What's Going On, and the Ambition/Credential Gap
In his piece What the Hell is Going On, David Perell identifies the dramatic ways in which the shift from information scarcity to information abundance has upended commerce, education, and politics. Building off of David’s work, I will focus on the tremendous opportunity information abundance presents curious, ambitious learners. With clear thinking, we can capture powerful trends that are tearing society apart and harness them for good.
What’s Happening?
Perell’s essay What the Hell is Going On clearly outlines how the Information Age is reshaping society. It’s also over 13,000 words long. Below I’ve done my best to distill the core arguments:
In the 20th century, information was scarce. This led to monopolies of power and influence in commerce, education, and politics
Big brands, universities, and media outlets benefited from the 20th century’s cohesive structure, which stemmed from information scarcity
Brands benefitted from consumers’ lack of information by monopolizing trust
Universities benefitted from limited information by controlling access to accreditation and institutional network effects
Traditional media outlets benefitted from limited information by creating cohesive yet incomplete narratives that matched their worldview and coordinated societal thinking
This gave media outlets significant influence over political and policy conversations
The internet has flipped society from information-scarce to information-abundant
Information is now exponential, and can be created/distributed by anyone
Since authority comes from information scarcity, information-abundance is rapidly undermining traditional authorities
Previously admired institutions are now “slow, stodgy, bland, and inefficient”
The exchange of information is now two-way, rather than one-way
Average people now actively create and distribute content at no cost
Mass Media’s power and influence has been undercut
Cohesive societal narratives have fragmented as traditional “truth arbiters” (media, institutions) have fragmented
People feel empowered to “uncover and distribute” truth as they see it
Truth is shifting to “a collective endeavor”. This is a messy process that we’re just starting to recognize and figure out
Content is now filtered after distribution, rather than before publication
20th century systems [institutions, media outlets, bureaucratic structures] “won’t work in the internet age”
Most people don’t recognize the shifting information environment, so discourse devolves to “anger, anxiety, and rage” as we drown in an “information vortex”
We must talk about our transforming media environment, because “the shape of media environments determines the structure of society”
The Ambition/Credential Gap
For years we’ve relied on institutions to map society and direct us forward. Businesses, universities, and media conglomerates guided us through the contours of the 20th century. Toward the end of the century, brash Bay Area upstarts began to disrupt the existing order with new gadgets and services. Change rumbled beneath the surface. But the structures of our old information ecosystems endured.
Perell calls Donanld Trump’s election in 2016 our “waking up moment”. Trump exposed the weakness of 20th century pillars - traditional media and political parties. His campaign harnessed the information tsunami before most of the “old guard” of media and political power players were aware it existed. In the years since, massive cracks in the old structure have been laid bare. It’s time to chart a new course.
Where are the new idea-smiths, standing ready to chart our course into the 21st century? Most visionary thinkers will require a certain level of education to produce ideas that move the world. Educational patterns from our information-scarce past have pushed the bulk of our brightest minds into a narrow subset of universities and industries -- think the Ivy League, banking, consulting. Credentials were so valued in the 20th century that top minds primarily chased status signals, with real learning as an ancillary benefit.
Ideas are the currency of the 21st century. Thanks to new technologies and free distribution, clear thinking can spread without institutions or credentials. Ironically, however, individuals with the talent to understand our changing world are often disincentivized from recognizing the magnitude of change due to their placement within the institutional structure that’s being undermined. Those in positions of authority often suffer from major blind spots. People can be strikingly myopic when incentivized not to see things clearly.
Credentialed gatekeeping made sense in the past. In an information-scarce world, mechanisms were required to sift through job applicants and find talented people, or at least the perception of talent. Moving forward, vestiges of this system create blind spots that may prevent credentialed individuals from seeing the full implication of the information age.
Conversely, those without credentials often lack ambition or vision to recognize and respond to the transforming information age. Presented with nearly limitless entertainment options, people give dozens of hours a week to television and social media. Perell quotes sociologist Elise Boulding in another piece saying “If one is mentally out of breath all the time from dealing with the present, there is no energy left for imagining the future.” Large portions of Americans spend much of this time in this category.
As a result - an Ambition/Credential Gap has emerged:
Those with the ambition to map societal change are often blinded by their credentials and institutional standing
Those not blinded by credentials often lack the ambition to map societal change
The Ambition/Credential Gap is widespread but not absolute. Independent thinkers, whether credentialed or not, are charting our digital future in scattered locations: Discourse forums, YouTube channels, podcast interviews, book notes. A Great Curation will begin to bring them together, changing how bold thinkers learn and generate ideas in the 21st century.