A spotlight on a cause of our vulnerability

Megatrends | Part 5 | Permeability

Through a vicious cycle of technology and human ingenuity, the age of privacy has long ended.  Every point is increasingly accessible, and nowhere is off limits or off the record.

Unless you find yourself a beneficiary of the European Union’s efforts to reverse this trend, privacy is extinct.   80% of children living in developed Western countries have a digital tattoo before they are two years old,^[1] and they won’t even own the intellectual property (IP) to it.  This includes 45 million (and, devastatingly, growing) pieces of content capturing child sexual abuse.^[2] 

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On the Megatrends series

I have earned an international reputation for leveraging global trends to create positive transformation.  Having (1) introduced this concept and (2) set the stage through earlier posts, I now invite you on a 360-degree tour of today’s change landscape! 

See if you might read/listen actively.  Consider these questions:

1. How does this trend manifest in your world?  Society at large?  Your family, community, or team(s)?  Your investors or donors?  The people your purpose calls you to serve?  

2. Importantly, how does it play out in you? In your own motivations or struggles?

3. What shifts in what is possible, acceptable, or both underpin this trend?

4. Who — brands, politicians, non-profits — ride this trend? Do they succeed or fail? Why?

5. What does this trend make possible that was impossible before?

Having covered Gluttony and Abstraction, our tour continues with Permeability.

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Even adult identities are so pervious that AARP estimates that 42 million Americans were victims of identity fraud in 2021, to the cost of US$52 billion in total assets.^[3]  A global phenomenon, it has sprung not only specialized consultancies but silly Hollywood comedies.^[4]

Image credit: Michaela Kranich. Licensed under CC.