Every society invents new ways to organize power. Each system begins as an answer to the limits of the one before it – and eventually becomes the next problem to solve. As our world grows more interconnected, the frameworks that once defined legitimacy and belonging are starting to crack. Something new is forming in the spaces between.
Continue readingDemocracy
The Fragile Future: A Deeper Look At 2035
Yesterday, I launched a post titled The Fragile Future, exploring the uncertainty that lies ahead and the forces shaping our world. Today, I came across an article from the Atlantic Council titled Global Foresight 2025, which presents a range of possible futures through a survey of strategists and foresight practitioners. Their findings paint a stark picture of what 2035 might hold—a world teetering between worsening geopolitical conflict and cautious optimism about technology’s role in shaping our collective destiny.
Continue readingGlobal Foresight 2033
Alexandra Whittington is a fellow Futurist that recently participated in the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security survey of the future. The survey asked leading global strategists and foresight practitioners around the world to answer burning questions about the biggest drivers of change over the next ten years. Over 160 experts participated in a survey that covered the following:
Continue readingDisorder: Hard Times In The 21st Century
As geopolitical instability contributes to the uncertainty of the environment, it is critical to understand how we got here. Instability does not just emerge; it evolves over time. Our current climate finds its origins in the 1970s, with 2005 representing a critical tipping point. It still amazes me to think about the prescience of a book titled the Fourth Turning – where 2005 was identified as the beginning of a crisis period. A more recent book explored the question of how we got here. Author Helen Thompson tells a story viewed through the lens of energy, democracy, and aristocracy. The historical journey presented by Disorder underscores the complexity of geopolitical convergence.
Continue readingThe New Fire
I just finished reading the latest addition to my book library. The New Fire was written by Ben Buchanan and Andrew Imbrie. The book explores artificial intelligence (AI) through the lens of geopolitics, specifically, the prospects for democracy versus autocracy. A worrying possibility is highlighted in the book; that AI will do more for autocracy than democracy. In comparing artificial intelligence to fire, the authors make a comparison that I explored in a recent poll. Fire is very destructive, but as the authors state, it is also the basis for civilization. Humans learned to tame the destructive nature of fire, while harnessing its power. That is the precise analogy to AI that the book studies.
Continue reading
Reimagining the Future 