The world is gasping for acceleration.

I think most everyday people see the movement for progress or technological acceleration as something new. We've forgotten that this isn't new at all. This is what we used to be. 

The American spirit was always about pushing for a better, brighter, more exciting future. The world was tough, but that's just how it is, and we were going to make it better. We've completely reversed. 

To the average American, the world would be perfect if we just stopped doing the thing that's 'killing our country'. There's a deep selfishness that has ravished our nation, an entitlement that the world is supposed to perfectly serve our needs, provide cheap housing, food, and entertainment, and that we can blame the capitalists or communists, the patriarchy or transgenderism, the 'racists' or the 'anti-racists' for everything not being the way we wanted.

The spoils of technological revolution after technological revolution, the advent of hyper-industrialization, of globalization, of digitalization, and now of manufactured intelligence, have been wasted on us. Each time, we've been spared from nearly facing the reckoning of our poor decisions, legislature, and society. 

In this great splendor, we've begun to eat ourselves from within without noticing it. The decadence of our institutions has been ignored and pushed to the margin, now only addressed by the political fanatics, mostly on the right, who use it as a proof of their traditionalist dogma. Do not be mistaken, this issue goes far beyond partisanship. 

What are we allowed to worship anymore? Our old gods of achievement, wealth, progress, or art have faltered. It's most clear in conversation with the impassioned immigrants to the United States who, unexposed to the shift within the country, still carry the values that we used to have. The culture the United States once exported has disappeared and the echoes of our past values return confused.

How did we get here?

Pardoning some generalization, this is all clearest through the generational lens. The ideology of America has been split at the seams, from the Baby Boomer values of individualism, materialism, and traditionalism, to the Gen X values of independence, balanced life, and institutional skepticism, to the Millennial values of social consciousness, idealism, and community, leaving Gen Z lost in the middle. 

Much of the modern symptoms can be contextualized by the millennial generation's rebellion against the "work as life" spirit and their search for blame in why the world they were growing into was worse off than the one their parents grew up in. 

This is not some hidden shift, rather it can be seen as completely widespread across popular media and culture. For example, evidenced by Slavoj Zizek's viral discussions of ideology, the wildly successful millennial film "The Devil Wears Prada," where the plot follows a woman being entreated by fame and money only to rebel against the greed and return to her quaint life to pursue her true unglamorous passion. Here, Anne Hathaway's character reckons with her moral failure of worshiping wealth and success, instead of following more idealistic, socially-conscious and community oriented tendencies.

It is the "Generation Z," however, which most demonstrates the crisis of values we now face. As with every generation, Gen Z is a snapshot of our values and struggles, imprinted by the culture of our time. As such, the generation is a living contradiction: growing up in a shockingly competitive world, where success requires admittance to the ludicrous and ever-increasing standards of college admissions, yet imbued with the same incontrovertible truth that work should/will not bring you meaning or fulfillment. They have been told that "All that matters is your grades/your admissions/your job, but it still won't make you happy." 

We both celebrate the ideals of achievement, progress, and wealth, while we denigrate those who represent it. We both desperately strive to become the titans of our era, while claiming that they are no more virtuous or fulfilled than ourselves.

We're primed for change.

To see this ideology, one must look no further than the walls of Stanford's dorm rooms, where we see a student's clear challenge to the deep soullessness in our educational institutions, where the zombies of success and achievement have reached great heights, all without the conviction or pleasure that it should bring with it. 

Many conservative figures have appropriated this issue, asking "Where have the great thinkers and communities gone?", as if they have been misplaced or recoverable through the abandonment of liberal majors and a return to rigor and meritocratic admissions. The truth is that the professors they decry are the same as those they once celebrated, the student bodies made of the same individuals that they called 'once great'. Our society has not been infiltrated or pushed out but eaten from within.

But do not fear. This passion has been whittled down, but it has not disappeared. The shouts for progress, to rekindle the greatness of American innovation, have been echoed back in great fervor by thousands of students, professionals, and academics. There exists a shocking eagerness for our messages of progress, of optimism, and of acceleration. 

The world is gasping for progress, from the walls of Stanford to the halls of Congress, and it is up to us to lead the charge. It's time to accelerate.