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The Great Questions of Tomorrow
David Rothkopf
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As was the case in C14, we are living in what might be described as the day before the Renaissance. An epochal transformation is coming, and most of our leaders have their backs to it. They are looking in the wrong direction, clinging to the past. Suits them better to try to exploit fears of voters, so they get distracted from asking the real Qs.
Technological shifts will only be part of it. As history shows, these shifts will inturn change human behaviours, open new areas or understanding, enable new forms of both art and business, and inspire new ideas of how society should be organized.
If you lived in C14, difficult to understand the shocks: plagues, beginning of Little Ice Age, religious schism into Catholics and Protestants, constant wars in Europe. With benefit of hindsight we can see that each of those shocks re-ordered society. Death toll from plagues led to more value on work of survivors, and emergence of a middle class. A weakened Church lost control of govts, and nation states emerged. New war tech, primarily gunpowder, brought end to power of local warlords
Most of the changes that history has brought, even the ones which seemed catastrophic at the time, have ushered in progress and led to a world where we live longer, are better educated and healthier, and generally have every reason to be happier than any previous generation.
In a very years time, effectively everyone will be connected by cell phones. This is probably going to have even more effect than the Renaissance, if only bc it will touch more people. Phones are changing the way people spend and manage their money, keep up with the news and be entertained. And of course also, to commit crimes or incite revolutions. Being able to assemble virtual communities of like-minded people will change the way we think of ourselves.
The jetsetting elite, thesuperclass, have much more in common with other members of group, than with any national or religious group they may also officially belong to. They read the same few newspapers, dress the same, stay in the same hotels and eat at the same few restaurants.
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