The Meiji Era of Humanity

ByDan November 16, 2025December 22, 2025 December 22, 2025

There are times in the history of civilization where change is not an option, only how we change.

The choice is between:

• Being dragged kicking and screaming into the future without any control over how our values and ways of doing things will be impacted.
• Dragging ourselves, kicking and screaming, into the future with at least some control over how our values and ways of doing things will be impacted.

We’ll discuss how this dynamic applies to humanity at the dawn of AGI. But first, we’ll see how it applied to human civilization change during the industrial revolution, beginning with the most famous and rapid story of civilizational transition in human history:

Japan in the 1850s – The Meiji Era

By the 1630s, Japan had learned much from China, had engaged in some trade with Europeans, and had decided to isolate itself.

Coming off hundreds of years of conflict, international isolation seemed the best option for the ruling Tokugawa shogunate. They saw it as the best path to pursue two key values:

• Economic autonomy
• Political stability

The Kimono, the sword, feudal rule, and traditional farming and crafts were now rightfully embraced to ensure that their values could persist and be strengthened into the future.

In the year 1853, Commodore Perry rolled up to the coast of Japan in a steam ship the likes of which the Japanese (nearly entirely isolated from the West for hundreds of years) had never seen.

Immediately, it was clear that the rest of the world had advanced drastically beyond Japan in navigation, the sciences, the arts, and the tools of war.

Suddenly, staying disconnected from the other cultures of the world meant being technologically backwards, powerless.

Coming off hundreds of years of isolation and comparative stagnation, rapid modernization seemed best to the new Meiji government because they saw it as the best path to pursue two key values:

• Economic autonomy
• Political stability

The Kimono, the sword, feudal rule, and traditional farming and crafts were now rightfully to be given up to ensure that their values could persist and be strengthened into the future.

So began Japan’s rapid development. Within 130 years, despite being decimated by World War II, Japan would become the world’s second-largest economy.

Japan didn’t change because they wanted change. They changed because the forces of destruction and transformation forced them to change in order to ensure the continuation of what they valued.

The Japanese did have the ability to decide how to change and which things to change first. But they didn’t have the option to stop modernization. Technology and science were creating greater powers and conveniences. Humans mostly wanted these changes, and once they got started, they created new, emergent developments, accelerating the speed of change.

They saw the fate of the Chinese, who had deliberately chosen not to modernize and had paid a price in loss of autonomy and power. The Japanese were determined to figure out how to wield these new modern technologies and social structures in a good direction, rather than be bowled over by them against their will.

The Japanese decided that letting go of some of their precious way of life and culture was necessary to ensure that what they valued (their persistence and independence as a people) could carry on.

Japan didn’t have to let go of Japanese culture, but they had to:

• Let go of as much of it as they needed to uphold the things they valued.
• Accept that they didn’t know how much – if any – of it would remain after the transformation.

Humanity in the 2020s – The Intelligence Explosion

By the 1970s, humanity had learned much from the carnage of the World Wars and from the lessons of Charles Darwin, Rachel Carson, and others. 

They’d come to the conclusion to value peace between nations, as well as the protection of the natural environment in a way that supports humans and other animals worthy of moral consideration. Of course, it wasn’t so simple, but indeed there was vastly more focus on global coordination and environmentalism than ever before in human history.

Coming off a century of conflict (Europe, Japan, Korea, etc.), creating a shared mythos of a peaceful, human-led, relatively inclusive, and ecologically aware future seemed like the best path to pursue two key values:

• The happiness and health of living things 
• Creating more opportunities for living things in the future

International trade in a human-first economy, and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, focusing mostly on human wellbeing and peace, were now rightfully embraced to ensure that their values could persist and be strengthened into the future. 

Then… 

In the year 2025, essentially all trillion-dollar company CEOs are speaking explicitly about the impending dawn of AGI, teens are falling in love with chatbots, machines pass the Turing test with flying colors, biped robots are getting frighteningly dextrous, and brain-computer interfaces are showing promise. Massive forces of transformation and destruction surround us from all sides. 

Suddenly, presuming that all future volition and moral value will be in the hands of Homo sapiens seems literally impossible – ridiculous to even consider.

Coming off a hundred years of valuing biological life (and hundreds of thousands of years presuming humanity is the most important moral patient in the cosmos), wielding these new technologies in a way that helps blossom the whole process of biological and non-biological life seems to be the best path to pursue two key values:

• The happiness and health of living things 
• Creating more opportunities for living things in the future

A vision of an entirely human-centric and human-led future was now rightfully seen as untenable, needing to make way for a range of new kinds of intelligences.

So begins the era of intelligence transformation on earth, stewarded forward by human beings with a reverence for life, and with an unfettered vision of what it will eventually bloom into.

Humanity shouldn’t change because we want change. We should change because the forces of destruction and transformation are forcing us to change in order to ensure the continuation of what we value.

Humanity does have some ability to prevent reckless developments, and we do have the ability to influence which changes are embraced first. But we don’t have the option to stop the forces of species-level transition. Autonomous AI is creating greater powers and conveniences. AI immersion (and soon, brain-computer interfaces) will give humans levels of pleasure and power otherwise inaccessible. Humans mostly wanted these changes. And once they got started, they created new, emergent developments, accelerating the speed of change.

We see the fate of companies that ignore paradigm shifts (Kodak, Blockbuster). We see the fate of civilizations that avoid modernization. We see where AGI, BCI, and immersive AI experiences are going, and we’d rather figure out how to wield them in a good direction rather than be bowled over by them against our will.

Humanity will decide that letting go of some of their human-first world is necessary to ensure that what we value (sentient life and future possibilities) can carry on.

Humans don’t have to let go of all of human civilization and the human species, but we will have to:

• Let go of as much of it as we need to uphold the things we value.
• Accept that we don’t know how much of it – if any – will remain after the transformation.

When a Paradigm Must Shift

At a personal and civilizational level, we pass through paradigms: 

• A child moves from a focus on play to integration into a wider society, within which the budding adult must be productive.
• A tribe goes from nomadic to agricultural, or a nation from feudal to industrial.
• Humanity goes from believing it is the center of the universe to confronting the works of Copernicus and Darwin.

The child, the nation, and the global civilization do not change merely on a whim. 

In fact, they typically resist the need to change ardently. 

And for good reason: a shifting paradigm implies lots of uncertainty.

But paradigm shifts are unavoidable when stasis implies certain death or decay. We then find ourselves in a situation where new “ways” must be developed to uphold what is valued.

When a shift of this kind happens, a nation learns that some of its ways of doing and being (like Japan’s caste system, samurai ranks, and feudal farming) are simply not adaptive, and these old ways will not support survival and persistence. 

And since survival is more important than “ways of doing things” (culture, customs, traditions),  those ways of doing things, and often the values that accompanied them, must evolve into new and more adaptive forms. 

Persistence is the meta-value.

Below, we’ll look at a handful of examples of eras for mandatory shift:

Nations/Cultures (1800s)

China saw the advancements in Western technologies in the 1700s and tried in vain to willfully stay in its feudal imperial paradigm. They paid the price.

Japan, faced with the same changes, had seen the fate of India and China. Under Meiji’s leadership, they decided to shift their paradigm, in a few short decades, transforming them from a samurai culture to a technological and military superpower. 

Neither China nor Japan directly caused the paradigm shift (and neither of them may have even wanted it), but they responded in very different ways.

Technology/Business (1900s)

Kodak saw the onset of digital cameras and tried in vain to stay committed to a paradigm of film. They paid the price as the world moved to digitization.

Nintendo saw the transition from physical to digital games and made a giant leap into a product category that had barely come into existence. 

Neither Kodak nor Nintendo caused the paradigm shift (and neither of them may have even wanted it), but they responded in very different ways.

Species/Intelligence Itself (2000s)

Humanity, faced with radical developments in AGI and a drastic shift towards immersive AI-generated experiences, could try in vain to ensure an eternal hominid kingdom into the future, only to be steamrolled by new waves of intelligent technology unguided even by our own values.

Or, humanity could ask how it could steward forward the blooming of new kinds of intelligence. If we value sentience, love, and the self-creating power of biological life, we can do all we can to ensure that these good and generative values make their way into the emerging types of symbiotic or non-biological life.

Neither embracing nor failing to embrace the impending waves of change will ensure our persistence long into the future. Nor can we ensure that our “values” will look the same when enacted by beings beyond our comprehension. But if we take the bold and participatory path, we can help to ensure that life itself continues to blossom beyond us.

(For a full exploration of the forces of creation and destruction that are forcing our paradigm shift away from anthropocentrism, see Short Human Timelines.)

We should not mourn a necessary transformation.

Japan didn’t get to stay what it was. But it did get to imbue some of its own (new and more adaptive) values into the trajectory of the next civilizational paradigm.

Nintendo didn’t get to stay what it was. But it did get to imbue some of its own (new and more adaptive) values into the trajectory of the next technological paradigm.

Humanity won’t get to stay what it is. But it will get to imbue some of its own new and more adaptive values into the trajectory of the great process of life of which we are part.

We find ourselves at a juncture of history where we are forced to choose between the two paths we talked about at the start of this article:

• Being dragged kicking and screaming into the future without any control over how our values and ways of doing things will be impacted.
• Dragging ourselves, kicking and screaming, into the future with at least some control over how our values and ways of doing things will be impacted.

Meiji Japan saw the writing on the wall from the futile “stasis” path of China, and chose to boldly reinvent itself in the face of new forces of change.

Will we be brave enough to do the same?

Meiji Japan cared enough about its civilization to define “care” not as “maintaining stasis,” but as “preparing something for necessary positive transformation.”

Will we be wise enough to do the same?