A Guide For The Existentially Perplexed

[[[/Housekeeping]]] Welcome to The Dejargonizer, the newsletter and podcast from communications advisor and former WSJ EMEA tech editor Amir Mizroch. You can read more about the newsletter here. If you’re new here and you connect with the content, please consider subscribing so you’re notified of new posts.[[[/Housekeeping]]]

Dear reader, it may not have escaped your attention of late that there is increased talk regarding existential threats to humanity, with climate change, nuclear war, and killer AI making up three of the four horsemen of the apocalypse. ?????? (???)

A quick tour through my inbox:

Some people are even keeping score.

As of today’s inbox I count ~10 existential threats, including AI, climate change, nuclear war, pandemics, bioweapons, asteroids, black holes, gamma-ray bursts from our sun, a nearby supernova, or all of them at once.

But seriously, what, if anything, are we to make of all this?

Should we stop to think about how we think about this, or file it away as a nice-to-have thought experiment for a Q4 brainstorm?

Is this whole thing overblown?

Still, could it affect any of our key stakeholders, like customers, partners, investors, suppliers, IT providers…our own people? What do our own people think about this?

Do we need to think about our own company’s place in this developing story? Is this even a real story?

I don't have any answers. But if we live in existential times, who better to turn to for guidance and inspiration than the Existentialists. They were philosophers with ultra-cool names who argued that each of us must take personal and collective responsibility for our actions. "We are our choices. Human beings are condemned to be free."—Jean-Paul Sartre.

It’s clear to me that there’s no Opting Out of this one. Being informed of developments in this story is table stakes. Being attuned to how people in our circles think and feel about this is also a must. Either way, we’re in this together."One's life has value so long as one attributes value to the life of others, by means of love, friendship, indignation and compassion." — Simone de Beauvoir.

Instead of succumbing to despair, denial, or dumbness, we are encouraged to be inspired to confront the challenges directly."In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.” —Albert Camus.

Existentialists also acknowledged life's inherent uncertainties and absurdities, guiding us to accept the uncertainty that comes with these existential threats, not as a cause for paralysis or fear, but as a call to action and innovation. "The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for." —Fyodor Dostoevsky:

It's an acknowledgment that while we cannot control everything, we can still make meaningful choices with the information we have. "Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards."— S?ren Kierkegaard.

Lastly, the Existentialists advocated for authenticity, which, in the context of existential threats, prompts an honest reflection on our actions and decisions. "To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment." — Ralph Waldo Emerson (though not categorized as an existentialist, his ideas resonate with existentialism).

The End (of this newsletter edition, not of the world).?