Maybe this decade really will be different
The fourth generation
The North American Indians say that we are all the 4th Generation - shaped by the three behind us and shaping the three that follow us.
If that’s true, we are at a significant turning point, with an awesome responsibility.
Even allowing for more recently arrived generations, the three behind us were shaped by a society created by the consequences of the industrial revolutions and two major, conventional wars. The three in front of us are being shaped by the digital technology, globalisation, connectivity, increasingly extreme inequality, the hangover from two hundred years of abusive extraction of the natural wealth of the planet, and the unknowns that will be generated by "combinatorial explosion" - the things that happen when complexities meet up.
The threats we face, whilst not certain, are scientifically and statistically robust. It’s not about the conscious button pushing choice of the cold war, and mutually assured dest…
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