Aired: October 21st, 2014 – New York City
Document 54 pages – Lock Step – Read page 19
E X C E R P T S – B E L O W
An economically unstable and shock-prone world in which governments
weaken, criminals thrive, and dangerous innovations emerge . . .
An economically depressed world in which individuals and
communities develop localized, “makeshift” solutions to a growing set of
problems . . .
One important—and novel—component of our strategy toolkit is scenario
planning, a process of creating narratives about the future based on
factors likely to affect a particular set of challenges and
opportunities. We believe that scenario planning has
great potential for
use in philanthropy to identify unique interventions, simulate and
rehearse important decisions that could have profound implications, and
highlight previously undiscovered areas of connection and intersection.
Most important, by providing a methodological structure that helps us
focus on what we don’t know—instead of what we already know—scenario
planning allows us to achieve impact more effectively.
The Rockefeller Foundation’s use of scenario planning to explore
technology and international development has been both inspired and
ambitious. Throughout my 40-plus-year career as a scenario planner, I
have worked with many of the world’s leading companies, governments,
foundations, and nonprofits—and I know firsthand the power of the
approach. Scenario planning is a powerful tool precisely because the
future is unpredictable and shaped by many interacting variables.
Finally, a note about what we mean by “technology.” In this report,
we use the term to refer to a broad spectrum of tools and methods of
organization. Technologies can range from tools for basic survival, such
as a treadle pump and basic filtration technologies, to more advanced
innovations, such as methods of collecting
and utilizing data in health informatics and novel building materials with real-time environmental sensing capabilities.
The Rockefeller Foundation and GBN began the scenario process by
surfacing a host of driving forces that would affect the future of
technology and international development. These forces were generated
through both secondary research and in-depth interviews with Foundation
staff, Foundation grantees, and external experts.
Two uncertainties from a longer list of potential uncertainties that
might shape the broader contextual environment of the scenarios,
including social, technology, economic, environmental, and political
trends.
Bottom-up and top-down. Lower levels of adaptive capacity emerge
in the absence of these characteristics and leave populations
particularly vulnerable to the disruptive effects of unanticipated
shocks.
Once crossed, these axes create a matrix of four very different futures:
LOCK STEP – A world of tighter top-down government control and more
authoritarian eadership, with limited innovation and growing citizen
pushback
CLEVER TOGETHER – A world in which highly coordinated and successful
strategies emerge for addressing both urgent and entrenched worldwide
issues
HACK ATTACK – An economically unstable and shock-prone world in which
governments weaken, criminals thrive, and dangerous innovations emerge
SMART SCRAMBLE – An economically depressed world in which individuals
and communities develop localized, makeshift solutions to a growing set
of problems
Each scenario tells a story of how the world, and in particular the
developing world, might progress over the next 15 to 20 years.
We now invite you to immerse yourself in each future world and
consider four different visions for the evolution of technology and
international development to 2030.
Rockefeller Plan to Use Bioweapons to Impose Martial Law One Quarantine at a Time.
Page 18
LOCK STEP
A world of tighter top-down government control and more authoritarian
leadership, with limited innovation and growing citizen pushback
In 2012, the pandemic that the world had been anticipating for years
finally hit. Unlike 2009’s H1N1, this new influenza strain—originating
from wild geese—was extremely virulent and deadly. Even the most
pandemic-prepared nations were quickly overwhelmed when the virus
streaked around the world, infecting nearly 20 percent of the global
population and killing 8 million in just seven months, the majority of
them healthy young adults. The pandemic also had a deadly effect on
economies: international mobility of both people and goods screeched to a
halt, debilitating industries like tourism and breaking global supply
chains. Even locally, normally bustling shops and office buildings sat
empty for months, devoid of both employees and customers.
The pandemic blanketed the planet—though disproportionate numbers
died in Africa, Southeast Asia, and Central America, where the virus
spread like wildfire in the absence of official containment protocols.
But even
in developed countries, containment was a challenge. The United States’s
initial policy of “strongly discouraging” citizens from flying proved
deadly in its leniency, accelerating the spread of the virus not just
within the U.S. but across borders. However, a few countries did fare
better—China in particular. The Chinese government’s quick imposition
and enforcement of mandatory quarantine for all citizens, as well as its
instant and near-hermetic sealing off of all borders, saved millions of
lives, stopping the spread of the virus far earlier than in other
countries and enabling a swifter post- pandemic recovery.
China’s government was not the only one that took extreme
measures to protect its citizens from risk and exposure. During the
pandemic, national leaders around the world flexed their authority and
imposed airtight rules and restrictions, from the mandatory wearing of
face masks to body-temperature checks at the entries to communal spaces
like train stations and supermarkets. Even after the pandemic faded,
this more authoritarian control and oversight of
citizens and their activities stuck and even intensified. In order to
protect themselves from the spread of increasingly global problems—from
pandemics and transnational terrorism to environmental crises and rising
poverty—leaders around the world took a firmer grip on power.
At first, the notion of a more controlled world gained wide
acceptance and approval. Citizens willingly gave up some of their
sovereignty—and their privacy—to more paternalistic states in exchange
for greater safety and stability. Citizens were more tolerant, and even
eager, for top-down direction and oversight, and national leaders had
more latitude to impose order in the ways they saw fit. In developed
countries, this heightened oversight took many forms: biometric IDs for
all citizens, for example, and tighter regulation of key industries
whose stability was deemed vital to national interests. In many
developed countries, enforced cooperation with a suite of new
regulations and agreements slowly but steadily restored both order and,
importantly, economic growth.
Across the developing world, however, the story was different—and
much more variable. Top-down authority took different forms in different
countries, hinging largely on the capacity, caliber, and intentions of
their leaders.
More authoritarian leadership worked less well—and in some cases
tragically—in countries run by irresponsible elites who used their
increased power to pursue their own interests at the expense of their
citizens.
There were other downsides, as the rise of virulent nationalism created new hazards.
By 2025, people seemed to be growing weary of so much top-down
control and letting leaders and authorities make choices for them.
Wherever national interests clashed with individual
interests, there was conflict. Sporadic pushback became increasingly
organized and coordinated, as disaffected youth and people who had seen
their status and opportunities slip away—largely in developing
countries—incited civil unrest. In 2026, protestors in Nigeria brought
down the government, fed up with the entrenched cronyism and corruption.
Even those who liked the greater stability and predictability of this
world began to grow uncomfortable and constrained by so many tight rules
and by the strictness of national boundaries. The feeling lingered that
sooner or later, something would inevitably upset the neat order that
the world’s governments had worked so hard to establish. •
“IT IS POSSIBLE TO DISCIPLINE AND CONTROL SOME SOCIETIES FOR SOME
TIME, BUT NOT THE WHOLE WORLD ALL THE TIME.” – GK Bhat, TARU Leading
Edge, India
______________________________ ______________________________ _
Scenario Narratives LOCK STEP HEADLINES IN LOCK STEP
Quarantine Restricts In-Person Contact; Cellular Networks Overloaded (2013)
Vietnam to Require ‘A Solar Panel
on Every Home’ (2022)
African Leaders Fear Repeat of Nigeria’s 2026 Government Collapse (2028) 5
Intercontinental Trade Hit by Strict Pathogen Controls (2015)
Italy Addresses ‘Immigrant Caregiver’ Gap with Robots (2017)020
Will Africa’s Embrace of Authoritarian Capitalism a la China Continue? (2018)025
Proliferating Trade Networks in Eastern and Southern Africa Strengthen Regional Ties (2023)
Page 22
Many governments will place severe restrictions on the
program areas and geographies that international philanthropies can work
in, leading to a narrower and stronger geographic focus or grant-making
in their home country only.
Technological innovation in “Lock Step” is largely driven by
government and is focused on issues of national security and health and
safety. Most technological improvements are created by and for developed
countries, shaped by governments’ dual desire to control and to monitor
their citizens.
Technology trends and applications we might see:
- Scanners using advanced functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)
technology become the norm at airports and other public areas to detect
abnormal behavior that may indicate “antisocial intent.”
- In the aftermath of pandemic scares, smarter packaging for food and
beverages is applied first by big companies and producers in a
business-to-business environment, and then adopted for individual
products and consumers.
- New diagnostics are developed to detect communicable diseases. The
application of health screening also changes; screening becomes a
prerequisite for release from a hospital or prison, successfully slowing
the spread of many diseases.
- Tele-presence technologies respond to the demand for less expensive,
lower- bandwidth, sophisticated communications systems for populations
whose travel is restricted.
- Driven by protectionism and national security concerns, nations
create their own independent, regionally defined IT networks, mimicking
China’s firewalls. Governments have varying degrees of success in
policing internet traffic, but these efforts nevertheless fracture the
“World Wide” Web.
Page 24
EXAMPLE:
It was now 2025. Manisha was 27 years old and a manager for the
Indian government’s Ganges Purification Initiative (GPI). Until
recently, the Ganges was still one of the most polluted rivers in the
world, its coliform bacteria levels astronomical due to the frequent
disposal of human and animal corpses and of sewage (back in 2010, 89
million liters per day) directly into the river. Dozens of organized
attempts to clean the Ganges over the years had failed. In 2009, the
World Bank even loaned India $1 billion to support the government’s
multi-billion dollar cleanup initiative. But then the pandemic hit, and
that funding dried up.
Now in 2020 Many top Indian scientists and engineers had been
recruited by the government to develop tools and strategies for cleaning
the Ganges in more high-tech ways. Her favorite were the submersible
bots that continuously “swam” the river to detect, through sensors, the
presence of chemical pathogens. New riverside filtration systems that
sucked in dirty river water and spit out far cleaner water were also
impressive—especially because on the outside they were designed to look
like mini-temples. In fact, that’s why Manisha was at the river today,
to oversee the installation of a filtration system located not even 100
feet from where she first stepped into the Ganges as a girl. The water
looked so much cleaner now, and recent tests suggested that it might
even meet drinkability standards by 2035. Manisha was tempted to kick
off her shoe and dip her toe in, but this was a restricted area now—and
she, of all people, would never break that law.
Page 26
The recession of 2008-10 did not turn into the decades-long global
economic slide that many had feared. In fact, quite the opposite: strong
global growth returned in force, with the world headed once again
toward the demographic
and economic projections forecasted before the downturn. India and China
were on track to see their middle classes explode to 1 billion by 2020.
Mega-cities like Sao Paulo and Jakarta expanded at a blistering pace as
millions poured in from rural areas. Countries raced to
industrialize by whatever means necessary; the global marketplace
bustled.
But two big problems loomed. First, not all people and places
benefited equally from this return to globalized growth: all boats
were rising, but some were clearly rising more. Second, those
hell-bent on development and expansion largely ignored the very real
environmental consequences of their unrestricted growth. Undeniably, the
planet’s climate was becoming increasingly unstable.
Sea levels were rising fast, even as countries continued to build-out coastal mega-cities. In 2014, the
Hudson River overflowed into New York City during a storm surge,
turning the World Trade Center site into a three-foot-deep lake. The
image of motorboats navigating through lower Manhattan jarred the
world’s most powerful nations into realizing that climate change was not
just a developing-world problem. That same year, new measurements
showing that atmospheric carbon dioxide levels were climbing
precipitously created new urgency and pressure for governments (really,
for everyone) to do something fast.
International coordination started slowly, then accelerated faster
than anyone had imagined. In 2015, a critical mass of middle income and
developed countries with strong economic growth publicly committed to
leveraging their resources against global-scale problems, beginning with
climate change. Together, their governments hashed out plans for
monitoring and reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the short term and
improving the absorptive capacity of the natural environment over the
long term. In 2017, an international agreement was reached on carbon
sequestration (by then, most multinational corporations had a chief
carbon officer) and intellectual and financial resources were pooled to
build out carbon capture processes that would best support the global
ecosystem.
A functioning global cap and trade system was also established.
Worldwide, the pressure to reduce waste and increase efficiency in
planet-friendly ways was enormous. New globally coordinated systems for
monitoring energy use capacity—including smart grids and bottom-up
pattern recognition technologies—were rolled out.
Centralized global oversight and governance structures sprang up, not
just for energy use but also for disease and technology standards. Such
systems and structures required far greater levels of transparency,
which in turn required more tech-enabled data collection, processing,
and feedback.
Enormous, benign “surveillance” systems allowed citizens to access data—all publically available—in real time and react.
Nation-states lost some of their power and importance as global
architecture strengthened and regional governance structures emerged.
International oversight entities like the UN took on new levels of
authority, as did regional systems like the Association of Southeast
Asian Nations (ASEAN), the New Partnership for Africa’s Development
(NEPAD), and the Asian Development Bank (ADB). The worldwide spirit.
Page 28
“WHAT IS OFTEN SURPRISING ABOUT NEW TECHNOLOGIES IS COLLATERAL
DAMAGE: THE EXTENT OF THE PROBLEM THAT YOU CAN CREATE BY SOLVING ANOTHER
PROBLEM IS ALWAYS A BIT OF A SURPRISE.” – Michael Free, Program for
Appropriate
Technology in Health (PATH)
HACK ATTACK
An economically unstable and shock-prone world in which governments weaken, criminals thrive, and dangerous innovations emerge
- The cost of capturing data through nanosensors and smart networks
falls precipitously. In many developing countries, this leads to a
proliferation of new and useful services, including “sousveillance”
mechanisms that improve governance and enable more efficient use of
government resources.
- Intelligent electricity, water distribution, and transportation
systems develop in urban areas. In these “smart cities,” internet access
is seen as a basic right by the late 2010s.
Technology trends and applications we might see:
- Advances in low-cost mind-controlled prosthetics aid the 80 percent of global amputees who live in developing countries.
- Solar power is made vastly more efficient through advances in
materials, including polymers and nanoparticles. An effective
combination of government subsidies and microfinance means solar is used
for everything from desalination for agriculture to wi-fi networks.
- Flexible and rapid mobile payment systems drive dynamic economic
growth in the developing world, while the developed world is hampered by
entrenched banking interests and regulation.
Page 37
Despite such efforts, the global have/have- not gap grew
wider than ever. The very rich still had the financial means to protect
themselves; gated communities sprung up from New York to Lagos,
providing safe havens surrounded by slums. In 2025, it was de rigueur to
build not
a house but a high-walled fortress, guarded by armed personnel. The
wealthy also capitalized on the loose regulatory environment to
experiment with advanced medical treatments and other under-the-radar
activities.
Those who couldn’t buy their way out of chaos—which was most people—retreated
to whatever “safety” they could find. With opportunity frozen and global
mobility at a near standstill—no place wanted more people, especially
more poor people—it was often a retreat to the familiar: family ties,
religious beliefs, or even national allegiance. Trust was afforded to
those who guaranteed safety and survival—whether it was a warlord, an
evangelical preacher, or a mother. In some places, the collapse of state
capacity led to a resurgence of feudalism. In other areas, people
managed to create more resilient communities operating as isolated micro
versions of formerly large-scale systems. The weakening of national
governments also enabled grassroots movements to form and grow, creating
rays of hope amid the bleakness. By 2030, the distinction between
“developed” and “developing” nations no longer seemed particularly
descriptive or relevant. •
Page 18
Think Tanks – Rand etc. operations of death
Debilitating tourism and economies.
National Security Memorandum No. 200
Depopulation
CDC owns Patent on Ebola
Curfews and quarantine.
Page 28
Strong alliances laid the groundwork for more global and participatory attempts to solve big problems.
More effective vaccines improved healthcare.
Pharmaceuticals giants released thousands of drug compounds shown to
be effective against diseases like malaria into the public domain
as part of an “open innovation” agenda; they also opened their archives
of R&D on neglected diseases deemed not commercially viable,
offering seed funding to scientists who wanted to carry the research
forward.
There was a push for major innovations in energy and water for the
developing world, as those areas were thought to be the key to improving
equity.
In many places, traditional social barriers to overcoming poverty
grew less relevant as more people gained access to a spectrum of useful
technologies—from disposable computers to do- it-yourself (DIY)
windmills.
Given the circumstances that forced these new heights of global
cooperation and responsibility, it was no surprise that much of the
growth
in the developing world was achieved more cleanly and more “greenly.”
In Africa, there was a big push for solar energy, as the physical
geography and low population density of much of the continent enabled
the proliferation of solar farms. The Desertec initiative to
create massive thermal electricity plants to supply both North Africa
and, via undersea cable lines, Southern Europe was a huge success.
By 2025, a majority of electricity in the Maghreb was coming from
solar, with exports of that power earning valuable foreign currency. The
switch to solar created new “sun” jobs, drastically cut CO2 emissions,
and earned governments billions annually. India exploited its geography
to create similar “solar valleys” while decentralized solar- powered
drip irrigation systems became popular in sub-Saharan Africa.
There were still failed states and places with few resources.
Moreover, such rapid progress had created new problems. Rising
consumption standards unexpectedly ushered in a new set of pressures:
the improved food distribution system, for example, generated a food
production crisis due to greater demand.
Demand for everything was growing exponentially.
By 2028, despite ongoing efforts to guide “smart growth,” it was
becoming clear that the world could not support such rapid growth
forever. •
Page 30
HEADLINES IN CLEVER TOGETHER
Global Economy Turns the Corner (2011)
Radical U.S. and China Emission Targets Signal New Era in Climate Change Negotiations (2015)
A First: U.S. Solar
Power Cheaper than Coal
(2020) Shortages Loom (2027)
‘Info Cruncher’ Is Grads’ Job of Choice as Data Era Dawns (2016)
Consortium of Foundations Launches Third Green Revolution as Food
Green Infrastructure Reshapes Economic Landscape
(2018)
Transparency International Reports 10th Consecutive Year of Improved Governance (2025)
Technology trends and applications we might see:
- The cost of capturing data through nanosensors and smart networks
falls precipitously. In many developing countries, this leads to a
proliferation of new and useful services, including “sousveillance”
mechanisms that improve governance and enable more efficient use of
government resources.
- Intelligent electricity, water distribution, and transportation
systems develop in urban areas. In these “smart cities,” internet access
is seen as a basic right by the late 2010s.
- A malaria vaccine is developed and deployed broadly—saving millions of lives in the developing world.
- Advances in low-cost mind-controlled prosthetics aid the 80 percent of global amputees who live in developing countries.
- Solar power is made vastly more efficient through advances in
materials, including polymers and nanoparticles. An effective
combination of government subsidies and microfinance means solar is used
for everything from desalination for agriculture to wi-fi networks.
- Flexible and rapid mobile payment systems drive dynamic economic
growth in the developing world, while the developed world is hampered by
entrenched banking interests and regulations.
Page 32
Research teams had been working for months to fabricate a new meat
product—one that tasted just like beef yet actually contained only 50
percent meat; the remaining half was a combination of synthetic meat,
fortified grains, and nano-flavoring.
In cities and villages around the world where children used to be
hungry, access to higher-calorie meals had produced alarming increases
in the incidence of obesity and diabetes. The demand for meat, in
particular, was rising, but adding more animals to the planet created
its own set of problems, such as more methane and spiking water demand.
Page 34
HACK ATTACK
An economically unstable and shock-prone
world in which governments weaken, criminals thrive, and dangerous innovations emerge
Devastating shocks like September 11, the Southeast Asian
tsunami of 2004, and the 2010 Haiti earthquake had certainly primed the
world for sudden disasters. But no one was prepared for a world in which
large-scale catastrophes would occur with such breathtaking frequency. The
years 2010 to 2020 were dubbed the “doom decade” for good reason: the
2012 Olympic bombing, which killed 13,000, was followed closely by an
earthquake in Indonesia killing 40,000, a tsunami that almost wiped out
Nicaragua, and the onset of the West China Famine, caused by a
once-in-a-millennium drought linked to climate change.
Not surprisingly, this opening series of deadly asynchronous
catastrophes (there were more) put enormous pressure on an already
overstressed global economy that had entered the decade still in
recession. Massive humanitarian relief efforts cost
vast sums of money, but the primary sources—from aid agencies to
developed-world governments—had run out of funds to offer. Most
nation-states could no longer afford their locked-in costs, let alone
respond to increased citizen demands for more security, more healthcare
coverage, more social programs and services, and more infrastructure
repair. In 2014, when mudslides in Lima buried thousands, only minimal help trickled in, prompting the Economist headline: “Is the Planet Finally Bankrupt?”
These dire circumstances forced tough tradeoffs. In 2015, the U.S.
reallocated a large share of its defense spending to domestic concerns,
pulling out of Afghanistan—where the resurgent Taliban seized power once
again. In Europe, Asia, South America, and Africa, more and more
nation- states lost control of their public finances, along with the
capacity to help their citizens and retain stability and order. Resource
scarcities and trade disputes, together with severe economic and
climate stresses, pushed many alliances and partnerships to the breaking
point; they also sparked proxy wars and low-level conflict in
resource-rich parts of the developing world. Nations raised trade
barriers in order to protect their domestic sectors against imports
and—in the face of global food and resource shortages—to reduce exports
of agricultural produce and other commodities.
With government power weakened, order rapidly disintegrating, and
safety nets evaporating, violence and crime grew more rampant. Countries
with ethnic, religious, or class divisions saw especially sharp spikes
in hostility: Naxalite separatists dramatically expanded their guerrilla
campaign in East India; Israeli- Palestinian bloodshed escalated; and
across Africa, fights over resources erupted along ethnic or tribal
lines. Meanwhile, overtaxed militaries and police forces could do little
to stop growing communities of criminals and terrorists from gaining
power. Technology-enabled gangs and networked criminal enterprises
exploited both the weakness of states and the desperation of
individuals. With increasing ease, these “global guerillas” moved
illicit products through underground channels from poor producer
countries to markets in the developed world. Using retired 727s and
other rogue aircraft, they crisscrossed the Atlantic, from South America
to Africa, transporting cocaine, weapons, and operatives. Drug and gun
money became a common recruiting tool for the desperately poor.
Criminal networks also grew highly skilled at counterfeiting licit
goods through reverse engineering. Many of these “rip-offs” and copycats
were of poor quality or downright dangerous. In the context of weak
health systems, corruption, and inattention to standards—either within
countries or from global bodies like the World Health
Organization—tainted vaccines entered the public health systems of
several African countries. In 2021, 600 children in Cote d’Ivoire died
from a bogus Hepatitis B vaccine, which paled in comparison to the
scandal sparked by mass deaths from a tainted anti-malarial drug years
later. The deaths and resulting scandals sharply affected public
confidence in vaccine delivery; parents not just in Africa but
elsewhere began to avoid vaccinating their children.
Technology hackers were also hard at work. Internet scams and pyramid
schemes plagued inboxes. Meanwhile, more sophisticated hackers
attempted to take down corporations, government systems, and banks via
phishing scams and database information heists, and their many successes
generated billions of dollars in losses. Desperate to protect
themselves and their intellectual property, the few multinationals still
thriving enacted strong, increasingly complex defensive measures.
Patent applications skyrocketed and patent thickets proliferated, as
companies fought to claim and control even the tiniest innovations.
Security measures and screenings tightened.
This “wild west” environment had a profound impact on innovation. The
threat of being hacked and the presence of so many thefts and fakes
lowered the incentives to create “me first” rather than “me too”
technologies. And so many patent thickets made the cross-pollination of
ideas and research difficult at best. Blockbuster pharmaceuticals
quickly became artifacts of the past, replaced by increased
production of generics. Breakthrough innovations still happened in
various industries, but they were focused more on technologies that
could not be easily replicated or re-engineered. And once created, they
were vigorously guarded by their inventors—or even by their nations. In
2022, a biofuel breakthrough in Brazil was protected as a national
treasure and used as a bargaining chip in trade with other countries.
Verifying the authenticity of anything was increasingly difficult.
page 37
Recognized seals of safety and approval proved ineffective
when even those seals were hacked. The positive effects of the mobile
and internet revolutions were tempered by their increasing fragility as
scamming and viruses proliferated, preventing these networks from
achieving the reliability required to become the backbone of developing
economies—or a source of trustworthy information for anybody.
Interestingly, not all of the “hacking” was bad. Genetically modified
crops (GMOs) and do-it- yourself (DIY) biotech became backyard and
garage activities, producing important advances. In 2017, a network of
renegade African scientists who had returned to their home countries
after working in Western multinationals unveiled the first of a range of
new GMOs that boosted agricultural productivity on the continent.
But despite such efforts, the global have/have- not gap grew wider
than ever. The very rich still had the financial means to protect
themselves; gated communities sprung up from New York
to Lagos, providing safe havens surrounded by slums. In 2025, it was de rigueur to build not
a house but a high-walled fortress, guarded by armed personnel. The
wealthy also capitalized on the loose regulatory environment to
experiment with advanced medical treatments and other under-the-radar
activities.
Those who couldn’t buy their way out of chaos—which was most people—retreated
to whatever “safety” they could find. With opportunity frozen and global
mobility at a near standstill—no place wanted more people, especially
more poor people—it was often a retreat to the familiar: family ties,
religious beliefs, or even national allegiance. Trust was afforded to
those who guaranteed safety and survival—whether it was a warlord, an
evangelical preacher, or a mother. In some places, the collapse of state
capacity led to a resurgence of feudalism. In other areas, people
managed to create more resilient communities operating as isolated micro
versions of formerly large-scale systems. The weakening of national
governments also enabled grassroots movements to form and grow, creating
rays of hope amid the bleakness. By 2030, the distinction between
“developed” and “developing” nations no longer seemed particularly
descriptive or relevant. •
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