In The Wake Of Destruction

What The Future Holds For Humanity

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Sometimes, you recognize truth because it destroys you for a bit — Akwaeke Emezi, Freshwater

Creativity carries in itself the seeds of destruction. Newer technologies are eating older ones and a newer world order is silently replacing the older one. The middle class is in the midst of so much turmoil that it can barely keep its head above water. The worlds of technology, politics and business are being reshaped by economic forces just like the mountains get reshaped by the winds.

The world is changing so rapidly that by the time you read this sentence, the world markets would have processed hundreds of political developments. How, then, do we make sense of the world? Mega trends are your friends. They help you understand the overarching story so that you can then understand the finer details better.

In this article, I attempt to peer into the future and to summarize three mega trends in key spheres of our lives. Life, proverbially, is never going to be the same again. All we can do is try to be prepared for the future.

1/Society

Mega Trend No.1: Almost all problems in global society are economic in nature. The middle class will find itself in exciting yet troubling times. While the global highly educated upper middle class will have to reskill themselves in a high technology world, the middle and the lower middle class in the US has already seen their lives upended with globalization and migration of manufacturing jobs to Asia. While globalization has slowed down with the cost differential between Asia and the US shrinking and an increased clamor to bring jobs back home, Europe has seen turmoil with slowing economies and the Brexit debate. Until the world finds a balance between immigration and domestic job creation, the economics of the job market will fuel the growing Trend towards nationalization. Nobody is right or wrong – the exponential increase in globalization hollowed out the middle class in the developed world causing real pain to people and a rising anger towards more globalization. Wealth shifted to Asia especially China with many new billionaires being minted everyday. This very real pain will continue to drive…