Hi. I'm Jeremy. Thank you for taking the time to read this piece.
It is imperative that the importance of the subject to be discussed is clearly conveyed to you. In due time, the content contained here will become increasingly relevant, and I believe you will start to discover parallels between it and real life. The issue at hand is the Purpose Problem.
I am seventeen-years-old at the time of writing. Within the general context of society at large, and within the narrow context of my experience as a twenty-first century youth, it is increasingly evident that generations who come after those before them face an increasing lack of purpose. The cause of such observations can be attributed to three broad instances of severe breakdowns in the societal system of today, all of which contribute directly or indirectly to the growing sense of nihilism. They are:
- Misalignment of financial incentives
- Insufficiency of insightful information
- Social normalization of mediocrity
The above instances of breakdown have me deeply concerned for the future of humanity. Due to the large-scale nature of these problems, many in my generation have resigned to the seemingly inevitable fate of a purposeless world - a world where people do things for no greater cause, and with no greater ambition, where people think small, and live for the sake of living. Unfortunately, the effects of yielding to default action are already creeping into our lives. This is a direct result of the Purpose Problem, and barring any physically cataclysmic event, I believe one of humanity's next most probable show-stoppers is a mass resignation to life without purpose. This would certainly decrease working efficiency, lead to lower levels of happiness and satisfaction, give rise to more instability and unrest, and ultimately result in the innovative progress of humanity coming to a screeching halt. This bleak future must not realize.
After much deliberation, it has become clear that purpose cannot be forced, implanted, or embedded in any one person. Every individual's purpose is unique, and a solution to the Purpose Problem will be a two-pronged approach that best fulfills the tangible and intangible requirements that must be met before purpose can be organically developed. At a high level, a solution to the Purpose Problem must re-ignite hope in individuals that there exists something in their future that is worth striving for, in addition to providing an object of achievement that serves as a measure of progress. Small pockets of individuals believing in such a cause and eventually acquiring the object of their achievement would spur on similar action from other individuals, creating a continuous chain of purposeful progress for all of humanity.
I think it is still possible to solve the Purpose Problem, and I hope you will attempt to solve it in your own special way too. Thank you.
Further reading…
Presently, the financial incentives of much of the world are ultimately misaligned with human progress. These are three different examples of misaligned incentives:
- The financial incentive structure of modern educational institutions is such that said institutions make money when students choose to enroll in their curriculum, not when students perform well, have shown to grasp truly useful and applicable lessons, or move on to achieve greater opportunities in life that were only possible because of their outstanding education.
- Students feel their education has been reduced to a cold transactional business that does not prioritize their success, resulting in lowered motivation, and a belief that their education is irrelevant or of lower comparative value to the past, in which paper certification reigned.
- Educators are less invested in the success and imparting of knowledge to their students than if financial incentives were integrated with the success of said students, resulting in lower quality education on the whole.
- The financial incentive structure of legacy wealth managers is such that said managers make money based on an 'Asset Under Management (AUM)' model where rewards are allocated proportionally to how many new clients are onboarded, not how much value and returns a manager has yielded for their clients.
- Clients receive less care and attention to their invested capital, are on the losing end of the stick should any unforeseen financial disasters occur, and indirectly end up investing in financial products that may not contribute much real value to the world.
- High risk innovations are under-funded due to the risk-averse nature of many legacy managers who are incentivized to park money in businesses and assets perceived to be of lower risk. Great ideas are thus left with funding options such as private equity and venture capital which on a case-by-case basis, may also be plagued with misaligned financial incentives for the stakeholders involved.
- The financial incentive structure of modern media platforms is such that said platforms make money from retaining the attention of their users on the platform, even if it comes at the expense of a user's overall mental health, quality of life, and productivity.
Additionally, the insufficiency of insightful information has led to a large-scale deterioration in thinking capability, analytical rigor, and innovative ideation. These are two different examples where direct or indirect reduction of insightful information has caused surging ripple effects on society:
- The tendency for social media platforms to propagate shallow emotionally-triggering information has resulted in said digital platforms becoming a cluster of inaccurate, overly-opinionated, and often logically-incoherent information, whether in the form of opinion posts or news updates. Simultaneously, quality information of more moderate and sound nature fall into the shadows, leaving the growing digital population with a general over-exposure to low quality information.
- The increasing popularity of short-form content, spurred on additionally by a constant need for information influx, leaves many in society with shorter attention spans than ever observed in history.
Lastly, the social normalization of mediocrity has resulted in a general decrease in personal fulfillment and satisfaction of one's life. These are three different instances of social normalization leading to adverse effects:
- The normalization of mediocre digital content mentioned above results in the common lack of motivation to change one's information diet. For example, one may find it difficult or unnecessary to cut down on their consumption of mindless entertainment such as Netflix, in exchange for an increased influx of insights from an audiobook, simply because consuming mindless entertainment is mostly the norm.
- The normalization of mediocre working environments has led many to subscribe to the fallacy that the modern corporate world is a cold, robotic, and untrusting place. This decreases the morale of stakeholders from employees all the way to the board, eventually resulting in low efficiency, productivity, and growth. This works against progress, and adds to the sense of nihilism newcomers experience.
- The normalization of mediocre personal standards has caused many to settle for things that do them more harm than good, from less-than-healthy social circles to damaging mental models that lack important understanding of certain concepts. In the latter case, one might encounter foreign terms or ideas, and instead of embodying a willingness to learn, choose to label the subject at hand as unnecessary or waste of time. This can in part be attributed to the normalization of full or partial ignorance, a derivative of the normalization of subpar personal standards.