
this is the 21st Century and the Insurgency has innovated Blitzkrieg.
Let’s
take a look at the “fake news” meme for example. This has all the
earmarks of a Deep State initiative. Carefully planned, highly
coordinated, coming from all authoritative directions, strategically
targeted. My read is that this was a Deep State response to the
Communications Infrastructure fight. But it looks like this
initiative has not only failed, but that the Insurgency has been able
to leverage its decisive OODA loop advantages to turn the entire
thing around and make “fake news” its own tool. How? By moving
rapidly, unconventionally, in a very decentralized fashion and with
complete commitment to victory.
If
my read is correct, the balance of the struggle between the Deep
State and the Insurgency will be determined by how quickly the Deep
State can dispense with old and dysfunctional doctrine and innovate
novel approaches that are adequate to the war. In other words, is
this the Western Front (France falling in six weeks) or the Eastern
Front (the USSR bleeding and giving ground until it could innovate a
new war machine that could outcompete the Wehrmacht).
If
my read of the situation is correct (which, of course, it very well
may not be), then the Deep State would be ill advised indeed to
undertake any major efforts in the next 12–24 months. For example,
an “impeach Trump” initiative, would almost certainly be an
enormous strategic disaster. In spite of the apparent strength of the
Deep State, the Insurgency’s superior OODA loop would likely result
in an Insurgency victory in this fight — and victory here would
greatly strengthen the Insurgency’s position. (Can you say “Emperor
Trump?)
From
the opposite direction, the Insurgency would be well advised
to Blitzkrieg.
Right now it has the advantage of an approach and a model that its
opponent doesn’t understand and can’t react to effectively. But
the Deep State is deep. Given time it could learn how to win this
fight. If the Insurgency wants to win, it needs to radically reduce
the Deep State’s strategic agency quickly. This means moving fast
and moving decisively.
ate how deeply dangerous this fight is.
Classically, when a long-standing hegemony (cf “Pax Americana) is
weakened and distracted by intra-elite conflict, rivals like Russia
and China will see an opportunity to move from a hegemonic to a
multi-polar world and can be tempted into adventurism. In these
conditions, even the slightest mistake can push the system into
nearly catastrophic conflict.
Front Three: Globalism
Anti-globalist
rhetoric was one of the most enduring and central features of the
Trump campaign. Indeed, if Trump clearly stood for anything,
resisting the “false song of globalism” was it. And all evidence
in the post-election environment is that the Trump Insurgency will
indeed be actively anti-globalist.
What
is flat out astounding is the relative ease with which Trump has been
able to cut through globalist Gordian Knots. For half a decade, the
Trans-Pacific Partnership was an unstoppable juggernaut. Until, that
is, Trump decided to end it. Perhaps this is evidence of a “below
the surface” weakness that made TPP a paper tiger. Perhaps it is
evidence of the relative balance of power between nationalist and
globalist institutions. At least when the nationalist institution is
the United States. (Compare the Greeks vis
a vis the
EU). Perhaps it is evidence of a larger scale anti-globalist conflict
that has been raging for nearly a decade and has been surfacing all
over the place (Brexit, Trump, Le Pen, etc.).
In
any event, it is a significant victory and I am certain that it will
embolden the Insurgency. At this point, I expect the Insurgency to
cut deep into globalist power institutions (the World Bank, the UN,
various treaty organizations) and, more importantly, globalist-allied
national institutions like the Federal Reserve. The Globalists have
an odd connection to power. Generally, they must move through
influence and threat to elites, with a non-trivial amount of mass
level propaganda to smooth the way. The Insurgency is broadly immune
to globalist propaganda, the Insurgency elites seem unlikely to play
ball with globalist elites or to back down under threat. At this
point, I see only two real moves available to the globalists. 1)
economic destabilization hoping to turn “the people” against the
Insurgency; 2) some kind of some kind of social/military
destabilization.
But
I don’t give the globalists much of a chance. Of all of the major
world powers, only the EU is currently dominated by globalists, and
with the victory of Brexit and the surge of nationalism in France,
the Netherlands, etc., even the Eurocrats are on the run.
By
moving quickly and decisively against the Deep State allies of
globalism at home and erecting nationalist resilience to global
institutional influence (e.g, high tariffs and protectionist monetary
policy), combined with shaping a narrative that points all bad
economic news directly at globalists, the Insurgency might well be
able to cut most globalist power off at the knees.
Notably,
even large multi-national corporations — until recently appearing
to be pulling the strings of political policy — seem to be rapidly
capitulating to the Insurgency. The two major globalist forces that
have not yet been publicly tested are the energy companies and the
banks. What will happen here remains to be seen. A cynic might
suggest that the Insurgency itself is only superficially populist and
in fact really simply represents the interests of Energy and Banks
against other elites. That cynic might be right, we shall see.
The
net-net result of this front will be a significant weakening of the
post-War global institutional order and a rebalancing of power along
not yet fully understood nationalist alignments. It is not clear what
effect this change will have. For example, one might expect “global
scale” issues like climate disruption or terrorism to lose focus
and efficacy — but that isn’t clear. It is certainly plausible
that nation-to-nation alliances can make significant forward progress
in even these areas of interest. Particularly if you assume that
globalist agendas were extracting value from global scale crises
rather than resolving them.
Moreover,
there is no reason to believe that a multi-polar nationalism will be
less stable over the long term than a hegemony. History has certainly
cut both ways. Perhaps what is most clear is this: the period
of transition as
globalist forces struggle to maintain power while nationalist forces
are not yet in any form of stable equilibrium with each-other is a
moment (possibly lasting years) of extreme danger.
Front Four: The New Culture War
Front Four: The New Culture War
Last week, Reddit user notjafo expressed something
important. It is worth reading
his entire post, but the gist is this: the
left won the culture war of the 1960’s — 1990’s. And the Trump
Insurgency does not represent “the next move” of the old right in
that old war. It represents the first move of an emergent new
culture. One that is directly at war with the “Blue Church” on
the ground of culture itself.
“The Blue Church is panicking because they’ve just witnessed the birth of a new Red Religion. Not the tired old Christian cliches they defeated back in the ’60s, but a new faith based on cultural identity and outright rejection of the Blue Faith.” — /u/notjfao
While I can nit pick at some of his analysis, broadly speaking I
agree. As of 2016, the shoe is on the other foot — the counter
culture has become the mainstream and the Insurgents are the new
counter culture.
Similar to the other battles, this Culture War front is characterized
by a distinction between a more powerful and established Blue team
organized around and fighting “the last war” and a Red team still
in flux but beginning to figure out how to fight from the future.
And, as per the other fronts, until the Blue team figures this out,
it will continue to lose ground without understanding why.
In this case, however, the superior OODA loop of the Insurgency is
only part of the strategic shift. Of far more importance is the fact
that the Insurgency evolved within a culture broadly dominated by the
values and techniques of the Blue Church and therefore, by simple
natural selection, is now almost entirely immune to the total set of
“Blue critique”.
In other words, if we map the arc of the culture war from the 1950’s
through to the 1990’s we will see the slow emergence of a set of
strategies, techniques and alliances on the part of the emerging Blue
Church that became increasingly perfected and effective over time.
For example, the critical power of the epithets “racist” or
“sexist” which had little or no traction in the 1930’s and
1940’s had, by the 1990’s become decisive.
Yet, even as the Blue Church was achieving dominance, the roots of
the Insurgency were being laid. And, like bacteria becoming
increasingly immune to an antibiotic after constant exposure, those
aspects of the emergent “Red Religion” that were able to
survive at all began to coalesce and expand. What
has now erupted into the zeitgeist is something new and almost
completely immune to the rhetorical and political techniques of the
Blue Church. To call an adherent of the Red Religion “racist” is
unlikely to elicit much more than a “kek” and a derisive
dismissal. The old weapons have no more sting.
Moreover, the Red Religion does not intend to engage the Blue Church
in any way other than “outright rejection.” It considers the
Church and its adherents to be acting in bad faith by default and the
doctrines of the Church to be little more than a form of mental
illness. Accordingly, the Red Religion has no intention of dialogue,
conversation or even sharing power with the Church.
The Blue Church should expect to meet the Red Religion in war. And in
this conflict the Red Religion has the advantage.
In the nature of every movement that has endured the crucible of
selection, the Red Religion is much more coherent and focused than
the dominant Church which is criss-crossed with internal conflict and
in-fighting. The Red Religion was born into and optimized for new
media (e.g, optimized for memes rather than films) and as the balance
of power shifts from 20th Century media to 21st Century media, this
inures to the advantage of the Reds. Going deeper, even as the Red
Religion has developed an immunity to most of the primary techniques
of the Blue Church, it has simultaneously developed its own
memetic/values structure connected with deep human values that stem
from ancient “tribal selection” and are highly attractive to the
portions of the human family (men and women) who are focused on
protecting and defending their tribe (hence the Red Religions’
intrinsic focus on Nationalism).
In other words, over the short to mid term, most of the humans who
are best prepared to wage war — who are most attuned to and
psychologically ready for war — will be attracted to the Red
Religion. They will be focused, almost entirely immune to the entire
portfolio of Blue weapons and they will be armed with and optimized
for 21st Century techniques of waging culture war.
As a consequence, the result of this conflict will almost certainly
be fatal for the Blue Church. We are already witnessing it, in the
form of both an increasingly desperate “doubling down” on
obviously impotent attacks and a creeping demoralization within the
fabric of the Church. I expect to see this accelerate and as the
Insurgency wins on other fronts, the set of alliances that hold the
Church together will begin to unravel and the Church will collapse.
Right now, the Church is killing us. While it is holding many
important, necessary values, it is also holding a ton of stuff that
is deeply dysfunctional. But by monopolizing the instruments of
culture and power, it inhibits us like a well meaning but overbearing
parent from being able to form the new innovations in culture,
practice and value that are necessary to our age. The collapse of the
Blue Church is going to lead to a level of “cultural flux” that
will make the 1960’s look like the Eisenhower administration. As
the Church falls away, the “children of Blue” will explode out in
a Cambrian explosion and reach out to engage in all out culture war
with the still nascent Red Religion.
This Culture War will be unlike anything we have ever seen. It will
take place everywhere all at once, constrained less by geography than
by technical platform and by the complex relationship between
innovation and power on an exponential technology curve. It will be a
struggle over not just the content, but the very sense and
nature of identity, meaning and purpose. It will mutate so
quickly and will evolve so rapidly that all of our legacy techniques
(both psychological and institutional) for making sense of and
responding to the world will melt into so much tapioca. This will be
terrifying. It is also the source of our best hope.
The War for Collective Intelligence
The War for Collective Intelligence
If
you’ve made it this far (or chose to skip directly here), take a
breath and settle in. This is the interesting part. For that precious
few who prioritize understanding over brevity, what follows will make
much more sense if you have read my Foundational
Assumptions, The
Coming Great Transition, Introducing
Generation Omega and The
Future of Organization.
Once
you have accepted this as the task, you will eventually come to an
important conclusion: you can’t. By yourself, you can’t think
non-linearly. This isn’t your fault. Individual human beings can’t
think non-linearly. Only “collective intelligences,” those agents
of “inter-subjective consciousness” can. To put it more simply,
we implement and do things as
individuals. We innovate as tribes. And the world we
live in today — the world of the 21st Century — is a world of
continuous innovation.
In
this environment, for the first time ever in history, the ability to
innovate is decisively superior to the ability to deploy power. Prior
to today, the rule of “the battle goes to whoever gets there the
first with the most” was a decent rule of thumb. Of course, this
has never been strictly the case. Most of the great stories of
history are built around moments of innovation where the smarter but
less powerful group was able to outwit and undermine their opponent
with superior technique, technology and strategy. Over time the
balance has slowly but consistently moved in the direction of
innovation. Ask Turing and Oppenheimer about the accelerating pace of
innovation as it relates to war.
The conflict
of the 21st Century is about forming a Collective Intelligence that
can outwit and out innovate all of its competitors. The central
challenge is to innovate a way of collaborating and cohering
individuals that maximally deploys their individual perspectives,
capabilities, understandings and insights with each-other. Right now,
the Insurgency has the edge. It has discovered some key ways to tap
into the power of decentralized collective intelligence and this is
its principal advantage. While it is definitely not a mature version
of a decentralized collective intelligence, it is substantially more
so than any collective intelligence with which it is competing and
unless and until a more effective decentralized collective
intelligence enters the field, this advantage is enough.
Like
all wars, the shape of this particular conflict will be highly
dependent on path, timing and surprise. Right now, for example, the
relative difference in power between the Establishment and the
Insurgency is large, and while it continues to lose it’s impact,
power still matters. At the same time, while the Insurgency has a
meaningful advantage in “collective intelligence” this advantage
is not overwhelming. Thus the details of the situation that I
describe above.
So,
for example, if the Deep State uses its power advantage as a way to
stall until until it can innovate a collective intelligence
advantage, it has a decent chance. (Of course, becoming a
decentralized collective intelligence is going to be really hard for
the actual individuals who make up the Deep State to understand and
accept.)
But
watch out as the conflict evolves. As the Insurgency cuts down and
unplugs legacy power structures (e.g, the media, the intelligence
agencies) and replaces them with more fluid and innovative approaches
(e.g., gab.ai and Palantir) the balance will begin to tip quickly. If
the Establishment cannot stave off the Insurgency in the next 4–5
years, that phase of the war will be over.
Then
the real question. Does the Insurgency and the Red Religion represent
a stable attractor in the 21st Century. Can it form a collective
intelligence that is able to select-against and out-compete all
comers. If so, what does this look like? My sense is that this is
ultimately a highly unstable state. While tribalism (nationalism) can
be very potent in the short term, it is ultimately a deeply unstable
ship to navigate the oceans of the future.
Or
is there a different timeline where one of the “children of Blue”
discovers an approach that is more intelligent still — one that is
more fit to ride the wave of exponential technology and global scale
crisis? One that is more fully in line with the true nature of
inter-subjective consciousness? One that can scale without losing its
coherence? One that is adequate to the whole set of existential
challenges of the 21st Century?
Such
an eventuality is certainly possible — although the most robust
collective intelligence is likely to be more purple than red or blue.
How likely? Well, right now I think we have a decent chance but
really do believe that the die will be cast in the next 3–5 years.
- The Blue Church, the Deep State, the Old Media and all the other aspects of the Establishment are holding you back. Free your mind. This is going to be much harder than it sounds. For most people, if you are under 40, your entire development has taken place within the context of the Blue Church. Many of your deepest assumptions and unconscious values are going to have to be examined with brutal honesty and courage.
- All Collective Intelligence is gated by Sensemaking. Right now, our collective sensemaking systems are in complete disarray. We don’t know who or what to trust. We barely even know how. Find ways to improve your individual sensemaker and collaborate on collective sensemaking systems. This should get easier as the old media and the Blue Church collapse.
- Both #1 and #2 require other people. And, since all of our old ways of collaborating with other people are either suspect or obsolete, you are going to have to learn how to build real faithful relationships the old fashioned way. Get much better at making friends. I don’t mean casual acquaintances. And I definitely don’t mean social network contacts. I mean the kinds of people who ready willing and able to actually care for you — even at risk to themselves. Not because of shared ideology or even shared mission, but because of the deep stuff of human commitment.
[Note:
this was published in Deep
Code and
is intended to be challenging and to move the conversation forward.
Comments that are thoughtful and contribute will be greatly
appreciated. Comments that are not will be deleted.]
Source: https://popularresistance.org/situational-assessment-2017-trump-edition/
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