The Mayan calendar says that once this era runs into its end times, things are going to start moving much, much faster. When I got my first computer back in 1984, it was a portable (ha!) Kaypro, basically a word processor with some games, like "the psychiatrist game," where you actually had a conversation with a machine! No you didn't - the computer just stored some of your answers for a minute or two and then looped them back to remind you that this is what you believed. Astounding!
Back in 1997 or so when I first saw moving pictures on a computer screen, I couldn't wrap my mind around it. Zoom forward to 2017, and we have computers with a terabyte memory, smart phones, smart houses, smart grocery stores. My Kaypro days belong in a cave in the dark ages.
And yet, in terms of world politics, you might be persuaded that the Mayans had it all wrong, and rather than moving forward, we're actually slipping backwards. It seems like we have left democracy behind and are going the well worn route of dictatorial governments. Rather than moving forwards, we seem to be in the midst of an explosion of male hierarchical power with Donald Trump on the top of this dung heap.
But perhaps through all the gyres of history we are actually now at a tipping point. On a global timeline, things look much more hopeful: since the year 1820, extreme poverty has dropped from 95% to 10%, child mortality from 45% to 4%, fewer people are dying from war than ever before and life expectancy has doubled. Even 9% of diehard Trump voters are already leaning away, are rubbing their eyes and wondering what kind of a nightmare they have woken up from.
So perhaps the Mayans were right, and the age in which we live is going into warp speed. Donald Trump, Duterte, Erdogan, Vladimir Putin, all the dictators and middle men of the world, are quickly moving into history like stations from a fast-moving train. Computers and the internet have changed everything. There is no way of fooling even some of the people all of the time. With any luck, and I won't quote Churchill here because he was as much part of the problem as anyone, but we are full speed ahead into the end of the beginning.
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