Chapter 1 -Convergence: Science or Scientism?

Futurist Alvin Toffler coined the phrase “future shock” when he was at IBM in the 1960s. He was describing the phenomenon of “information overload” and anxiety brought on by “too much change in too short a time period.”[1] In 1970, he and his wife Heidi published the seminal book on the topic: Future Shock.

Because scientific discovery was accelerating at an ever-increasing rate, Toffler predicted a time would come when the mind would get overloaded, would become unable to understand the reality of how things work, and would ultimately view the operation of the technically enhanced world as magic.

In 2019, the British Psychological Society revisited Toffler’s work:

The psychologically overwhelmed are marked by confusion, anxiety, irritability, and withdrawal into apathy. Today, anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness in the United States, affecting some 40 million adults. Toffler predicted that people will attempt to cope with accelerated change through denial, specialism, reversion, and simplification.[2] [Emphasis added.]

If there are four, and only four, adjectives that describe today’s psychological manifestations, they would be confusion, anxiety, irritability, and apathy. Furthermore, when we see the coping mechanisms of denial, specialism, reversion, and simplification being played out everywhere, we can understandably conclude that “future shock” has arrived in full force…