The Future: Have We Been There Before?

 

 

 

 

 

 

I spent yesterday with the MOD discussing what the world might look like in 2040. There were presentations on Sub-Saharan Africa and South and Central Asia along with an interesting discussion on the role of identity and how globalisation and the internet may be changing how individuals and groups see themselves. If anyone is interested there is a public domain document on some of the work to date that I can share.

Other thoughts…

Did anyone see Channel 4 News (UK) last night? There was a somewhat alarming piece on the emergence of a movement called Golden Dawn in Greece. Essentially, the economic downturn and austerity measures have released a surge of nationalism and racist violence. Even the police seem to be drawn into this by, in the first instance, questioning anyone that doesn’t look Greek and, in the second, locking up anyone that is in the country illegally. Tolerance, it seems, has gone out of the window.

This not only links with alienation and the rightwards shift of politics in Europe (especially the emergence of far-right parties), it also seems to have parallels with the 1930s and the second emergence of the KKK, which if my political memory serves me correctly, was fundamentally linked to austerity in the US.

Links: My blog post November 2011 about parallels with the 1930s

2 thoughts on “The Future: Have We Been There Before?

  1. When you say that you were with the MOD discussing what the world might look like in 2040. Do you mean that you were discussing about 2045 since Global trends 2040 has been done or is there another global trends 2040 coming out?

    Thanks

    James

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