Setting the stage for megatrends
Part 2 | Leveraging trends for your changemaking
My last post, The Role of Trends in Changemaking, shared my way, refined over 15-odd years, to leverage global trends in remaking the world for the better. By paying attention, not only can the astute gain insight into what the future may look like, but they can also create projects and ventures uniquely suited for it. Now, let’s take the next step.
Before we dive into the megatrends themselves, let’s start by defining the space where, in my judgment, they are staging their individual performances, leading to the interplay any change-maker should watch with rapt attention.
Image credit: Tung Lam from Pixabay.
To avoid undue complexity, let’s establish two proverbial axes, each capturing a tension between two concepts. The vertical axis is defined by the overpowering disruption that is the human species (Gods R Us) on one end and on the other, by the laws that govern our planet (Ecosystem Limits). On the horizontal axis, the tension is between what we can and should do (Ability vs Discernment).
Setting the stage for understanding megatrends
Gods R Us
Even if our collective awareness has not quite caught up with this, humans are the planet’s most powerful agent of change. We continue to look over our shoulder for grown-ups even though we are, undisputedly, it.
Historically, especially before the Enlightenment, people assigned control over mysterious matters to fate or gods. Too often, we still operate as if a very attentive myriad of gods and goddesses, with plagues and natural disasters at their disciplinary disposal, will step in should we ever truly cross the line.
True, for most of human history, the buck did not stop with us. Where nature didn’t have the better of our farming efforts, invaders stepped in. However, that progressively changed until it passed a tipping point: we are now living in the Anthropocene Era, a geological era defined by the planet’s most powerful agent of change. We, The People, are the gamechangers that the ice and meteorites have been in times past.
While our consignment of this power may have started with what we cannot control, it has barely abated even as we have claimed that very power. We know for a fact that much of what is happening in the world can be traced back to human influence. We have put people on the moon, defied most life-threatening diseases, and made meaning of history. We have also disrupted the dynamic balance of our climate, compromised most food chains, and caused ripples of bloodshed. Still, we continue to live as if we were the kids in a sandbox, lost to the impulse of discovery. Our preference for denial has infiltrated even secular rhetoric, where one still hears (in English, but equivalents abound in most languages I tested) phrases like, “God willing,” “Thank goodness,” and “People plan and god laughs.”
Exceptions aside, humanity persists in denial of its power. I do not wish to comment on religion or to suggest that there isn’t a spiritual influence in the world. I am merely attempting to illustrate that across ideologies, humans have been transferring accountability.
This false humility can only lead to graver damage. What would become possible if we owned the full extent of our power?
Ecosystem limits
Gaps in our understanding notwithstanding, we have discovered — usually through trespassing — the limits of the astounding, creative, and resilient ecosystems on which we depend not only for survival but also delight. Fed up, the ecological, social, and economic systems are pushing right back.
When our collective impact was but a speck in a resilient system, we did not have to notice that we were living out the Tragedy of the Commons,[1] a fable where villagers sabotage their long-term survival by overgrazing a shared pasture. The Tragedy of the Commons illustrates just how bad people are at choosing the greater good and goes some way towards explaining why we have been unable, even when we manage to rise above our own short-term interest, to symbiotically function in communities much bigger than 200 people.[2]
Global population is still rising. Each day, the world welcomes three times the number of people than it sees off. Expected to reach 9.8 billion people by 2050[3] (a projection that has increased by 8% in the past decade), population growth is multiplying consumers where they are understandably least motivated to keep their cravings in check: in developing economies.
At the same time, ecological footprints have been and, sadly, are set to continue to increase for the developing countries and many of the developed ones. Every day, we run a global deficit of over 14,000 hectares of forests, lose over 19,000 hectares of soil to erosion, and nearly 33,000 hectares to desertification.[4] We continue to produce materials and compounds that natural ecosystems cannot break down, leading to greater pollution, overall degradation, and disease. However, the privileged have been able to shield themselves from the consequences of their choices ever since humans domesticated livestock, discovered fossil fuels, and ensured (through policy) that the less fortunate both near and far suffer the brunt of those consequences.
A part of the problem is that the consequences of today’s choices often come much later (over a decade for diet-related diseases or 30-odd years for climate change). This makes them feel less severe, especially since the rewards — a juicy hamburger or an air-conditioned respite on a hot day — are right here, guaranteed. And what if the reward is yours but the cost is borne by somebody else? Or what if improving the situation for another comes at the cost to you? Such “split incentives” are a well-documented obstacle to positive action.
What we have long thrown “away” is bouncing back at us, “away” proven to be a non-existent location. There are limits to our planet’s resources, to what an ecosystem or a human body can bear before they collapse, to what a community will defend as their own, and even to economic theories. Having bumped against each of those limits, human activity is – for the first time in recorded history – forcibly constrained.
Ability
Whatever remains out of humanity’s grasp is progressively yielding to the onslaught of curiosity, understanding, and ingenuity; an insatiable (Gluttony is a megatrend I will soon introduce) and utterly unconstrained dynamic.
While not yet equitably distributed around the globe, our ability has nearly put us out of nature’s reach.
We have been 3D printing blood vessels for over a decade, and the genetic engineering advances of 2023 suggest that should I need an organ replacement in a few years, this may no longer require a human donor. We have figured out how to bring back extinct species like the wooly mammoth. On July 6, 2023, the US Food & Drug Administration approved the first treatment to slow the progression of Alzheimer’s disease.[5] Combined, scientific breakthroughs may already hold the keys to doubling our life expectancy.
Since OpenAI launched ChatGPT and GPT-4 in late 2022, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has upended the tenets of education, design, and art as well as challenged how we define creativity and intellectual property. Elsewhere, our scientific models are tracking weather, climate, habits, spread of disease, trafficking, and more.
We can no longer view technology as something contained and external to us. With AI, nano and biotech, technology is increasingly inseparable from living things. We are manufacturing and manipulating living organisms, as exemplified by living products grown to precise specification using mycelium, algae, or yeast, or by the bacteria processing wastewater within biological reactors or the emergent discipline of synthetic biology. Among the myriad of implications, this is likely to parlay into wearable and embedded technology; to cognitive applications beyond today’s limitations of our senses; and to analytical and creative prowess at levels we have not defined, let alone regulated.
Whenever we can’t, it seems only a matter of time before we can.
Discernment
My twin daughters were barely ten when I first started talking to them about what would define their lifetime: ethics. Advances in human ability boggle the mind, but just because we can, doesn’t mean we should.
If (when) we could, should we vet athletes based on genetic markers rather than gender and past and current performance?
Should we deny life insurance to anybody with unfavorable genetics if that drops the price for everybody else?
Should we strip a person of their liberty today if tomorrow, they are likely to pose a risk to society?
Should we expand the characteristics that inform whether a fetus is kept or aborted?
Should our teachers track their students’ instantaneous biochemical response if that informs their pedagogy?
Should we grow vital organs to eliminate the need for voluntary donations? What about growing whole human bodies for harvesting?
Should video conferencing software adjust for micro-cultural sensitivities if the speaker is deemed to mean “well”?
Historically, religious beliefs and social norms have served as guard rails in our determination of right and wrong. The power of both has weaned significantly, leaving humanity largely flailing in an otherwise-open space; a paradigm that has fueled countless fresh takes on utopian and dystopian futures, exemplified by TV shows like Lost, The Walking Dead, The Handmaid’s Tale, The Last of Us, The 100, Altered Carbon, and Black Mirror. No surprise that the uncertainty contributes to Trend #8, Angst.
If countless lifetimes have been dedicated to advancing our collective ability, the ingenuity of emerging generations will be split — if not significantly diverted to — weighing the implications of exerting that power.
Now, what megatrends are playing out against the axis defined by Gods R Us, Ecosystem Limits, Ability, and Discernment? Over the years of navigating the unruly totality of change, I have settled on just ten key megatrends that are currently reshaping the world:
Gluttony
Abstraction
Permeability
Collective power
Cacophony
Obsolescence pandemic
Nomading
Angst
A thirst for meaning
Reimagining
Through upcoming posts, I will take you on a 360-degree tour!
[1] This term has been widely used in economics to refer to the phenomenon when a group undermines collective long-term interest by acting out of individual short-term interest, such as is the case with overgrazing or overfishing, or the more high-level depletion of a finite social or environmental resource. The term became popularized after 1968, when Garrett Hardin explored the concept in the journal Science.
[2] A value known as the Dunbar’s number, after the British anthropologist Robin Dunbar who suggested that there is a cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships. The number is expected to sit between 100 and 250.
[3] United Nations. World Population projected to reach 9.8 billion in 2050, and 11.2 billion in 2100. Accessed August 18, 2023.
[4] According to Worldometers.info, so far in 2024, 4,036,306 hectares of forest have been lost, 5,433,970 hectares of land have been lost to erosion, and 9,313,625 hectares – to desertification. Accessed October 10, 2024.
[5] (July 06, 2023). FDA Converts Novel Alzheimer’s Disease Treatment to Traditional Approval. US FDA. Accessed August 18, 2023.