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Brent McClintock's avatar

Thanks for this! When I first skimmed it late at night it struck me that there are similarities between Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), and the skill of radical acceptance with Pauline Boss's work on Ambiguous Loss. I've been taking a look recently at the ambiguous loss concept in the context of future shock & your ANM analysis. Since the two approaches are outside my professional education & skill set, I ran them through ChatGPT to see what it would come up with.

ChatGPT comes up with the following conceptual overlap - headings only below except #3 (with each with a couple of annotated bullet point explanations under each).

Conceptual Overlap

1. Embracing uncertainty

2. Letting go of control

3. Finding meaning in suffering (bullet pts below)

- Boss integrates meaning-making as a central coping strategy in her model: families construct

new rituals, narratives, or roles to live with the loss.

- While radical acceptance itself is less about narrative, DBT’s broader framework encourages

building a life you value even amid suffering—often by redefining one’s relationship to

painful events.

Final thought: While Toffler reads as "very 60s" now, I remember him recommending finding the stable influences in your life - it varies between individuals - but eg family, local community, pursuits. In faster, more disruptive times these areas of stability will be roiled too, so stable foundation-shifting may be needed. Being mindful of these stable parts of life has helped me ever since I read Toffler way back in the 70s. I've been re-reading Future Shock in recent years, still conceptually something of a guide book to whitewater rafting through life.

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The_Unemployed_Economist's avatar

I am unemployed again and needed this message.

Thesis: 2023 the cre market is shit, find stability in government work

Antithesis: 2025 the government work is shit, safety is an illusion, if you work for someone else, you are completely disposable.

Synthesis: 2025 lol wut do?

Crisis precipitates change, and I need to accept it.

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