 We live in a strange moment.
On paper, we’re richer, faster, more connected, and more productive than any humans who ever lived. And yet—if we’re honest—something feels off. People are tired. Edgy. Distrustful. Lonely. Young people are openly questioning whether the system they’re inheriting even deserves their loyalty. That doesn’t come from hating markets or innovation. It comes from living inside systems that feel indifferent to their humanity. Say out loud that capitalism might need updating and watch what happens. People assume you want socialism or communism. They tell you to move to Venezuela. They drag out grainy images of Soviet bread lines like conversation-ending trump cards. Those reactions aren’t arguments. They’re reflexes. The sci‑fi writer William Gibson once called this kind of thing “semiotic ghosts”—old ideas that haunt new conversations whether they belong there or not. Capitalism gets questioned and suddenly Stalin shows up. End of discussion. That’s how we avoid thinking. Here’s the simple truth: questioning a system does not mean rejecting civilization. It means taking responsibility for it. The Founders didn’t believe they were building a finished system. They knew conditions would change—technology, power, scale, incentives. They designed a framework that demanded future generations keep working on it. They didn’t expect us to worship the system. They expected us to maintain it. Instead, we froze it in time, outsourced responsibility to markets and institutions, and told ourselves growth would take care of the rest. It hasn’t. This isn’t a capitalism-versus-socialism argument. Capitalism is a tool. A powerful one. It allocates resources, rewards risk, and fuels innovation. But tools without guardrails don’t stay neutral—they get dangerous. Socialism, as practiced in the real world, hasn’t solved the deeper issue either. Both systems quietly rely on the same assumption: endless growth on a finite planet. They argue about distribution while avoiding the harder question: What is this doing to the humans living inside it? GDP can rise while families fracture. GDP can rise while meaning erodes. GDP can rise while anxiety, loneliness, and distrust explode. At some point, the metric stops telling the truth. So let’s ask the question we’ve been dodging: What is humanity today? Not in theory. In practice. Humanity today is hyperconnected and isolated at the same time. More productive, less secure. More informed, less grounded. We’ve optimized systems for speed and scale, then act surprised when people feel like replaceable parts. That isn’t a moral failure. It’s a design failure. Most of the systems we live inside weren’t consciously designed. They evolved. Incentives stacked. Shortcuts compounded. Technology moved faster than reflection. The problem isn’t evil. It’s unintentionality. That’s the real divide—not left versus right, but intentional systems versus accidental ones. Intent forces us to ask: Why does this exist? Who does it actually serve? What tradeoffs are we accepting without noticing? Without intent, capitalism becomes extractive. Technology becomes corrosive. Governance becomes performative. With intent, markets stay powerful but bounded. Innovation stays fast but accountable. Progress stops eating its own people. Artificial intelligence makes this unavoidable. AI removes friction. It accelerates decisions. It magnifies whatever incentives we give it. AI won’t destroy humanity. Unexamined incentives will. AI will do exactly what we optimize for—not what we mean. Which means intent can’t be optional anymore. So the real question isn’t “What can AI do?” It’s “What must remain human, even when we don’t have to anymore?” Care. Judgment. Relationship. Responsibility. Those don’t scale automatically. They have to be protected. This is about civilization—and consideration. Civilization is how we organize ourselves at scale. Humanity is how it feels to live inside that organization. A civilization can grow while humanity shrinks. History proves that. Consideration isn’t charity or softness. It’s awareness of consequence. It’s restraint where power exists. It’s asking, before we push harder, what happens to people if we do. That’s not anti-growth. That’s adulthood. We’ve taught young people how to tear systems down. We haven’t taught them how to maintain and evolve them. What if they weren’t positioned as rebels, but as stewards? Not defenders of the status quo—but caretakers of its intent. This isn’t about ideology. It isn’t about GDP. It isn’t about burning anything down. It’s about you and me. About whether the systems we build make life more human—or quietly hollow it out. We don’t need to tear the house down. But pretending it doesn’t need reinforcement is how houses collapse. And this time, the cracks are impossible to ignore.
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How One Storm—and One Ancestor—Shaped the Way I See America
Before we get into the meat of this blog—before the critiques, the praise, the uncomfortable truths, and the occasional moments of hope—I want to start with a story. A real one. A family one. John Howland was a passenger and indentured servant on the Mayflower seeking a new life for himself and the battered group of English separatists and opportunists onboard with him. Midway across the Atlantic, in the middle of a brutal storm, John Howland stepped out onto the deck—maybe to get some air or smoke a doobie, maybe to help, or maybe just to feel like a man who still had control of his fate. He didn’t. A wave hit. He went overboard. That should’ve been the end of him. Game over. Name lost to history. But by some miracle—or call it fate, or shit luck—a bolt of lightning struck at the exact moment a rope was tossed over the side. The flash lit the sky just long enough for Howland to see it. He grabbed hold. He lived. But he didn’t just survive—he thrived. He went on to become a central figure and leader, establishing the colony of Plymouth and the first docs of American governance and patriotism, the Mayflower Pact. He married fellow Mayflower survivor Elizabeth Tilley, and together they raised ten friggin' children in a cabin they built from the earth and trees around them. Today, their descendants number in the millions. I’m one of them. Howland's story has stuck with me—not just because it’s part of my bloodline, but because it explains something about how I see this country. America has always been a little like John Howland: forward looking, crafty, half-drowning, and somehow still grasping for the rope. And every once in a while, just when things seem lost, a flash of lightning shows us where to reach. I’ve always loved thunderstorms. Something about the rawness, the clarity they bring. Maybe it’s genetic—maybe I inherited Howland’s sense that what looks like a storm might actually be a second chance. That’s what The Boston American is about. It’s not a history blog, though we’ll talk about history. It’s not a political blog, though politics are unavoidable. It’s a reckoning—a place to pull apart the myths and look hard at what this country is, what it was supposed to be, where we've faltered, and where the rope might be hiding now. Sometimes, we fall. Sometimes, we get lucky. And sometimes, we write our way toward the light. So here’s to thunder. Here’s to the rope. Here’s to not letting go. |
AuthorDavid Strand is a Massachusetts born and raised B2B marketing consultant and writer with a desire to help our next generation of leaders develop the critical thinking and life literacy skills needed to ensure that true American patriotism lives on. ArchivesCategories |
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