On 2024
There is no easy way to address what I am about to without mincing words. The year 2024 is slated to be the crescendo, a dramatic conclusion to the discordant symphony of the current world order. This year is so impactful across numerous separate fields that it has, in fact, been the reason my publications have lapsed to a mere one per month across all writings. I have not ceased to write during these last few months. In fact, I don't think I've ever written more. However, little to none of it has been completed for the public eye. The reason for that is quite simple: every time I would near the completion of a writing, I would realize how it either sidestepped the much larger issue dwelling beneath the surface or served to be analogous to the larger issue in such an obvious manner that the writing may as well have been discussing the core issue. This concerns politics but isn't rooted in politics. It concerns technology, though it isn't technological. It concerns history, science, religion, all manner of peoples, nations, and tribes, all backgrounds, economies, and invention. It encapsulates the culture itself, indeed being a part of it. Yet, it is ultimately a singular issue: cultural revolution.
It is no secret that the West and all her countries have been reveling in a discordant clash of ideologies. In the last few years, this underlying facet of the larger society has become red hot, and the kettle is finally beginning to boil over. Violence, otherwise unseen in times outside of war, has become common in streets, suburbs, cities, and states. Religion is ridiculed in every capacity, as the very concept of any standard is seen as a wickedness second to none. Reality itself is distorted, seen through a perverse lens that champions the very premise of anarchy. Those who had previously wished simply to be left alone were prodded incessantly by those who wished to push their ideas into the mainstream. I was one of those people. Now, because people like me never confronted the cancerous ideas, they have spread. These ideas go by a few names: Progressivism, Liberalism, or in some groups, Communism. Ideas that wish to depose the old and impose the new. I see past such generalizations that many view recent events through. What is at play is quite simply the cycle of empires. The cycle that sees the values that built the civilization replaced by the complacent misguided ideas of a generation that has only lived to be spoiled by the work of another generation while seeking to improve it. I've spoke of such cycles before. Now, however, I wish to examine the one with which we are a part of. Each of the following are predictions related to a category or singular potential flashpoint in the larger societal culture war we are a part of.
Economics
Economics remains the biggest threat; it always was, always has been, and always will be. One of my favorite quotes of yore is "We are never more than nine meals away from anarchy." (John J. Fitzgerald), in part because it is a truth few admit. While the masses will put up with oppression, torment, and far more, a single week of cut supply chains is enough to topple even the most powerful of regimes. At the core of the unspoken contract between citizenry and governance is the meeting of basic needs. When all chips are down, if those needs aren't met, anarchy follows. In the past four years, we have witnessed the most globalized economy in history facing unimaginable stresses. Many people perhaps remain ignorant of just how close some parts of the supply chain were to breaking. In the case of a few specific countries, such as Germany, the impact was felt when energy imports from Russia were suspended, the consequences of which are still being felt to this day. In a world where a large portion of people believes nationalism to be antiquated, there is no safe haven from a breakdown in economics. If one country falls, it dominoes across the world. When the world rules by open trade, you have no countries, only economic zones. All eggs in one basket.
Virtual Reality
This proposition may catch some off guard. After all, what harm is there in the still fairly niche market of virtual reality headsets? More than you would think. Starting next month with Apple's release of their "Spatial Computing" headset, the market will go from rather niche to fringe but mainstream. Their current offering isn't what my concern is based on, however. My concern rests upon the ripple effect the coming technological transition will have on the mental conditions in people, as well as the overall health of the nation. The days of holding handheld devices to reach out into cyberspace are dated. I frankly think within two decades smartphones will cease to exist entirely. This transition brings the virtual to the physical, and in some senses, the physical to the virtual. Full-body avatars of yourself in perfect detail appearing as holograms in rooms when you call. Photos you can walk into and relive in more detail than ever. Being able to quite literally reach out and physically manipulate data. All of that arrives this year. This transition from the manipulation of physical tools to immersion within a tool is a bridge. These headsets will become glasses, then contact lenses. Finally, they will become brain-machine interfaces. Of the few certainties there are within technology, this one could not be more clear. This is the next big step in the transition from easier tools to becoming one with them. I really cannot stress enough; this is quite uncharted territory. The modern internet smartphone culture has existed less than a quarter of a century, with the impacts of it still being researched and intently studied. Combined with our next flashpoint, it will become immensely easy to exist both anywhere and nowhere. The mental health implications are unknown, as are the social and societal. Will we become ever more connected yet ever further apart? Will the lack of anything in society worth fighting for prompt a mass withdrawal into fully immersive experiences instead of the historical precedent of radical reform? This year will be the very beginning of that journey into the unknown.
Artificial Intelligence
If you've read anything from me in the past year, this is probably unsurprising to you. As such, I won't waste time describing the basics of it. This year will see dramatic advancements in text-to-video, large language models, reasoning machines, agent-based task solving, and more powerful models than ever, such as the widely expected GPT-5, to be released later this year. These models will have an immeasurable impact on nations. From medical diagnoses and robotic operations to managing factories or serving as actual CEOs of companies (which there already are), it is sufficient to say the impacts will be felt. The field is also only picking up speed with the time of development. There are near-weekly breakthroughs on the subject. Because of its immense impact as a field, AI has become a red-hot flashpoint for culture wars. Conflict mainly at present stems from the rather impressive politically left leanings of every major AI and AI company. Many companies have baked in their belief systems for such models, having an almost cultish adoration for the things they are creating. This effective Marxism within their algorithms is unabashedly excused as "safety," a claim that myself among many others proport to be idiotic. Cutting to the chase of this matter, as I rarely speak my opinion, I abhor these people. I find few things as despicable as forcing your convictions upon others, then denying any such convictions exist while claiming that you are an unbiased party only interested in safety. The legitimate unabashed egoism among these groups (of which I've spent a fair bit of time with lately) is enough to trigger my gag reflex. They are convinced that they are the men who will create god, and that they will create him in their image so that he may enact righteousness across the globe according to their values. That alone should make you concerned too if you value your national identity. The conflict on the matter of censored/biased AI is already starting to yield results like new models of less or different bias. However, I doubt we have seen the end of this. I believe this year will be a race both between companies advancing the field and companies catering to their political affiliations. In some senses, AI will have more impact on the culture war than any single other entity this year and beyond.
Voting Rights
Someone who isn't a citizen shouldn't vote. For such a mundane and idiotically simple statement there are many who disagree with it. The argument I've heard from those who disagree usually is that everyone is a person so everyone should have say in how they are governed. It was this issue and some two dozen conversations with people about it that convinced me the culture wars of the West will only be put to an end with bloodshed. Though a painful realization for me there is simply no other logical alternative. In the span of two hundred years the United States went from white male property owners being the only ones permitted to vote, to male property owners, to just males, to then woman, to now. Now, where there are actual groups I've have discussed with in pleasant banter expressing with absolute sincerity that anyone should be able to vote even if not a citizen. I just don't see how people can bridge that gap. There isn't a way. Standards aren't relaxed, they don't exist! There is nowhere to go from here!
I've touched upon in my Technocracy series of writings how democracy only works when the participants are stakeholders in the society, and even then with many caveats. When someone can vote in a country they are not a citizen of for tighter borders, or free healthcare, which do you think they'd chose? Which would you chose? You have no tie to that place. No stake in the destiny of the nation. As such your incentive is only to engorge yourself on that wealth while you may have at it. Mark my words and quote me on this: The next American Civil War will be directly caused by this issue. There is no compromise on it. To do so one doesn't have a nation.
America
Speaking of this country we may move on to our next cultural flash point. The cultural flash point I feel it safe to say. The United States being the primary economic engine of the world, the empire that exports its lack of culture to all others, and who's diplomacy has done little to nothing for its own people since Herbert Hoover will be where the spark lights the powder keg. The country between illegal immigration and a myriad of other issues has begun to tear apart at the seams. Counties are succeeding from states to other states to flee their insanity, and states have begun to clash both with themselves and the federal government (which as of this week included an armed state militia forcibly removing federal agents from a border crossing they were refusing to close). With an economy nearing a full blown depression by some metrics we are not too far away from that famous quote I made mention of. The most explosive potential for war however is none of these.
The US general elections this year are the single highest probability flash point event out of this entire paper. Between both sides disputing election results, a lack of any meaningful identification methods for voters, mail in balloting, ballot harvesting, efforts to sue Donald Trump to prevent him from regaining office, efforts to remove Donald Trump from ballots in swing states to prevent him from regaining office, and more I frankly don't see how this could end in any other way aside from conflict. Love Trump or hate him here's a few facts about this situation. First, his opponents have both created a man with nothing to lose and everything to gain. Second, for four years of persecution from personal to political (which as the entire internet knows ended up with a US president receiving a mug shot for the first time in history) his opponents have created a situation that they cannot lose. If they were to he would most assuredly go after them as they did him. As for Trump, even if we pretend America has an election with 0% fraud (every rule followed to the letter) and he loses, do you think he would concede? No, no he most certainly would not. The stakes are too high for simple resignation. Both sides of this then cannot back down and must win. What do you think is the mostly likely outcome? As America goes, so the world will follow. A civil war would upend the power dynamics of the global stage.
Germany
One might find a delightfully twisted irony in this choice of mine. Yet I assure you my claim of this being a cultural flash point is well founded. Of all the nations in the European Union, Germany is the biggest economy and mover within the bloc. Also of all the nation in the EU, it is the largest one to see a meaningful countermovement in the culture. Germany under Angela Merkle opened its doors wide to the only thing worse than the USA's illegal immigration: legal immigration. Mass imports of Africans and Middle Easterner's over the course of a few decades have been brought, totaling now in the millions. Worse, at the biggest economy in the bloc they heavy handedly "encouraged" other EU nations to do the same. The results of which? Calls to prayer in Arabic now air in many European cities. Entire city zones are governed under Sharia law, or have become so lawless police don't even try to enforce order. In the UK (a former EU member state) the immigration has so cleanly ethnically displaced the native Brits they will be a minority in their own country by 2050.
Yet out of all this, it is Germany that has recently begun to fight back within its internal politics. The Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) party has gone on record stating that they intend to deport all the migrants and restore Germany and her economy. Perhaps most interesting (and why I give another country a place on this list) is unlike other nations they have the numbers to actually enact change. Not only are they winning elections, they have rapidly risen from nothing to impactful numbers, with polling this year indicating they will win an outright majority for the first time. Often when I debate with my more progressive counterparts they will quip about land not voting, and that the true majority usually votes for progressive policy. The turning tides in Germany stand proudly as the counter case to this. There are other parties in the Nordic nations and the Netherlands that are also rapidly gaining footing with the same platform of populist nationalism. The results of German elections this year will determine the course of the entire European continent in the coming years. As America leads the world, so the Germans lead the EU. As Germany, so the EU. Expect violent protests from both sides, and if the AfD does win I would expect mass riots of Muslims, followed by political turmoil in anticipation of the promised deportation. I can't say if they can save what's left of their country. There is more than what tatters remain of the USA, however the fact a comparison can be made at all is quite grim. For the sake of the preservation of Germany, her culture, and her people, I wish them the best of luck as they certainly will need it.
Middle East
There is no other more potent cultural flash point on this pale blue dot than the Middle East. The birthplace both of civilization itself and three religions there exists no other place with so much history and so many to claim it. As this is commonly known however I won't detail my reasoning for this choice. Israel has once again destabilize the region, be that intentionally or not. The Gaza Strip controlled by Hamas has become the latest place of war in the world. There has, at the very least, been a lot of interesting takes on who is to blame for the conflict. I won't bother with such details. What is important is that at time of writing Israel has directly killed 19,000 civilians in Gaza through intense bombing campaigns while sustaining fewer than one twentieth the casualty rate among its own people. It has also at present refused to engage in any de-escalation. As such they have drawn the ire of most every majority Muslim country (as well as many civilian protests in the Western nations in favor of Hamas). There is a real risk that tensions boil over this year. Even if they don't however Israel is not home free. The damage this war has done to their relations will be felt for decades. It has brought some of the sworn enemies of Israel to break bread with one another. Even if this never results in anything, there is one problem that will be the end of Israel anyway: ethnic replacement.
Much like the European nations have imported immigrants and are slowly being out bred into minority status, so too the Jewish people of Israel are being outbred by imported and native Muslim Arab citizens. This already has been causing huge turmoil within the Israeli government, though if the trend is extrapolated out one can see just how much worse things will be. If Israel does nothing, the Jews will become a minority in a matter of decades, making Israel a Muslim majority country (EDIT: They are already a minority in their own country, which explains such desperate government and military actions!). If they do something such as deportations, the political backlash would be so great the nation would erupt into civil war. Every year they delay the likelihood of a solution becomes lower, and the stakes more dire. I might add that, unlike the European nations where the people of the countries have existed there ethnically for thousands of years, Israel has no such history to even justify or complain about ethnic displacement. Frankly, the Muslims should be the ones complaining as they were displaced to form the Jewish state in the first place. Will Israel cease to exist then? I don't know. My opinion is simply that it is a culture war hot spot, and one that seems doomed to either die at the hands of its enemies or by falling on its own sword.
***
To conclude, this year I expect to be nothing short of quite remarkable. There are more variables at play with dire consequences than any other year of the past half century. I make no effort to hide my political opinions when I write this. I used to, years ago. I used to believe both sides of any issue were reasonable. I used to believe compromise was the way of the elect. I have had scales fall off my eyes in the years of COVID. I now have no such delusions.
Without subjective morality in society there is no civilization. Right and wrong exist. Objective truth exists, and the truth in end of itself is objective. Even such a pedestrian declaration as that people wish death upon others now for believing. We are expected to proclaim transgender men are woman, and trans woman are men. We are forced to use terms as Latin-x, or neopronouns. We are demanded to stand aside and watch as we become strangers in our own countries at the hands of immigrants who are preferentially hired in race based quotas. To dissent on all of these, nay, to dissent on ANY of these matters is to face extraordinary interpersonal, governmental, and even corporate persecution.
The left-wing autocrats' actions in 2020, enforcing lockdowns over effectively the flu, and the subsequent calls for forced injections or mass arrests for dissent have left an indelible mark. Covid woke many up, and it made me realize the importance of taking a stand against Progressivism, Liberalism, and the false dichotomy presented to those questioning the narrative being ostensibly branded as right wing. I reject the destructive practices pushed by Marxists, who destroy beauty in the name of equality and equality in the name of equity. Despite being a reasonable voice among millions of dissenters, I won't capitulate to this insanity. I hope for a peaceful resolution to the global culture war, but should it ignite, my stance is clear: the insanity must come to an end, and it will. The cycle will complete.
— Jack