Lesson: People’s social lives exist largely online, but people need communities and face-to-face interaction to thrive. In addition to maintaining close-knit communities, people must recognize and participate in the global civilization that exists today.
How will humans tackle the massive challenges they face in the 21st century? One option is to band together and tackle them as communities.
Besides food, water, and shelter, belonging to a community is essential for humans to survive and thrive. Throughout most of human history, people lived in small tribes, typically consisting of a few hundred people. In a community of this size, you can have some form of relationship with everyone, which optimizes group dynamics. However, in recent centuries, small tribes have been replaced with large nations—and some people believe that the loss of community has been a major factor in creating the challenges that modern societies face, from corrupt governments to drug addiction crises.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg believes so strongly in the restorative power of communities that he has made a mission of connecting Facebook users via virtual groups. Zuckerberg’s project uses AI to suggest groups that might be meaningful to individual Facebook users. The goal is to use the social media platform and the algorithmic tools to rebuild communities where people now gather—online—in order to improve connections among people throughout the world.
Zuckerberg is not the first to try to build communities in order to improve society. Activist groups, religious groups, and others build communities around their shared goals and values. However, the Facebook project is unique in a few ways, including:
Zuckerberg’s goal to connect people will only work if he can bridge the divide between the online world and the offline one. Facebook users can join meaningful communities online and connect with members of those communities through posts and messages—but will their community still exist if the website crashes? In order to truly bring humanity closer together, the communities that begin online need to make the jump to the real world.
Creating a true connection with someone requires you to interact with her as a whole person, which generally calls for face-to-face interaction. When you get to know someone only through her posts and curated photos, you have a limited understanding of her. By contrast, if you meet someone for a cup of coffee, your conversation could wander to topics that aren’t on her Facebook page, like your shared love of baseball. After that conversation, you’re more likely to be open-minded when she expresses a political view you oppose than you would be if you didn’t have a well-rounded understanding of her. In other words, without a physical, real-world relationship, you’re more likely to be polarized and repelled by opposing opinions.
If Facebook truly wants to rebuild human communities—in the real world, not just online—then it may have to adopt strategies that actually encourage users to spend less time online and more time in the real world. Such a policy would inevitably hurt the company’s finances, and shareholders would not be happy with the drop in profits, no matter how noble the cause. This is the reason that corporations historically have not led social revolutions, because company leaders, employees, and shareholders won’t tolerate the sacrifices that the revolution requires.
Aside from keeping people physically distanced from each other, technology also creates a disconnect between you and your own body, sensations, and emotions. When you use a device, only your eyes, ears, and fingers are engaged. If you’re looking at your email while eating lunch, you’re probably not paying attention to the taste, smell, or texture of your food. Furthermore, online interaction has trained people to externalize their experiences: If you are on a scenic hike, your own enjoyment is easily diluted by the impulse to snap a photo, post it on social media, and wait for likes and comments to affirm that you’re having a lovely experience.
In order for Facebook and other tech giants to succeed in bringing people together, they, too, must see internet users as more than just ears, eyes, and fingers. In order to connect people to one another, Zuckerberg has to first appreciate who people are as whole beings. However, if tech companies understand that they’re not connecting with their users’ full selves, then they’ll see the limitations of their reach, and they might be tempted to use algorithms to extend that reach in potentially intrusive ways. Google Glass and Pokemon Go were two attempts to blur the lines between online and offline realities. On a more extreme level, tech giants could use biometric sensors and interfaces that directly connect users' brains to the computer in order to truly bridge people’s physical realities with their virtual worlds—and that could lead to major manipulation.
The goal of bringing humanity together raises the question: What divided humanity in the first place? Throughout history, people have distinguished different cultures and religions as distinct civilizations that clash and compete, as if natural selection were weeding out various sects of humanity. For example, politicians and pundits today talk about the clash between Islamic civilization and Western civilization, claiming that only one or the other can ultimately survive.
In reality, all humans are part of a global civilization, and individual cultural identities and social structures are merely different branches of that civilization. Although a Muslim and a Westerner may behave differently, the differences are cultural, not genetic. People tend to reinforce differences among different cultures by overemphasizing the defining characteristics of each culture, pointing to common themes throughout that culture’s history. However, the most consistent and enduring characteristic of any culture is its ever-changing nature. For example, modern ultra-Orthodox Jews go to great lengths to separate men and women in synagogues in the name of traditions around modesty—and this becomes a point of distinction between them and other cultures—but excavations of ancient synagogues in Israel reveal murals of scantily clad women, suggesting that modesty is not an ancient value in that culture.
Unlike different species—which can never merge—civilizations can come together as one. Throughout human history, distinct tribes have merged into larger nations and civilizations. In recent generations, as globalization has connected the world economically, socially, and technologically, all of humankind has merged into one global civilization.
There are two aspects of this process of global merging:
Creating connections that link groups. This can happen between groups that appear to have little in common. For example, during the 20th century, wars played a large role in linking countries around the world. Although war limits or halts trade between battling nations, the deployment of troops quickly spreads cultural practices, ideas, and technologies. War also creates connections by raising the public’s curiosity about the enemy—for example, far more American movies have been made about Russia, Vietnam, and the Middle East than Canada.
Establishing uniform behaviors among groups. On the surface, it may not seem like there is uniformity in our global civilization. But, at its core, virtually every modern culture follows the same political paradigm, which values human rights, political representation, and international law. On a more visible level, nearly every country has a rectangular flag comprising simple shapes and colors, as well as an anthem that lasts a few minutes and hits on themes of patriotism and independence. These shared values make it possible for people across the globe to find common ground, and that has been critical to the merging of the modern global civilization.
By contrast, a thousand years ago, people in different regions followed different political models—some were loyal to kings, others followed priests, some were tribal, and others believed themselves to be the only legitimate civilization. Additionally, power and political structures changed constantly, as some societies disintegrated and others conquered and absorbed new territories. As a result, it was nearly impossible for different groups to agree on procedures and laws for their interactions amongst each other.
The commonalities we see among nations in the modern world are not limited to political paradigms. They also include:
Of course, there are differences among groups—from religious beliefs to national identities—but all of the basic and practical matters are largely agreed upon. Furthermore, no civilization is without internal disputes; even within a family or a friend group, disagreements are inevitable. In fact, common conflicts and dilemmas are a defining feature of membership within a group. For example, in 1618, members of the European civilization were in fierce conflict about their vastly different religious views. At the time, that struggle defined European identity, because those outside of that civilization would have little understanding or interest in such a dilemma.
Today, in our global civilization, the biggest challenges of the 21st century will confront people in all corners of the world, including: