Your frustrations do almost mimic those of our ancient ancestors, who found that grunting was no longer suitable to express their feelings and tribal social climates.

Exactly, I do believe that we are facing a transition of this nature this century.

I think this is where I get the most confused. You're still using the language and framework of current politics after supposedly abolishing it. Would this "new radical leftist movement" not inspire radical "rightward" rebuttal?

This was really a new thought for me. In my mind I thought that it would make a connection between the type of metasystem transition we need and the Occupy Wall Street movement. But, yes, I agree completely that the language to discuss the next political system should completely abandon the political language of the industrial period.

I agree with you that we are on the cusp of another Human Metasystem Transition, but speculating on the shape of a future "control system" is almost futile (extra emphasis on almost).

I agree. I think that all we can see are the developmentally constrained outlines of what it might be. But there will mostly be surprises in the variation of that system, that is the nature of evolution. So we are in complete agreement. But at the same time, no one is really focusing on understanding the full contours of the next system, as it is pretty much impossible, but I am at least trying. We do lack vision, which I think is the cause of a lot of pessimism.

One thing you've definitely got right is the potential utility of the internet in governance, but things could still go incredibly wrong.

Yes, I wish futurists in general would pay more attention to this. The fact that so few people are thinking about it in theory is why many things could go wrong in practice. But I think many fundamental concepts of complexity science could be used to guide a safe transition.

I do admire your idealism and optimism, but McKenna made the classic mistake of thinking that we'd have experienced a technological singularity by now. Turns out quantifying "novelty" isn't so straightforward...

Haha, yes, but even McKenna admitted that his predicted date for his transition was mostly an act. What matters is that on the scale of cosmic time we are very close to some higher form of organization. It is as Ben Goertzel stated in his 2002 book "Creating Internet Intelligence" that "anyone who has seriously thought about the future of technological evolution has realised that the foundations of human beings and human society will be completely transformed within 50-300 years". Of course that is no time at all over the scales of cosmic time.

I personally don't think its possible to predict when it will happen, there are just too many variables, and then there is also human decision making and will. Living systems can't be predicted with the same level of precision as physical systems. But I would be truly surprised if we didn't undergo a system transition before 2050. There are just too many large-scale problems and opportunities in operation at the moment for the present system to hold. But, of course, I could be wrong.

Much respect for your passionate sentiments, I find them noble. :)

Appreciate your thoughts.