Four Strategies to Resolve the Global MegaCrisis

Overview

We start by acknowledging that the present global order is not sustainable. The Trend Analysis below makes it clear that climate, pandemics, government gridlock, conflict, inequality, water, and other threats are leading to disaster.  Michael Marien and William called it the “Global MegaCrisis.” The New York Times reported that 56% of 10,000 people who were surveyed think “humanity is doomed.” (May 3, 2022)  A recent report by the UN warns that a “total societal collapse” is likely unless serious action is taken quickly. (ByLine Times, May 26, 2022)

The first phase of this study tested 2 scenarios — Global Consciousness and Muddling Through — but the results were inconclusive. We then developed the 4 scenarios described below, which produced interesting and credible conclusions.  Results show that Global Consciousness is rated most highly, but the two Muddling Through scenarios are most likely. The first Muddling Through scenario describes how Global Consciousness can evolve gradually rather than emerge full-blown. Combining both scenarios 1 and 2 then produces a combined probability for some type of global consciousness at about 50% — teetering on the divide between maturity and catastrophe. The Second Muddling Through scenario based on capitalism and technology has a poor outcome, and the “autocratic” scenario is terrible. 

These results suggest a strategy of muddling through with the need for sustainable solutions and cooperation in mind.  Then allow global consciousness to evolve gradually as threats are addressed, and at some point make global consciousness the dominant worldview.

Research Method

After we first framed this study, Round One invited estimates for two scenarios. Results of Round One were inconclusive, so Round Two expanded the study to 4 scenarios. 

TechCast is grateful to the following 33 contributors who provided the data reported here:  Peter King,  Margherita Abe,  Jacques Malan, Clay McDean, Lester Ingber, Art Murray, Leopold Mureithi,  Tom Dickinson, John Smart, Gerry Stoopman, Rene Opplinger, Art Shostak, John Meagher, Young-Jin Choi, David Passig, Jose Cordeiro, Sami Makilianan, Steve Hausman, Mark Sevening, Victor Motti, Andrew Micone, Ruben Nelson, Clark Capshaw, Gerd Leonhard, Chris Galick, Michael Lee, Kent Myers, Yul Anderson, Wendell Wallach, Paul Haase, Angus Hooke, and Xin-Wu Lin. 

Four Alternative Scenarios

These four scenarios provide a varied and plausible set of options that are short and accurate summaries of four distinctively different paths comprising the full range of strategic thought. We make a point of focusing on the actions taken and their strategic implications, without presuming to know or evaluate the outcomes.  Those judgments are left to our contributors when making their estimates.

The following four scenarios span the full range from “transformative change” to “regression”.  The No. 1 option describes how a global vision and plans emerge to develop a sustainable world. Option No. 2 continues to muddle through but global consciousness evolves as challenges are met with sustainable solutions. Option 3 muddles through by relying on market forces and free enterprise. The final option reverts to strong governance to manage disorder.

1. Global Consciousness Emerges 

As climate, pandemics and other threats became more severe, leaders in business, government, and grassroots groups advocated various forms of global consciousness to form a sustainable world. Proposals for changing worldviews were abundant with great confusion. The UN formed a special task force to form a “Global Vision,” along the lines of its Sustainable Development Goals, stressing respect for the planet and cooperation. A new pandemic emerged, and this time it was well managed better through global cooperation. The media, most nations and corporations worked together on technological advances, business initiatives, and government plans to transform world systems for achieving this vision of planetary health. A sense of global awareness, responsibility and shared values emerged, much like the global support provoked by the war on Ukraine — global consciousness.

2.  Muddling Toward Sustainable Enterprise and Hi-Tech (Sustainability and Cooperation Guiding Global Markets and Hi-Tech) 

As climate, pandemics and other threats became more severe, people resisted all-encompassing changes but they focused more on sustainable solutions and cooperation to guide global markets, creative entrepreneurs, and technological innovation. Governments set up a global carbon tax, with the proceeds returned to citizens for strengthening economic growth. Business invested heavily in renewable energies, and most people made the lifestyle changes needed to reduce CO2. A new pandemic emerged, and this time nations worked with WHO to develop global solutions.  The rise in ESG programs to work on social problems with stakeholders reinforces the new ethic of collaboration, shifting attitudes everywhere. In 2022, 1000 companies began partnering with the government on climate solutions. Al Gore claimed, “We are in the early stages of a Sustainability Revolution” (Time). After some progress, these changes seemed to form the beginning of global consciousness. 

3. Muddling Through with Capitalism and Technology (Global Markets, Free Enterprise, Profit, and Technology)  

As climate, pandemics and other threats became more severe, people resisted all-encompassing changes because many thought that the dangers are overblown, that market forces driven by profit motives would find solutions, and renewable energy was growing in use. Corporations started new initiatives to adopt renewable technologies. A new pandemic emerged, and pharmaceutical firms developed more advanced treatments. The past reliance on markets alone failed to address these crises, but renewables are now cheaper than carbon-based fuels, so their decreasing costs should help mitigate climate change problems. With renewables growing at about 30% per year, the present 2% of global energy due to wind and solar should double to 4% by 2025, 8% about 2028, 16% by 2031, 32% about 2034, etc. Carbon capture, geothermal, wave energy and even nuclear fusion could also help in the long term.

4. Revert to Strong Governance  

As climate, pandemics and other threats became more severe, people came to believe that stronger forms of governance were needed to avoid disaster. This reinforced the trend toward autocratic leaders who are able to act free of the demanding nature of democracy. Rules for business operations, government work, and public behavior were imposed to curb disorder, and some burdensome regulations on civil rights and environmental safeguards were dropped. A new pandemic emerged, and solutions were mandated. Climate problems seem to be under fairly good control with various technical requirements, but crises erupt occasionally. 

Results

Bar charts presented below summarize the averages for the 4 scenarios. What stands out is that the 2 Muddling Through scenarios are most likely and that favorable outcomes diminish markedly moving from progressive to regressive scenarios. 

The averages in the bar charts do not show the details, of course, with some responses differing wildly. This diversity of opinion can be seen in the comments below. And we should note that the definitions of the 4 scenarios changed a bit as we struggled to define them accurately. We strongly suggest that readers look over the details in the comments as they provide a rich understanding not shown the statistics.  Salient comments are used in the conclusions to capture this richness.                             

Conclusions

1: Global Consciousness Is Rated Most Highly

The favorable outcome of the Global Consciousness (GC) scenario is undisputed, although its probability is only 19%.  Our experts anticipated this conclusion. Young-Jin Choi noted, “Scenario 1 is an ideal but unlikely scenario,” and Ian Browde said, “My gut feel is that we are on the cusp (within 20 years) of a shift in global consciousness.” And Art Murray even anticipated the low probability, ” Option 1 would produce the best results, but has the lowest probability.” Rene Opplinger notes that the world has solved a similar crisis: “The world has proven before that environmental protection measures could be implemented effectively (e.g. regarding the ozone layer).”

While a 20% probability is discouraging, it should be noted that Scenario 2 also leads to GC, but through the process of muddling through. Thus, the probability of GC occurring is more like 19% plus 31% for a total probability of 50%.

This conclusion clarifies our earlier forecast that GC is most likely to emerge at the leading edge about 2030 +/- 5 years. We can now assign a probability to this forecast of roughly 50%. Not bad. 

We also note that this dramatic change is likely to be spurred by massive threats that make it clear there is no alternative. Clark Capshaw thought,  “A full-on crisis may be necessary to spur action,” and  Gerry Stoopman thinks “… catastrophic environmental disaster(s) will shock a sufficiently large number of people worldwide into supporting serious mitigation actions.” Michael Lee agrees: “Humans only reach peace when all other options have been exhausted.”

But this conclusion comes with serious doubts by many. Clay McDean wrote: “I continue to be a global consciousness skeptic.  The likelihood of a meaningful, cogent, actionable Global Consciousness is unlikely.  However, were one to emerge it would undoubtedly be highly effective.” Xin-Wu Lin is even more adamant: “Global Consciousness is impossible when each person considers his own situation.” And Lester Ingber says, “I have to follow the camp against GC happening. My reasoning is that we are a species that requires ‘Them vs Us’; it’s in our DNA.”  Jacques Malan dislikes any form of control: “As a Libertarian with a conservative bent, I absolutely hate the idea of having a “big brother” dictate terms to me.” Paul Haase said: “As we see people’s behavior in the past, taking into account the lack of political will which has been ongoing for more than 20 yrs, we cannot trust the emergence of Global Consciousness,” and Tom Dickinson thinks: “We may have missed the opportunity.”

2: The Two Muddling Through Scenarios are most likely, but they have lower outcomes.

The two Muddling Through Scenarios are estimated to have probabilities of 31% and 28%, the highest probabilities in this study. This testifies to the attraction of incrementally finding a way through the minefield of threats rather than choosing a solution that may be dubious. John Meagher agreed: “The two scenarios described as “muddling through” seem most promising to reach some reasoned consensus for the Global MegaCrisis. And Clay McDean was eloquent in explaining: “Necessity is the mother of invention and so humankind figures out a way to get through the worst of things. It may not be pretty but we get there. We squeak by.” 

But opinions divide between the two forms of muddling through. As the comments below suggest, Scenario 2 adds a layer of sustainability and cooperation to the capitalist market forces, entrepreneurs, and innovators in Scenario 3.

Scenario 2 muddles through but adopts concepts of sustainability and cooperation to guide markets and entrepreneurs, eventually allowing GC to evolve incrementally, rather than in one grand vision (Scenario 1). Michael Lee notes the need to develop support from the bottom up: “We need a grassroots people’s movement which promotes low tech for local problems and high tech for global problems to accelerate sustainability.” And Gerd Leonhard explains at length: “The Covid crisis has painfully reminded people of what’s really important: collaboration, trust, engagement and striving for collective benefit. We will either all do better or nobody will … the hopeful narrative of global consciousness must REPLACE the existing narrative of the dystopian and hopeless future …what used to be unthinkable (such as carbon tax, deep global sanctions or a ‘United States of Europe’) might well become the new normal.”

By contrast, the muddling through of Scenario 3 focuses on the status quo of capitalism and technology, with a much lower outcome of 1.1 rather than 3.7 for Scenario 2. Wendell Wallach expressed the present situation best: “This scenario captures where we are and have been for the past decade and shows distinct signs of leading to a deterioration in any shared commitment to cooperate.” Clay McDean is leery of market forces alone, “Leaving it purely to market forces is too simplistic,”  and Gerd Leonhard agrees: “Capitalism, as we have practiced it until now, is unfit for the future.”  Lester Inger noted the destructive power of unbridled self-interest: “We humans will continue to desecrate our Earth, if not by mass disregard, then by greed by the few.” And Yul Anderson speaks for the needy: “Many of society are still locked out of wealth creation and are still feeling hopeless about escaping their fate.” Chris Garlick notes that progress will be uneven: “Urban areas will advance rapidly while rural and third-world countries will be stagnant”.

The prevailing wisdom was summed up nicely by Michael Lee: “Capitalism requires a counterbalance with cooperation; it is more a part of the problem than it is part of the solution. The free market is an impersonal force that is driven by greed and leads inexorably to predatory social behavior. Competition must be counterbalanced by cooperation and collaboration.” While Angus Hooke is confident in capitalism: “I am skeptical of most doomsday scenarios … deep down, I think we will muddle through. And I am putting my money on the free enterprise system and the technical progress it generates as the main contributors to our survival.”

Our respondents also expressed doubt about the dominant role often attributed to technology. Sami Makelainen suspects, “30% growth of renewables is unrealistic once the absolute numbers become big enough.”

3: Autocracy a Quick Solution But Not Sustainable.

It was surprising to find such strong support for the autocracy scenario. But there it is — a stunning 22 % probability.  The expected outcomes are a horrible -4. The view of our experts is that autocracy may be an appealing way to maintain control when the situation is perilous, but the closing off of diverse opinions, inflexibility, and loss of support eventually dooms it to failure. Art Murray summed it up this way: “I gave this scenario the highest probability, based on the premise that a trend in motion tends to stay in motion until it exhausts itself … such approaches might work over the short term, but never over the long term.” Michael Lee agrees: “Even though I hate autocracies, I believe this trend hasn’t peaked yet.”

A central theme is the illusion of action. Margherita Abe noted, “Not all autocrats will necessarily rule in a way that promotes solutions.” Kent Myers pointed out the fallacy: “Fearful people seem to think it works better, but they are just hoping that they are on the side of the winners when they are just the loyal slaves of the true masters.” Andrew Micone is eloquent: “The global trend towards nationalism is a natural reaction to a world in crisis; in the face of uncertainty, people turn to a confident, decisive leader with a commonsense solution. Indeed, a part of human myth and folklore is that in turmoil, a leader will arise to bring people to a promised land. However, as H. L. Mencken noted in 1920, “there is always a well-known solution to every human problem – neat, plausible, and wrong.” 

And some think autocracy is the inevitable result of liberalism. Jacques Malan: “if you give Scenario 1 or even 2 too much rope, it will inevitably end up at this point. If you don’t believe me, read Animal Farm again. ” 

4: Small Chance of Decline to Disaster

The results for this possibility are few, and they range from 2% to 80%, averaging about 25%.  If the 4 strategies above fail, we conclude there is a modest but serious probability that none of these options will be successful and civilization descends into anarchy and primitive tribalism. Wendell Wallach noted this change in outlook: “A significant increase over what I would have concluded a decade ago.” Tom Dickinson noted that base instincts are powerful: “We are fundamentally driven by motives of self-preservation and survival.” Art Murray explained that the problem may vary by region: ” … the chaos, although widespread, will be localized (the reversion to primitive tribalism) and in which case, there will be pockets of enlightened culture and pockets of sheer barbarism (much like the peace-loving, happy people of Bhutan vs the madness of North Korea that we see today)” 

Comments 

General 

Ian Browde

My gut feel is that we are on the cusp (within 20 years) of a shift in global consciousness, that is, ironically being exacerbated by some of the more egregious official behavior (US Supreme Court justices lying under oath, Ukraine invasion, etc.) 

Gerry Stoopman

I believe that big enough and catastrophic environmental disaster(s) will shock a sufficiently large number of people worldwide into supporting serious mitigation actions. I also believe that it’s going to take partnerships between businesses and academic research centers worldwide, promoted by the UN, and government incentives to develop successful climate change mitigation solutions. Either business or government actions by themselves alone won’t do it.  

John Meagher

The two scenarios described as “muddling through” seem most promising to reach some reasoned consensus for the Global MegaCrisis.  However imperfect our “muddling through” has been, it has brought about a world that allows people and their governments to express themselves for many successes and failures, to challenges we have experienced and endured. In a way, this is the reality of “global consciousness”. The two muddling through scenarios may be an example going forward of practical participative democracy and problem-solving approaches that might lead to sustainable outcomes that could become globally adopted.  

We have tried to unite as a species toward common purposes first via the League of Nations in the early 20th century, then later and now with the UN and by other means with limited successes and failures.  The Global Consciousness scenario has too much subjectivity leading to conflict of interests making it unlikely to be practically implemented, yet the aspirations described are positive.  Any global consciousness needs a solid foundational basis in science and objectivity supplanting subjectivity to attain global acceptance for a reasonable chance of long-term sustainable adoption to drive actions. The best means to do that in my opinion is participative democracy. 

Young-Jin Choi

Scenario 1 is an ideal but unlikely scenario. Unfortunately, our current education and media systems are not designed for this purpose; on the contrary, they represent obstacles. Scenario 2 is more probable in comparison and might allow human civilization to barely make its way out of the climate crisis with recoverable trauma, but it requires substantial additional effort, wisdom, determination, heroic activism, and advocacy to become real. Scenarios 3 and 4 are in my view failure scenarios – they both mean too little too late and represent a path dependency to a delayed decline to disaster. In scenario 3, the pace and scale of a largely voluntary, market-driven transformation will likely be too slow to prevent a transition/overlap with scenario 4. In scenario 4, the corruption and intense nationalism/militarization which tends to be associated with autocracies are likely to prevent the science-driven international cooperation that is needed. Precious resources are likely to be squandered on internal and external conflicts and wars.  

Michael Lee

I imagine the next ten years being a mixture of scenarios 2 (positive) and 4 (negative) producing a stop-start form of progress with one step forward and two steps backward, followed by two steps forward and one step backward. Economic models will be mixed, and we are probably seeing the last days of the global domination of free-market capitalism. Eventually, we will reach true economics based on sustainable ecosystems and world peace but that will only be after all other models have failed and it is the last option to try out. Humans only reach peace when all other options have been exhausted. 

Sami Makelainen

I do not necessarily think any one of those scenarios captures the most likely outcome – that of muddling through but with very regionally divided elements. In my opinion, we’re basically looking at a collapse scenario in some geographical domains and high-tech “sustainability” in others, along with unfortunately the rise of some hard borders. My baseline estimate is that any form of global consciousness is extremely unlikely to emerge, so even the modest percentages for the scenarios talking about it are probably generous.

All scenarios have their own optimistic flare to them; for example, YOY 30% growth of renewables is unrealistic once the absolute numbers become big enough – energy systems simply are incapable of moving at that speed from a pure materials point of view; the mention of Ukraine as a world coming together also dismisses the fact that large chunks of the world (Africa, India, China, and others) have much more sympathy for Russia than the current prevailing western media would lead you to believe. The “strong unity” of the world against Russia is limited to the Western countries. 

Clark Capshaw

I feel that many people do not take these issues seriously enough and that a full-on crisis may be necessary to spur action.  That said, I do think that certain agencies and companies are presently working on solutions, which will be useful and may actually help address some of the issues without such a kind of crisis taking place.  I have faith in the foresight of some forward-looking individuals and companies, but in the current political climate, it is more likely that politicians would oppose strong action rather than using authoritative means to create necessary action.  In most cases, we do seem to just “muddle through” and things tend to turn out OK eventually.  

Chris Garlick

While each of the scenarios alone provides a compelling argument, perfect governance will never exist.  While there may be additional awareness of key issues around global warming and social-economic disparity may shift slightly to new emerging products, but will still rely on the base economics of supply and demand that heavily weigh traditional methods and approaches.  Urban areas will advance rapidly while rural and third-world countries will be stagnant.  Society will fumble through new technologies and market failures until it stabilizes with a re-balancing portfolio that matches generational shifts in wealth. 

Gerd Leonhard

We are entering an era of successive and far-reaching paradigm shifts (probably for at least 8-10 years). The Covid crisis has painfully reminded people of what’s really important: collaboration, trust, engagement, and striving for collective benefit. We will either all do better or nobody will. The world has become a giant, interconnected ecosystem where everything and everyone is linked – and the only way forward is to take advantage of that fact and develop a global consciousness and a ‘global citizen’ scenario, with global answers for our most pressing global issues such as climate change, food, energy, water, disease, AGI and human genome editing, and space exploration (to name only a few). 

Gen Y (and some Gen Z’s, as well) is in great shock because of the effects of the pandemic, the coming wave of climate change disasters, the war in Europe, and the threat of technological domination. They are not simply heading towards a ‘great resignation’; instead, they are ready to consider and dare dramatic change, economically, politically, culturally, and most important, morally and humanly. Normal is over – and now it’s clear that ‘Normal’ wasn’t good enough in the first place. Business as usual is dead or dying. Capitalism, as we have practiced it until now, is unfit for the future.  

This is an era of great questioning, confusion, and emotional turmoil – and it will reboot everything.  Keep in mind that while Baby Boomers and Gen X are still very much in the picture, Gen Y will quickly become the dominant force in business, politics, and society in the next 5 years. A feeling of ‘being global’ is already very pervasive in this cohort. We can see this happening in New Zealand, Iceland, Scandinavia, Chile, and soon, Brazil, already.

In my opinion, the hopeful narrative of global consciousness must REPLACE the existing narrative of the dystopian and hopeless future, and the prevailing belief that humans can do little good, in general. The thought-leadership in terms of ‘the future’ must shift away from technology companies, star entrepreneurs, or billionaires to the leading public thinkers and/or a global ‘humanity council’ that could incite a movement. The outcome of such a global campaign could be a key trigger for leading us into a potential ‘strange golden era’  instead of a doomsday all-is-lost world. See Black Mirror or films such as the Social Dilemma.

I think this scenario is very likely as conflicts are coming to a head, and what used to be unthinkable (such as carbon tax, deep global sanctions or a ‘United States of Europe’) might well become the new normal.  

Yul Anderson

Russia’s invasion is catastrophic for humanity as there is no political will to disrupt a potential increase in global hunger, starvation, and poverty.  The US is seen as the only funder of arms for Ukraine which of course lines more pockets of the social navigators and global dominance.  What does this mean for the weak and the 56% that believe humanity is doomed?  That 56% needs to be stratified by race, wealth, and access. Power, money, wealth, and jobs are concentrated in circling the wagon, and access to transportation will become more expensive and more privatized as the super-wealthy create more super-wealthy communities 

Wendell Wallach

The times are tenuous. The future has not been written.  The four scenarios plus a disastrous decline are not discrete options.  A combination of muddling through, civil wars over the form of governance, stable regions, and mass starvation of refugee populations is quite conceivable as is a reduction in the world population by as much as 5% or more.  

Xin-Wu Lin

Global Consciousness is impossible when each person considers his own situation.   The fact is that now we all face people who are controlled in China and Russia. Their thoughts and behaviors are totally different from those of us who live in a democratic world. It is not easy to understand and predict their next steps.

According to what happened recently, the behaviors of directors in China, Russia, N. Korea have already led the world to disorder. The four alternative scenarios do not consider those countries’ leaders that still have intense benefits connected with China and Russia. The world is becoming a multipolar situation. However, if we put that kind of situation aside, policies from governments that could lead and shift the behaviors of enterprises and people are very critical.  The policies like CBAM, GDPR as well as some requests of ESG from financial regulators could be good examples. Good (instead of strong) governance and policies’ intervention will lead and influence enterprises and civilians to a positive future. 

Angus Hooke

If we survive for 100 years, there will likely be many people living outside Earth, on other celestial bodies and manufactured objects. We will be putting our eggs into an increasing number of baskets and the likelihood of our species continually evolving and adapting to new environments will rise as more time passes.

However, we may not get to that threshold. Evolution has led to the creation of trillions of different species competing for limited resources, and the only ones that still exist have very strong personal survival instincts. We extend our target groups to families and some others, but only because a degree of cooperation is in our self-interest. As the target group widens (to cities, states, countries, and regional blocs), so does the number of different and inconsistent agendas increase. It is possible that a few large competing groups will emerge and engage in activities that lead to the extinction of our species.

However, I am skeptical of most doomsday scenarios. Throughout there has always been an ogre waiting to devour us. In the late 1940s, when I was in high school, Australians were told that we would all die of syphilis, which the Americans had brought to Europe during WWII and the Australian soldiers had then brought back to their homeland (If America hadn’t surpassed Great Britain as the world’s leading economic power, we would have placed the blame on the English soldiers). Every Sunday, we were told that the only hope for survival was zero sex outside marriage. However, we learned to make better condoms and developed some new medicines to combat syphilis. In the 1960s, nuclear war was the preferred extinction event and unilateral disarmament was the shouted solution. Instead, MAD at least bought us time to engineer a more sustainable solution. And we have “muddled through” on this one for more than six decades.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, starvation was claimed to be inevitable due to rapid population growth (which peaked at 2.1% in 1969), fixed supplies of fossil fuels and farmland. Ehrlich proclaimed.” In the 1970s the world will undergo famines — hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. “ Paul Gilding (former head of Greenpeace) said “…we have passed the limits of our planet’s capacity to support. Our current model of economic growth is driving this system over the cliff.” Richard Heinberg of the Post-Carbon Institute stated that: “Economic growth as we have known it is over and done with. The general trend-line of the economy … will be level or downward rather than upward from now on.” Bill McKibben (The End of Nature) argued that economic growth is “the one big habit we finally must break. However, from 1970 to 2020, the global population more than doubled (from 3.7 billion to 7.8 billion) and the gross world product from $23 trillion to $146 trillion). And now, every year farmers are leaving the industry in the millions, and few are worried about reserves of fossil fuels.

Since then, we have had major concerns about water (The diet of the average American requires 3,600 liters of water per day. But if a population of 10 billion had the same diet, we would still need only 3% of global freshwater supplies; and current technologies would still bring the percentage below the 1980s level of 1.7%), climate change, climate warming, pandemics, and collisions with near-Earth objects. Each of these has been given extinction dates that are now several decades behind us. The current forecasts of imminent disaster may well turn out to be correct. But, deep down, I think we will muddle through. And I am putting my money on the free enterprise system and the technical progress it generates as the main contributors to our survival. 

Scenario 1. Global Consciousness Emerges  

Clay McDean

I continue to be a global consciousness skeptic.  The likelihood of a meaningful, cogent, actionable Global Consciousness is unlikely.  However, were one to emerge it would undoubtedly be highly effective. 

Lester Ingber

I have to follow the camp against GC happening. My reasoning is that we are a species that requires “Them vs Us”; it’s in our DNA. Yes, I would love to believe otherwise, but I just do not see that happening. The alternative is for us to “muddle along,” in that good people will continue to do good things, bad people will continue to do bad things, and the rest of humans will just try to get by as best they can. As Putin’s War demonstrates, there is no way that Humans will ever give up their precious wars.  It’s just not in our DNA.  There is a strong possibility that AI will dominate any trend toward Human Global Consciousness, possibly leading to unprecedented control of Humans. 

Art Murray

Option 1 would produce the best results, but has the lowest probability, only because the people in power will fiercely resist turning that power over to “grassroots” or free enterprise. Even if we completely resolve the current crisis, there will always be new challenges. 

Tom Dickinson

We may have missed the opportunity, or don’t realize we’ve been in this state pretty much since the invention and spread of moveable type and printing
augmented by the telegraph and telephone. 

Margherita Abe

Having an altruistic force behind Option 1to avert climate disaster makes this scenario, though unlikely to occur, the one with the most obvious positive outcome. 

Rene Opplinger

The world has proven before that environmental protection measures could be implemented effectively (e.g. regarding the ozone layer).  Beyond that, I see global consciousness critically because we are moving into a sharp bipolar world order (USA-China) and a global consciousness also carries dangers. Revolutions, religions, and dictatorships (e.g., Mao: The Great Leap Forward) have claimed to have a global solution but not without enormous damage. Overall, positive global consciousness will have a very hard time because of the lack of political structures that can take the right actions in a decentralized way at the local level. Moreover, the world is not yet willing to question things that until now have mainly brought benefits, namely globalization. 

Jacques Malan

As a Libertarian with a conservative bent, I absolutely hate the idea of having a “big brother” dictate terms to me – especially one as dysfunctional as the UN. I almost hate this idea as much as scenario 4. But I do agree that if it was feasible, the outcome for the earth and maybe 50% of its inhabitants would not be too bad in the short term. 

Andrew Micone

There is a sense that the world is out of balance. When America was colonized, the Hopi described their way of life ending with the word Koyaanisqatsi. Translated as “corrupted existence” or “a state of life that calls for another way of living,” it also describes our sense of dread. Yet, in the face of Manifest Destiny, rampant land speculation, and forced relocation, only 115 Hopi out of 4,000 accepted the plan. Suppose that history is indicative of human nature. In that case, we may need a machine consciousness, coupled with advanced data science, to make our global consciousness actionable. 

Michael Lee

The power of nationalism, populism, high levels of fear and anxiety, and social media “bubbles”  would probably work against a  global consciousness in the next decade. There is still a far too wide a gap between rich and poor, haves and have nots, exacerbated by the vast numbers of migrants and refugees in the world.

Kent Myers

I was more skeptical that thinking could change this way. It’s similar to the way we deal with mass shootings. Climate losses are just another chapter, and we can do nothing about it. But now I’m thinking that some event may be large and quick enough to be truly arresting and that we sense that something can actually be done about it.

Yul Anderson

As more corporations expand, humans, individuals, and the working class will be locked out of wealth and locked into working-class poverty, driving, or traveling on average 2 hours each day to a decent job.  Those who work from home live in isolated areas with limited access to the super-wealthy cities, like, NY, San Francisco, Boston, Seattle, Dallas, and Miami.  The trouble with corporations and governments is that they believe they know best how to manipulate society. More Control.  A global consciousness will evolve, but I am just not sure if it is the corporation whose consciousness is being awakened.  Corporate lives can be like Roller Ball or Soylent Green. 

Wendell Wallach

While the emergence of world consciousness is a hopeful scenario it will need to be more than a secular vision or an intellectual force for integration.  At the moment, the felt positive spiritual/emotive impetus for such a worldwide movement is not in evidence.  Empowering hope is never easy. 

Paul Haase 

As we see people’s behavior in the past, taking into account the lack of political will which has been ongoing for more than 20 yrs we cannot trust the emergence of Global Consciousness. High dependency on technology (e. g. food industry) requires the consumption of fossil energy for a decade or more and cannot be reverted easily (only at extremely high costs). Short-sighted outcomes will further drive behavior if not guided and/ or imposed by governments and rules frameworks.  

Scenario 2.  Muddling Toward Sustainable Enterprise and Hi-Tech  

Rene Opplinger

This change is already well underway wherever the financial resources are available. The problem lies in the fact that most of the world’s population has hardly any means or opportunities to make a change. As a result, the gap between poverty and wealth continues to widen massively. In addition, there is great mendacity in lifestyle changes: the rich now drive Tesla and heat the swimming pool with solar power, and they then call this renunciation. 

Lester Ingber

Humans are pretty good at this, except for the sustainability part. For example, with respect to Climate Change, which Science tells us must be addressed soon if we are to salvage Earth, the next few short years will tell us if we can do this. Even with controlled Fusion at our doorstep, we humans will continue to desecrate our Earth, if not by mass disregard, then by greed by the few.

Clay McDean

This is the most likely scenario.  Necessity is the mother of invention and so humankind figures out a way to get through the worst of things, muddling indeed. It may not be pretty but we get there.  We squeak by.  

Jacques Malan

Similar comments to that of scenario 1 above. Relying on Governments and the WHO. No thank you. If it did get off the ground, a moderately positive effect on Earth is possible for maybe 30% of its inhabitants in the short term. 

Andrew Micone

With the current crisis in Ukraine, we’ve seen that the one system through which we can cooperate globally is the market system. World trade makes us all interdependent. It is the de facto system globally for regulating human ambition. Guiding markets to prioritize sustainability will require advances in economics, data science, machine learning, and cyber-defenses to protect decision-making information. Global consciousness needs to advance so that those who benefit from the status quo realize that the shortcoming in their thinking imperils what they have built. 

Michael Lee

This is the way to go because it is incremental and doable for most societies, communities, and demographic groups. It is also in keeping with social and biological evolution. Most of humanity would be prepared to live with this incremental “muddling through” and would readily rely on high tech because of the huge global success of the mobile phone to reach the whole of humanity in a short time. Dump all lying and phony politicians into the waste bin of history and invest in low tech and high tech and we will see a better world within a decade. Instead of populism, which relies on hollow, phony orators like Donald Trump and Boris Johnson, we need a grassroots people’s movement which promotes low tech for local problems and high tech for global problems to accelerate sustainability.  

Kent Myers

It produces results gradually, but we will come to realize these results are wholly inadequate.  We might even get to net-zero rapidly, then realize that civilization collapses with steady-state at 400ppm.  Missed the opportunity for rapid removal of gasses to the level that prevailed for 10000 years, prior to industrial runaway combustion 

Yul Anderson

The Russian invasion of Ukraine makes people see the futility of resistance to autocratic power solidified in one man/woman.  As a result, Climate Change will be fought over by those with less power, and the continued of plastics will make weak nations uninhabitable.  There may not be an opportunity for collaboration as many of the poor and weak have died from Covid 35 and increased climate change.  However, the continued misuse of the word makes climate change seem livable and sustainable.  Many, if able will seek environments that have less impact due to climate change. 

Wendell Wallach

Despite a few hopeful signs, there has been a decline in the likelihood of this more hopeful internationalist scenario. Perhaps the problem lies in the fact that to date this has been a more elitist vision that served those in power or with privileges and failed to address the distribution crisis or embrace meaningful inclusivity.

Paul Haase

Smartly Guiding Markets are the key to success with a forward-looking rapid improvement of high tech — in many areas initially funded by government subsidies and/ or protected by trade tariffs and penalities. Multinational alliances of the “willing” with strong market power can make this scenario happen to force other countries to follow. 

Scenario 3. Muddling Through with Capitalism and Technology  

Wendell Wallach

This scenario captures where we are and have been for the past decade and shows distinct signs of leading to a deterioration in any shared commitment to cooperate.   

Lester Ingber

Humans are good at this too. Yes, enterprise and technology will be on the upswing, but the issue is what can we expect of these forces? Perhaps the confluence of Quantum Computing (for control of systems) and Controlled Fusion (to provide alternative energy sources) make yet work out fine for all of us — if a war does not crush some of these industrial plants. Of course, we all recognize that there are saints among us that will always be there, but the ratio of Saints to Sinners will still be low. 

Clay McDean

This scenario is likely coupled with #2.  Leaving it purely to market forces is too simplistic, though undoubtedly a factor.  As innovation makes things affordable, corporations and entrepreneurs will surely make changes and racing for the advantage.  That said for a significant number of companies to change there either must be pre-existing cultural pressure or rapid adoption of emerging technology to effect societal-wide change.  This can happen quickly once a tipping point is reached but as most corporations are loath to kill cash cows and are dragged forward by market (and society) changing innovators… until that inflection reaches critical mass. 

Margherita Abe

I estimate a lower outcome because the expectation that market forces will mitigate climate change assumes that pressures on the market are supportive. However, an event like the current Ukraine war produces not just attempts to enhance green tech but also pressures to increase FF production.  There is not an obvious clear winner here thus far.  From this one might consider that market forces left to themselves may not produce results consistent with the changes needed to avert climate disaster. 

Rene Opplinger

Many countries have already taken drastic measures, and more are on the way. A scenario in which these do not play an important role does not seem plausible to me.

Jacques Malan

This is the most likely (realistic) scenario in my view. It offers the least positive outcome for both the earth and its inhabitants in the short term, but one with plenty of freedom. The only one that I would buy into. Or should I say one I have already bought into?  My house is going off-grid, both with water and electricity. My next car is going to be an EV. I work in Renewable Energy. AND I can choose my religion, what to put into my body (yes, I am vaccinated, but you don’t have to be), how to raise my kids (no, they can’t do what they want), etc. 

Andrew Micone

There is a common idea that advances in technology will be able to clean up the mess we are making of the planet. The globalist capitalist system is pretexted upon the idea that old money needs to find new opportunities in innovation for growth to continue unabated. But, of course, the resources of the Earth are not infinite, and most ambitious technologies fail to advance up the s-curve. The idea embodied in the motto of the 1933 World’s Fair, “Science Finds, Industry Applies, Man Conforms,” should be seen as naïve in the face of today’s complexities. 

Michael Lee

Capitalism is more a part of the problem – the gap between rich and poor, haves and have nots, exploitation of the environment, dehumanization – than it is part of the solution. In other words, it does worse than it does good. The free market is an impersonal force that is driven by greed and leads inexorably to predatory social behavior. Competition must be counterbalanced by cooperation and collaboration. The current world order is breaking down and capitalism as an ideology is powerless to stop this. It has run its course, just as communism ran its course. 

Kent Myers

Climate restoration is needed, and only a portion of the work will be outright profitable.  It would be like trying to make trains, bridges, and airports profitable. They are infrastructure and some measure of public subsidy is necessary. A few clever people get rich rapidly, and we think we have made progress as a result, but we lost the services of nature that were never priced. 

Yul Anderson

There is a great opportunity of renewed hope in humanity, however many of society are still locked out of wealth creation and are still feeling hopeless about escaping their fate. Africa at this juncture has developed with China’s aid as the last natural landscape with the least impact due to climate change, Africa begins to reverse desertification like China, and new civilizations are being discovered. 

Paul Haase

A more liberal way forward regarding markets letting technology evolve freely and opportunistically will leave the question of consciousness to pure profit-making drivers. However, fossil fuels, non or non-sustainable recycling of waste e. g. can deliver profits to individual enterprises for a long time unless countered by ESG-driven financial incentives. Nevertheless, the probability is high as elected governments always pursue reelection after 4-5 years thus often not ready to take risky and non-popular actions. 

Scenario 4  Revert to Strong Governance 

Lester Ingber

It’s a bit ironic that the push for distributed systems (e.g., think Bitcoin and Blockchain technologies) is occurring with the rise and increased strength of Autocrats, but here we are!  Again, this is in our DNA. Our grand experiment with Democracy seems destined to Failure. Like many, I wish this were not true, but the Writing is On the Wall.

Clay McDean

For the non-Western world, this scenario is most likely.  One needs to look no further than Russia, China, or even India to see what the future looks like for large segments of humanity.  It may be helpful to conceptualize the foundation needed for strong innovation through the lens of a ‘societal Maslovian hierarchy.’  Maslow isn’t a pyramid — it’s a ladder.  The higher up one is the less stable it becomes and the easier it will be to come crashing down.  To date only Western democracies have gotten to the higher rungs – it remains to be seen if a ‘benevolent dictator’ can reach the upper rungs.  It seems unlikely that these ‘strong governments” will continue to be a drag on any possible global consciousness.  

Art Murray

I gave this scenario the highest probability, based on the premise that a trend in motion tends to stay in motion until it exhausts itself.  And the current global mega-trend, East, and all points West, has been and continues to move toward less freedom and democracy and increased rule by edict by small groups of elites in power. However, the outcome is rated deeply negative, as such approaches might work over the short term, but never over the long term. 

Tom Dickinson

Always a possibility if frustration with government ineptness gets high enough. Jan 6 could be a predictor….and we were born out of revolt and strong governance…look at the first 5 presidents! And FDR in the time of crisis! 

Margherita Abe

Not all autocrats will necessarily rule in a way that promotes solutions that positively affect climate change.  We have an example of one would-be autocrat in former President Trump, whose actions in this arena would almost certainly have a negative effect. Autocrats also tend to be strongly self-serving.  This attitude may not be consistent with implementing decisions that upend the status quo and produce significant societal turmoil to implement. 

Rene Opplinger

The willingness to sacrifice human rights in the COVID crisis and the desire for strong leadership was very high in the major European countries. In addition, the pooling of country debts via the ECB leads to further centralization of power and thus to a strengthening of the EU authorities. Both together lead to an overflowing bureaucracy, which is willing to accept enormous collateral damage to achieve its goals. 

Jacques Malan

I personally hate this idea for the aforementioned reasons. It may be the best possible scenario for the earth and its inhabitants in the short term, but most catastrophic result for freedom and long-term stability. Hopefully, we never get here, but I fear that if you give scenario 1 or even 2 too much rope, it will inevitably end up at this point. If you don’t believe me, read Animal Farm again……   

Andrew Micone

The global trend towards nationalism is a natural reaction to a world in crisis; in the face of uncertainty, people turn to a confident, decisive leader with a commonsense solution. Indeed, a part of human myth and folklore is that in turmoil, a leader will arise to bring people to a promised land. However, as H. L. Mencken noted in 1920, “there is always a well-known solution to every human problem – neat, plausible, and wrong.” Moreover, the sweep of human history from the enlightenment to the age of reason shows autocracies rarely achieve their ends.

Michael Lee

The rise in support for the autocratic style of “strongman” leadership in the West shocked me during the presidency of Donald Trump and during the Brexit process in Britain and its aftermath. The demographic shift towards aging societies in the West seems to be behind this growing support in democracies for more autocratic and less ethical leaders. There’s a cynical nimbyism evident in some older demographic groups.  Even though I hate autocracies, I believe this trend hasn’t peaked yet and that we will see cycles of populism throughout an aging world for the rest of this decade. 

Kent Myers

I didn’t believe this until recently. Fearful people seem to think it works better, but they are just hoping that they are on the side of the winners, when they are just the loyal slaves of the true masters. While the masters have the power, they use it for corruption and still somehow think that, with wealth, they can separate themselves from all the disasters. 

Yul Anderson

If this happens, we will see humanity increase in assassination attempts. This is just horrible. The US was seen heading in this direction under Trump, we don’t want to see it again, even under the Queen. What I hope from all of this is that the increased dominance of corporations in manipulating society results in a better more sustainable world for us all, however, the thievery of places like Russia will remain a threat to humanity.  Corporate societies will emerge, similar to the heydays of IBM, but this time at all levels. What will Corporations offer society other than a cheap happy meal?  Corporations have failed as well as help, but society is realizing it was all for profit.

Wendell Wallach

In the short-run authoritarian governments may be better at responding to emerging challenges than the cacophony of democracy. Strong governance can look attractive to those who hope their beliefs will prevail, but for most societies, it will succumb to internal tensions and even civil war between competing worldviews, and a lack of resilience as complex challenges compound.  Strong governance is unlikely to lead to any form of strong international cooperation.

Paul Haase

There is a temptation by environmentalists to call out the “eco-dictatorship”, however, the foreseen outcome of such a scenario cannot be seen as desirable by a majority of people. As long as key world powers are ruled by democratic decision-making relying on majorities I’m optimistic this scenario will not become very realistic. 

Decline to Disaster 

Art Murray

I rate this rather high simply because that has been the ebb and flow of civilizations since Day One. However, the chaos, although widespread, will be localized (the reversion to primitive tribalism) and in which case, there will be pockets of enlightened culture and pockets of sheer barbarism (much like the peace-loving, happy people of Bhutan vs the madness of North Korea that we see today) 

Tom Dickinson

Low probability, but can’t be totally discounted…we are fundamentally driven by instinctual motives of self-preservation and survival… 

Clark Capshaw

I don’t think this is very likely, although the failure of education to teach us to select news and information sources with good judgment plays a big part.  Unless we gain the ability as a society to be better-informed consumers, this is indeed a possibility, though not a probable one. 

Kent Myers

Higher probability than any of the others but not a sure bet. Given time, the world would get through the crisis with civilization damaged but intact.  There is no time. Lately, I’m thinking that the methane that is released when all the seas and tundra melt will overwhelm all the good efforts that have been made. 

Wendell Wallach

A significant increase over what I would have concluded a decade ago. My view is not that of a total collapse, but I do foresee the possibility of intense suffering and governments so caught up in reacting to crises that they lose the ability to proactively shape the future.

Paul Haase

Latest developments in the pandemic, e. g. internationally joined efforts to develop vaccines and restrengthening of international alliances in a common-enemy environment (Ukraine war) show a strong rebound on individual disastrous events. Being optimistic, this leads back to solution-focused balances and lowers the probability of a broad disastrous decline. 

Trend Analysis

The 15  “Driving Trends” and 13 “Resolving Trends” below define the force field in which action is interwoven into a Gordian Knot of entangled complexity. This analysis helps identify and gauge the extent of forces working in “optimist” versus “pessimistic” directions. For more, see (Halal and Marien, JFS 2012).

Trends Driving the MegaCrisis

1.    Climate Change Heading to Catastrophe  The 2022 IPPC Report warns “The catastrophic impacts of climate breakdown may soon outpace humanity’s ability to adapt …  It forces a stark reality that the crisis is here and it is all around us.” Forty percent of US counties had wildfires, floods, tornadoes, and other extreme weather in 2021. But greenhouse gases should be reduced by 80% from current levels to avoid severe climate shifts, costing 1-3 % of global GDP. The NY Times asked: “Will humanity continue to edge toward a dangerous precipice or take a crucial step back to avert catastrophe?” The polar ice caps recorded temperatures 50-90 F above normal ranges — unprecedented. With the Ukraine war curbing the flow of Russian fuels, the rising price of oil and gas has made the energy industry the most profitable sector on the SP 500 and thereby discouraging change.

2.    Environmental Degradation Continues  Pollution and plastic waste remain unabated. Large amounts of methane are being released from the thawing tundra. Hotter weather is spreading diseases more easily. A quarter of all animal species face the greatest extinction since the dinosaurs. The mining of tar sands in Canada would release twice the CO2 emitted by oil throughout history. Fracking shale oil is releasing methane and other pollutants. Overuse of antibiotics is creating superbugs that cannot be controlled. Medicines with hormones flowing into sewage will affect the reproduction of mankind in the long run.

3.    Industrialization Driving Multiple Crises The number of people living at industrial age levels will grow from 2-3 billion to almost 10 billion by 2050 or so, increasing all these threats by a factor of 2-3. Raising cattle for meat produces 30-50% of global warming.  The average body mass is 80 kg in the US, 58 in Asia, and 62 globally, and the world may be shifting to the lifestyle of the US. Consumerism seems relentless, and the Third World is doing the same. 

4.   More Lingering Pandemics   The Covid pandemic is the latest of several pandemics that appeared over the past decades, and more are likely to come. The Global Health Security Index recently rated nations at an average of 38.9 points on a scale of 100. They concluded, “every country, including the US, remains dangerously unprepared for future pandemics.”

5.    Little Political Will  There is as yet no global agreement on taxing carbon or other policies that would decrease carbon emissions significantly. The US, with the largest economy in the world, has no serious plan because the nation is in political gridlock. China, India, and the US are planning to build a total of 850 coal-fired plants, adding 5 times as much CO2 as present treaties intend to reduce. A PEW Research Center poll finds that only 17 percent of people in democratic nations are confident in the US as a role model of democracy.

6.    Social Media Spreading Disinformation The post-factual phenomenon is spreading misinformation in the form of political speech. Liberals insist on being woke, politically correct, and defunding the police — while conservatives are convinced of the big lie, anti-vaccination, and climate denial. Statistica reports that 70 percent of Internet users think fake news causes doubt and confusion, with social media the least trusted news source worldwide. And 83 percent believe disinformation negatively affects their country’s politics.  The outpouring of support for Ukraine was largely done through social media, showing that it can a positive force for good.

7.    Inequality Is Severe   The top 10 percent of the US earns three times as much as the bottom 90 percent, and the top 0.1 percent alone earns as much as the entire bottom 90 percent.  This disparity is roughly similar to Russia, where the wealth of a handful of oligarchs is as great as total household assets. American CEOs typically earn roughly 500 times their average worker’s pay. After years of concern over gross inequality, corporate CEOs’ pay rose 18 percent/year to an average of almost $19 million/year, for a total 940-percent increase since 1978, while worker pay was basically unchanged. The wealth of Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk is greater than the GDP of 139 countries.

8.    Water Scarcity Could Erupt  Nearly 1 billion people lack clean water and 2.6 billion lack good sanitation. Water tables are falling on all continents, and the World Bank estimates half of the world could face water scarcity due to climate change, population growth, and increasing demand. Water shortages will cause mass migrations, higher food costs, malnutrition, and conflict.

9.   Financial Instability Likely  Sovereign debt often exceeds GDP, and the entire global debt is 2-3 times larger than global GDP. A serious depression, war, or other threats could cause national banks to become insolvent, leading to a collapse of the financial system. Most bankers think it is almost certain at some point. George Soros thinks riots are “inevitable.”

10.   Institutional Failures Unabated The pandemic and other crises highlighted structural failures in business, government, and other institutions. An IBM study of 1500 CEOs noted: “… the world’s leaders think their enterprises are not equipped to cope with complexity.” Nobel economist Joseph Stiglitz wrote,  “The [capitalist] collapse may be to markets what the Berlin Wall was to Communism.”

11.   Cyber-Insecurity Everywhere  Military networks, nuclear facilities, banks, air traffic systems, and electrical grids are under constant attack. The US Naval War College was shut down for 2 weeks. The annual cost is estimated at $1 trillion. The threat is so great that one expert suggested it’s time to install “cyberwar hotlines” – like the special phones the USA and USSR used to avoid nuclear Armageddon.

12.   Autocracy Is Appealing  China, Russia, N. Korea, Hungary, Venezuela, Brazil, and other nations have resorted to dictatorships, and many find it an appealing way to manage crisis and social division. In Great Britain, the portion of people who favor “a strongman ruler who does not bother with elections” doubled from 25 percent a few decades ago to 50 percent. Freedom House notes this is the 15th consecutive year of declining global freedom. The conflict between Western democratic nations and the autocracies of Russia and China is threatening and could erupt into war.

13. Weapons of Mass Destruction Remain   The status quo of Mutually Assured Destruction worked for a few nuclear powers, but it is no longer viable with a dozen or so contending nations now having nuclear weapons, and more are likely, possibly including terrorist groups. The Illicit Trafficking Database recorded 1,784 nuclear trafficking incidents over the past years. Bioweapons are also probable.

14.   Organized Crime Growing Worldwide  The total annual income of organized crime is estimated at $3 trillion, twice the military budgets of the entire world combined. The World Bank also estimates $1 trillion is paid in bribes each year.

15.    Post-Collapse Scenarios Futurists Jim Dator, Dennis Meadows, and others think a global collapse is coming, but a rebound could follow to create a better world. This seems unlikely if the Decline to Disaster scenario were to occur because civilization would no longer exist in major parts of the globe, but it’s plausible under the Muddling Down scenario. 

Trends Resolving the MegaCrisis

1.   Alternative Energy Accelerating  Solar and wind power are now less costly than carbon fuels and are the largest source of growth in energy. Alternative energy is growing 30-40%/year, likely to provide 30% of all energy by 2030. The EU, China and other nations expect renewables to reach zero greenhouse gas emissions about 2035-50. This could prove a boon for both developing and developed nations.

2.  Energy Conservation Steadfast  Higher auto fuel economy, regulating coal emissions, and replacing oil with cleaner gas are reducing energy use, costs and CO2.

3.  Technology Revolution Increases Knowledge  Information Technology (IT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), and other revolutionary fields offer more powerful communication, amass knowledge, form intelligent systems, and generally improve awareness.  People are now connected by almost 16 B mobile phones, laptops, and PCs, averaging 2 computers per person using the web. Increasing space travel, the Webb telescope, and other breakthroughs are raising awareness.

4.  Forces of Social Change Rising    The rise of women into power, the Millennial generation modeling the first “global citizens,” and other people are introducing fresh perspectives and energy. The Ukrainian war united the world against Putin, war, and autocracy. The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is moving to require all corporations to disclose their impact on climate change.

5.   Global Movements Emerging   #MeToo, BLM, gay rights, and other movements are spreading around the world. Almost all nations passed laws requiring a minimum corporate tax of 15% to stop tax evasion. They recently passed a global treaty to improve recycling, clean up plastic waste and reduce plastic use altogether.

6.  Consumer Saturation Possible  Material consumption may reach a saturation point, which would lessen the forces driving crisis. Developing nations are increasing consumption, but trends toward Voluntary Simplicity have been rising in the developed world and could in time lead to more realistic living standards globally. Still, the demand for more consumerism is hard to resist.

7.  Age of Consciousness Is Here  The digital revolution is automating knowledge, driving social evolution beyond the Knowledge Age into an emerging Age of Consciousness. TechCast’s study suggests that 60% of decisions in families, organizations, and governments are based on emotions, values, and beliefs. Henry Kissinger recently noted, “… we are moving into a new period of human consciousness which we don’t yet fully understand.”

8.   Coming Revolution in Thought  All stages of evolution have been powered by revolutions in thought — the Agrarian, Post-Industrial, Industrial, and Digital Revolutions. Just as the Industrial Age was led by the Protestant Ethic,  Consciousness is likely to produce a Mental/Spiritual Revolution to resolve the crisis of global maturity. TechCast estimates a Global Consciousness will emerge among the leading edge in about 2030 +/- 5 years. In fact, the unified world support for Ukraine is a good example of global consciousness.

9. Corporate Social Purpose  The move to “stakeholder capitalism” is transforming business goals to include social interests in addition to profit. CEOs are struggling to reconcile these goals into a common purpose that remains competitive. Corporations are the most powerful institutions in the world, and this form of “democratic enterprise” could set a model of cooperation throughout the global order. An increasing share of companies is ruled keeping in mind the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations.

10.    Hi-Tech Back to the Land Movement   The Internet, distributed renewable energy, and other trends make it possible for people to relocate anywhere. Combined with the gig economy and halophyte plants that can grow in poor soil,  this could ease the gap between rich and poor, avoid pandemics, relieve congestion, and decrease the load on the environment.

11.  Transformative Change The World Economic Forum called for a “global reset” in all spheres of society, and a PEW survey finds that two-thirds of modern nations demand major changes in political, economic, and health care systems. 

12.  Moment of Truth With former President Trump likely to seek reelection,  an escalating climate crisis combined with the results of Trump’s first term is likely to make 2024 a critical turning point. The 2022 elections may also be critical.

13.  Long-Term Evolutionary Trend  Humanity has always struggled through crises that have been surmounted: The Fall of Rome, the Dark Ages, World Wars I and II, the Nuclear Arms Race, etc. 

Vision

Why Global Consciousness?

The graph below places this shift to consciousness in the framework of social evolution. The “Life Cycle of Evolution” (LCE) plotted in the graph is based on historical data and uses a logarithmic scale to reveal the rise of civilization over millennia.

The great S-curve seen in the graph follows the growth cycle of all life … a colony of bacteria, a child, and the entire planet. As noted, the world recently passed through the Knowledge Age and is now in the beginning stage of a Consciousness Age.  All stages of evolution are driven by revolutions in thought. A Global Consciousness is emerging now to resolve today’s existential global crises of climate, pandemics, inequality, etc. as the foundation for a functioning, unified world.

Opportunity for a Project Leader

The work of TechCast and the book, Beyond Knowledge, make it clear that the world is now moving beyond the Knowledge Age into an Age of Consciousness. This historic shift demands a global consciousness to address climate change, inequality, conflict, and other threats – or face disaster.

TechCast is launching a project to develop a sophisticated website able to allow anyone to experience global consciousness – roughly like the profound emotions felt by William Shatner (Capt. Kirk) when in near-earth orbit. Preliminary plans have been described on the TechCast website and a group of advisors has been formed to assist this effort.

We are now searching for an outstanding person to lead the project. This individual should have the following qualifications:

• Experienced Entrepreneur   Demonstrated success in launching startups and bringing them to maturity as productive enterprises.
• Digital Native   Young enough to have been raised on digital technology, and capable of guiding the design of a creative website that serves as this portal.
• Skilled Leadership   Experienced in leading a team, soliciting support, planning operations, and collaborating with the project’s advisors.
• Business Development   Able to raise needed funds through crowdfunding, paying sponsors, contributions, and other sources.
• Committed to Consciousness Studies    Sound understanding of the exploding field of consciousness studies and committed to the Portal concept.

The project leader is expected to devote at least 20 hours/week to present an inspiring vision and goals, schedule tasks, estimate cost and income projections, form a team of key players, and launch the website within roughly one year. Some funding is available, but the project leader should raise the bulk of resources, including his/her salary.

This is a unique opportunity to create a project that could go viral. We find that people are fascinated by the idea, and they are eager to experience it. This project should also have great appeal for crowdfunding and paying sponsors. As a parttime job, this could pay an attractive salary and establish your reputation as a creative leader.

Applicants are asked to contact Prof. William Halal at Halal@GWU.edu

Partners

Resources

William Halal, Beyond Knowledge: How Technology Is Driving an Age of Consciousness Prof. Halal’s Magnus Opus explores how social evolution and the digital revolution are creating an emerging Age of Consciousness.

Subjective Consciousness Now Dominates Society   This TechCast study finds that emotion, values, beliefs, and other subjective factors dominate decisions of individuals/families, organizations, and government/politics.

Global Consciousness About 2030   TechCast pools the collective intelligence of its international body of thought leaders to forecast that some form of global consciousness is likely to emerge in 2030 +/- 5 years.

A New Renaissance      This invitation to “Pivot to a New Rennaissance” by Sohail Inayatullah is fascinating. Sohail is one of the most vibrant futurists in the world today.

From Anticipation to Emancipation    Another masterpiece by Sohail Inayatullah. Here Sohail outlines the passage through ix stages of the future.

Challenge for Global Consciousness Gerri Schwartz and Desmond Berghofer, founders of the Visioneers Network, sum up the challenge of global sustainability.

Communityship  Famed management authority Henry Mintzberg defines “communityship” as individuals so well connected by a common purpose that they all provide leadership. That’s the goal of global consciousness.

Join the Portal

The Global Consciousness Portal welcomes all interested parties to join this effort:  Partners contributing resources. Faculty teaching workshops and seminars. Individuals participating in our activities. Contact Prof. Halal at Halal@GWU.edu Portal    

This study focuses on the growing ascendance of consciousness in life today. Our working hypothesis is that modern nations are living beyond knowledge in a state of subjective consciousness. To put the question more sharply, are we living beyond knowledge? Is the modern world now entering an Age of Consciousness?  This study is not concerned with the implications of consciousness at this point but simply to establish the extent of this crucial shift in social evolution.

The following background evidence is provided to evaluate this issue: 

Background Information

Beyond Knowledge  Prof. Halal’s book by this name sums up how the digital revolution is automating knowledge, driving social evolution beyond the Knowledge Age into an emerging Age of Consciousness. This suggests that subjectivity has been increasing and it is likely to increase even further.

Escalating Crises  The climate crisis is becoming severe, the pandemic lingers on, inequality is mounting, and other threats form a “Crisis of Global Maturity?”  The WashPo noted that 40% of US counties had wildfires, floods, tornadoes, and other extreme weather in 2021.

Social Media The explosion of the post-factual phenomenon is consciousness in the form of political speech. Liberals insist on being woke, politically correct, cancel culture, defunding the police, etc. — while conservatives are convinced of the big lie, anti-vaccination, and climate denial, etc. 

Broader Corporate Purpose  The move to “stakeholder capitalism” is transforming business goals to include social interests in addition to profit. CEOs and executives are struggling to reconcile these goals into a common purpose.

Kissinger Finds Consciousness  Henry Kissinger recently wrote in Time: “… what fascinates me is that we are moving into a new period of human consciousness which we don’t yet fully understand.”

Coming Revolution All stages of evolution have been powered by revolutions — the Agrarian, Post-Industrial, Industrial, and Digital Revolutions. The Age of Consciousness is likely to produce a Mental/Spiritual Revolution to resolve the crisis of global maturity.

Transformative Change The World Economic Forum called for a “global reset” in all spheres of society, and a PEW survey finds that two-thirds of modern nations demand major changes in political, economic, and health care systems. 

Moment of Truth With former President Trump likely to seek reelection,  an escalating climate crisis combined with the results of Trump’s first term is likely to make 2024 a critical turning point. The 2022 elections may also be critical.

Other Forces  A variety of other trends may influence consciousness. The privatization of space is taking off, and Capt. Kirk’s emotional discovery of global consciousness when in orbit with Jeff Bezos is revealing; space exploration may introduce global consciousness on a huge scale. And the digital age rolls on, so we may see more disruption by cryptocurrencies, VR/AR, NFTs, AI, etc.

Doubts   People have always used subjective thinking, so why is this new? It’s also hard to know which factors affect decisions.

Study limitations  Results will obviously reflect the views of only the small sample of people who volunteer to participate. Without similar data from the past, we cannot judge the rate of change in our results, if any.

Focus   This study simply focuses on estimating the amount of thought devoted to subjective versus objective factors.  It does not concern the effects of this type of thought. 

Research Questions – Round One

This study estimates the proportion of major issues/decisions involving either “objective factors” versus “subjective factors.”  See the hierarchy of consciousness in the pyramid below. Comments below from our experts were used to guide this research method where possible.

Definitions of consciousness abound but they are vague and limited. TechCast provides a more precise definition consisting of various cognitive elements that comprise the domain of consciousness — the sense of awareness, learning, making choices, pushed by emotions, guided by purpose, values and beliefs, all emanating from some tacit vision that propels life. The totality of all this mental traffic makes up the stream of consciousness that flows through life moment by moment.

                 

We also estimate how the level of consciousness varies in three main spheres of life: 1. Individuals and families (micro-level), 2. Management of organizations (meso-level), and 3. Government and politics (macro-level). 

TechCast experts were invited to provide estimates and brief comments on the following questions. These questions asked them to judge the relative portion of critical issues/decisions made on the basis of subjective factors (emotion, purpose, values, beliefs, etc.) versus objective factors (perception, memory, knowledge, etc.)  

Individuals and Families  (personal goals, life purpose, relationships, love, finances, problems, etc.)

Survey Results

Comments

Kastuv Ray
People are more inspired by entrepreneurial success stories and as a result, have become more ambitious. Our vision is to make the world a better place using mindfulness, a caring attitude and thoughtfulness. We all want to achieve the goals that we have set in life, not settle for second best and this is defined by our upbringing and values. The pandemic and other crises have helped to change the job market and many people have seen their incomes diminish. To many people, there are no such things as a permanent job therefore they will focus on having a steady flow of income and working on their side hustle in the meantime.

Owen Davies
Note that the first question conflates two categories of issues.

The first four items on your list fundamentally involve no rational thought I have ever recognized, save in a few rather psychopathic individuals.

The last two are at least amenable to rational decisions. This is particularly true of finances, which are fundamentally a numbers game. How frequently people actually plan their finances rationally is unclear to me. At a guess, the average of rationality varies with income. Problem-solving is at least semi-rational, but for many of us reason does not kick in until the problem causes enough pain that it cannot be ignored. I am not sure how to turn that into a subjectivity number.

Andy Micone
Most people want to make more self-actualized, subjective decisions about their destinies; they want to follow a vision for the future of their design. However, the countervailing forces of increasing income inequality and environmental pressures will continue to put focus on physiological and safety needs that encourage objective decision-making.

Steve Hausman
In this case, decisions about family issues tend to be based largely on personalities and how people have interacted with one another in the past.

Ian Browde
This varies from person to person. Many people are loath to decide, opt for, choose, believe, etc., anything by themselves. However, their choices, decisions etc., are still subjective since they’re influenced by others’ views, opinions, choices and even ‘facts’. The others range from parents, siblings and friends to celebrities, experts and specialists.

Victor Motti
I in general think that the impact of subjectivity is the highest on the individual level because all the decisions are more or less related to our emotions.

Peter King
By including love and relationships here, it almost automatically weighs the decision towards subjective. It is rarely dominated by objective thinking.

Art Murray
These types of decisions tend to be amygdala-driven and deeply subjective by nature; even though a balance of objectivity would be extremely beneficial in making these types of decisions, people tend not to like what they see when they look through an objective lens, so they look the other way and fall back and rely only on their emotions

In addition, people either lack “financial literacy” and other skills necessary in order to incorporate objectivity into their decision-making, or they lack access to the right information/knowledge to make an informed decision.

Margherita Abe
Many of the issues that families face impinge directly on their subjective lifestyle values.  People choose how to live (where, how to support themselves, what values are central to their lives, how to present their values to their offspring) based on subjective judgments of what different choices are worth to them. Some factors are out of subjective control, namely income, medical/health, and legal/political issues that frame the environment at large.

Management of Organizations (stakeholders, strategy, rewards, goals,
social purpose, etc.)

Survey Results

Comments

Kastuv Ray
Stakeholders and leaders will be more interested in the value and purpose of their organizations. Issues like climate change, the various global health crises sweeping the earth and the potential for future wars and conflicts will drive the importance of good practice Corporate Governance and Corporate Social Responsibility even more. There will be a move to more conscious, responsible, thoughtful and mindful leadership.

Owen Davies
The last two questions are at least amenable to rational decisions. This is particularly true of finances, which are fundamentally a numbers game. How frequently people actually plan their finances rationally is unclear to me. At a guess, the average of rationality varies with income. Problem-solving is at least semi-rational, but for many of us reason does not kick in until the problem causes enough pain that it cannot be ignored. I am not sure how to turn that into a subjectivity number.

Andy Micone
Organizations, as economists might say, are predominantly rational actors. The majority of decision-making centers on return on investment and meeting market needs apparent on the horizon. With increasing market disruption that cannot be easily foreseen from a forecast or spreadsheet, imaginative, subjective foresight work will be required to compete in business.

Steve Hausman
This is really my feeling that the profit motive drives the assessment more than emotion even though there is some of the former involved since, after all, humans are the ones performing the management.

Ian Browde
The irony here is that for the most part while businesses, institutions etc., claim to be more objective, at the end of the day they are fictions consisting of people and their strengths, foibles, beliefs and feelings. So while this category may be a bit more objective than the first it is still primarily subjective and subject to the same forces as in my initial comment.

Victor Motti
Corporate culture is tightly controlled by financial reports and numbers on profits and costs and mostly data-driven decision-making.

Peter King
As long as the bottom line of an organization is profit, the objective will prevail.  Some companies, of course, are now pursuing a triple bottom line, but a lot of that is lip service and greenwashing.

Art Murray
Traditionally, these types of decisions tended to be heavily weighted on the objective side, however, the trend has recently moved sharply toward incorporating more subjectivity, a good indication of how raised awareness/consciousness is creating more balance in measuring organizational performance, as opposed to using mostly financial metrics.

Margherita Abe
Shareholders and company governance demand that most decisions have a strong basis in data-driven material — what projects will result in financial success for the company. The subjective part here is related to what goals the organization strives for — what content do they want to pursue (eg, for a manufacturer, what objects do they want to build and then sell). This is determined by what they value. Notice that in this I have limited my discussion to for-profit companies, eliminating the non-profits that pursue a lot of important work because these have different objectives and parameters to measure success. However, they are important so one question for the study is whether they are in fact different….I’m thinking that the subjective vs objective factors will not differ for non-profits. For nonprofit organizations, the aim of the organization will be to promote a specific endpoint, chosen by the organization for its value to the organization’s beliefs of what it considers important.  The difference between these organizations and for-profit companies is how they measure success, changing attitudes of the target audience versus financial success. 

Politics and Government (climate, pandemic, inequality,
immigration, gun safety, abortion, etc.)

Survey Results

Comments

Kastuv Ray
This aspect is very belief-driven but is also driven by the quest for power, staying in power and making money. 

Andy Micone
Representative democracy was designed to be deliberative, so to a large extent, subjective decision-making is designed into the system. The struggle that governmental organizations have had formulating a response to crises like the pandemic and global warming are indicative. As a result, the question of how to approach a problem, a nation’s beliefs and values, and what vision we have for the future will become more relevant. This shift is both an opportunity and a threat.

Steve Hausman
Sadly, it is all too apparent that thought and opinion about these important issues have been degraded over time such that rationality is suppressed at the expense of emotion and personal bias, not to mention misinformation.

Ian Browde
My initial comment and my comment about management, above, pertain here too. So, unless I am misunderstanding the question, my estimation is that most of our lives are run through subjective mechanisms (per the Consciousness Pyramid) but that doesn’t account for the fact that most people are subject to others’ influence and persuasion at best and manipulation and control at worst. Those factors are still in the subjective realm.

Victor Motti
The situation in politics and government the process is mostly under the influence of the culture of a society. In some cases, even the dreams of the leaders and the deep mythologies-theologies tend to determine the values and the alternatives of key decisions. 

Peter King
Science-based policy does exist, but mostly politics is dominated by ideology.

Art Murray
Because government is driven mainly by political interests, and given the recent phenomena of tech-driven social amplification (where a single “tweet” can set off a firestorm of protest), most issues/decisions tend to be addressed purely from a subjective, amygdala-driven perspective

 In the rare instance in which objectivity is used, data and analyses are carefully “cherry-picked” to present only one side in a favorable light, while ignoring/suppressing any opposing viewpoints. This is a strong indicator as to why so many government programs have resulted in failure

Margherita Abe
Politicians may decide what/how to work on issues based on what they think their constituents value. One recent example of this is how the GOP in the US Congress decided to not impeach Trump after the January 6th event.

Analysis and Conclusions – Round One

Yes, An Age of Consciousness Seems to be Here. Really!

The results of this simple survey are striking. The experts think subjective factors make up 73% of thought among individuals and families, 42% of organizational decisions, and 63% of politics and government.  That averages 60% across all three categories. Even the lowest level suggests that nearly half of all organizational decisions are subjective. This includes corporations, the very model of rationality.

There are limits to this study, as noted in the background information, so we make no claims on precision. But the broad message suggested by this data is that modern societies are now living beyond knowledge and making decisions based on emotion, values, beliefs and other forms of subjective thought.

This means that the subjective factors making up what we call “higher consciousness,” or just “consciousness,” now dominate modern life. It also supports the central thesis in Prof. Halal’s new book.

Subjective thought has always been a crucial part of any society, of course. But something unusual is underway when the bulk of critical issues and decisions transcend knowledge because they involve consciousness.

This conclusion is so meaningful that we will now shift attention to studying these implications.

Is the level of subjective thought increasing? Why? 

Bill’s new book, Beyond Knowledge, claims that the digital revolution is automating knowledge, driving thought beyond knowledge into the realm of subjective consciousness. This suggests that subjectivity has been increasing and it is likely to increase even further. Has subjective consciousness increased in past decades? What forces are driving this shift in consciousness? How much is it likely to increase in years to come?

Will an Age of Consciousness produce a “mental/spiritual revolution”?

All previous stages of evolution have been driven by “revolutions” — the Agrarian Revolution, Industrial Revolution, Information Revolution. Does this mean that a “mental revolution” is coming?  Would it take the form of a “global consciousness” to resolve climate change, pandemics, inequality, conflict and other current threats? When this is likely to happen? What is the probability that this revolution occurs successfully? What is likely to happen if this revolution is not undertaken or if it fails? 

What else can we anticipate in an Age of Consciousness?

Consciousness is a new frontier, so little can be known about its purpose, challenges, institutions, lifestyles, etc. What can we expect in these facets of an Age of Consciousness? How will they differ from today’s equivalents?

Research Questions – Round Two

Round Two Posed the Following Questions:

1. What explains the dominance of subjective consciousness?

Our previous study suggests that subjective consciousness dominates critical issues and decisions today. Has subjective consciousness increased in past decades? What forces are driving this shift in consciousness? How much is it likely to increase in years to come?  Which of the following forces (A – D) is driving subjective consciousness today? Will it grow and become more intense? Decline?

A. Digital Revolution is driving this shift in consciousness.

The smartphone, social media, and AI are automating knowledge. This historic evolutionary trend is moving attention up the hierarchy of consciousness from objective factors (perception, memory, knowledge, etc.) to subjective factors (emotions, values, beliefs, etc.) Social media, for instance, has now become the driving force for “post-factual” beliefs that ignore the facts – a form of subjective consciousness.

Comments 

Andrew Micone

The value of subjective thought has been prioritized as we move into the post-information age.

Art Murray

I and many other authors have recently written about the phenomenon of technology-driven social amplification, in which threats to human existence are emotionally perceived as far greater than reality would indicate.  This is due in large part to exponential increases in speed, quantity, questionable veracity and other aspects of the zettabytes of information with which society is bombarded, making it more difficult to separate fact from fiction.  Overwhelmed, people naturally respond by turning toward more subjective aspects of consciousness such as deeply-rooted values, beliefs, etc.

Adolfo Castilla

The digital revolution, pandemic, crisis, climatic change, world turbulence and other phenomena are drawing attention to consciousness, as well as strong advances in neurosciences, intelligence and Artificial Intelligence. This trend in evolution is a natural inner force of human nature, now concentrating on spiritual issues. Humans are participating in this process via “conscious evolution” (Transhumanism, Posthumanism, Longevity). It is also related to the end of irrationality foreseen by Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Heidegger and XIX century French philosophies.

Margherita Abe

I think that subjectivity has definitely increased over the past 2 decades. One driver of this trend is the increased connectivity of communication worldwide. The internet and the rise of smartphone use have led to a world population that is always interconnected and aware.  Events that in the past would have required weeks to become apparent now spread to large numbers of people in hours. More people sample, comment and react, spreading news rapidly and creating a growing global awareness of everything that occurs worldwide. This includes populations in the third world that were previously unaware,  giving them the agency that they previously lacked. This has increased the number of people included in global communication by a factor of 3 or more.

Bo Newman

The digital revolution is fueling the impact of social trends in the shift to an UNSTABLE subjective consciousness, a significant factor in the rise of the post-factual phenomenon and the loss of diversity in the breadth of perspectives. This loss of diversity is a result of the technology-enabled, overly polarized, reductionist media, causing stagnation, lack of actionable knowledge, and a delay in the shift to global consciousness.

Steve Hausman

Social media are definitely the driving force behind the current upheavals.  Sadly, people have come to accept whatever they read on the Internet as a “fact” simply because it is written down (or seen in video format) because they do not seem to perform any analysis of what is being read.

Mike Ryan

Digital and social trends are the tools of the trade, but society is also waking up to a new world of fears, stoked using social media to shift the societal view so dramatically that fact and fiction are one and the same.

Christopher Jones

The first two factors are so tightly interwoven that I don’t think they can be separated. I think social trends are dominant, but as with McLuhan, we shape our tools and then they shape us. I believe the core of global consciousness is intrinsically related to deeper structures such as patriarchy, colonialism, and capitalism. Agriculture. Industrial consumerism. Bureaucracy. I think consciousness technologies, including digital, could have a profound effect, but I fear too little too late. The positive trends towards higher consciousness are oftentimes now impeded by or corrupted by technology, particularly algorithms, social media, and organizational behavior. People appear to become more ignorant up and down the social consciousness hierarchy. 

Paul Haase

As we all experience the digital revolution gaining momentum, parts of society are increasingly feeling overwhelmed by the sheer number of input channels, esp. in social media. Trustworthiness, fact focus, and reliability vary dramatically. In addition, science helped make life better by providing with new technology, new cars, new ways to travel. But today science also brings downsides like climate change, new viruses spreading over the globe. All this increasingly results in non-fact-based consciousness sometimes offering easy pseudo-solutions for the large problems of this time.

Kastuv Ray

Subjective consciousness has increased in past decades. The Digital Revolution is driving this shift in consciousness. The increased use of smartphones, Ipads and social media has led to a greater dependency and need for people to feel connected. This dependency on social media and the ability to access various types of news and information and being able to comment on various online discussions has led to an increased adverse effect on people’s emotions and lives. Easy access to information whether it is false or accurate is starting to challenge or alter people’s values or belief systems and people are becoming more passionate and more opinionated about various causes and the way the world works or operates.

Clayton Dean

It seems reasonable that we are moving away from a simpler, binary world where Walter Cronkite always told us the truth, the media was there to objectively report facts. Knowledge, though widely available, was only disseminated through a few, reasonably hard-to-replicate mediums: the printing press, TV, radio. Information is now ubiquitous, as are the means to ‘create’ or influence, and so there appears to be the elimination of objective truth. 

Milind Chitale

As the need for top information involving the intellect has greatly reduced, one gets more time and bandwidth to think in a more holistic and personal way on issues encountered by world citizens. This makes for the possibility to allow for a deeper intuitive reaction to the stimulus. The other thing that the digital revolution enables is the ability to grasp information in a more natural manner that makes the crux of issues very easy and an intuitive outcome becomes very easy to obtain.

Owen Davies

In at least one context, subjective thought has expanded dramatically. For several decades, politicians have systematically undermined whatever faith in reason their followers may once have had. As a result, close to half the United States has abandoned rational thought entirely. Anyone who doubts this should look at the decline of rational thought in the Republican Party since Rupert Murdoch saw that Fox “News” would be vastly more profitable if it gave up news and specialized in far-right agitprop. Social media are vastly more influential. I never have seen a post on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook that inspired objective thought instead of an emotional response. Purchasing decisions have been mostly subjective since the rise of brand marketing. Add these factors together, and technology becomes an important element in the rise of subjectivity.

Andrew Micone

The digital revolution and social trends are working synergistically toward dominance in social consciousness. The poet T.S. Eliot prophetically asked “Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?” The information age and data-centric approaches to societal problems lead to an explosion of information. The wetware that runs our consciousness, the heuristics capable of relating how the law of large numbers can inform individual actions, demands the development of a subjective consciousness for decision making.

B.    Social trends are driving this shift in consciousness.

Fear of disruptive change, divisive politics, reaction to people of color, the pandemic and a variety of other trends are changing attitudes. But is this a driving factor or just caused by the above?

Comments

Kent Myers

Spiritual experience has withered since the 1700s under the force of materialism (claiming it is illusion) and orthodoxies (claiming it is supernatural). Both are no longer credible, and both science and religion-free people from bad metaphysics. Some developments are halting, such as “Religion for Atheists,” a concession that spiritual practices are beneficial and perhaps even necessary for human flourishing.

Ian Browde

I think it is a combination of things that are driving subjective consciousness. Greater awareness of our interdependence, globally – perhaps enhanced by the pandemic, uncertainty about the future. The ever-increasing rate of change – from biotech to cryptocurrency and AI, climate change’s effects, now being experienced with wildfires, viruses, etc. The rise of authoritarian regimes, the accompanying emigration, and the lack of confidence in institutions like government, church, corporations, states, municipalities, family even are all driving the ascendancy of subjective consciousness. The fast-emerging environmental changes that we label climate change are driving subjective consciousness. At the deepest level, the human-animal senses that this is the existential issue confronting us. 

Margherita Abe

More people become aware and thus included in everything that occurs worldwide and comment on these incidents and facts. This brings a broader world view to the world stage, the inclusion of third world peoples who in the past were marginalized and thus left out of the discussion. They are no longer silent and marginalized but equally able to offer opinions and commentary.  This changes the content and possibly also the direction of communication.  One example of this occurs around the discussion of the effects of climate change. Populations whose land will disappear under the rising seas are speaking up and demanding to be heard.

Steve Hausman

It is nothing new that there have been anti-race and anti-ethnic attitudes in the United States.  Examples include the Tulsa race massacre in 1921 and the anti-Irish race riots in the mid-1800s.  In a sense, these were localized since social media (as we currently call it) did not exist but the newspapers served much the same purpose at that time.

Jonathan Kolber

For nearly all of humanity, the meeting of basic needs will trump other considerations. As the two great disruptors of climate change and accelerating automation further and further destabilize worldwide economies, this visceral and emotional need for security will be attractively addressed by authoritarians, whose simplistic and emotion-stirring messages will resonate while more thoughtful and nuanced messages will not. 

Owen Davies

American history teaches us that social change always promotes subjective thought. Witness the Civil War and the response of immigrants to waves of Italian, Irish, and most recently Hispanic immigration. The triggers in all these cases are the expected loss of income or power, factors that can be considered objective or something vaguely like it. The responses are almost purely subjective. In life goals, affection, religion, and other personal matters our values our thought is inherently subjective. Even apparently rational decision-making is shaped by premises formed subjectively. The most rational of us unavoidably push subjective thought as far as it can go.

Alexandre Pupo

Subjective consciousness dominates critical issues and decisions only to a limited group of ultra-rich people who already have objective factors of their lives under control. To the rest of the world population, mundane objective elements dominate their lives, and unfortunately, things will not change anytime soon. And changing from an objective cognition to a subjective one does not mean an increase in empathy. Corporations are capturing technological evolution and social trends to increase their dominance, while people are using that in a more individualist way.

C. Subjective consciousness has always been dominant so little has changed. 

There is no evidence to support this view, but it is possible.

Comments

Jacques Malan

I believe that consciousness has always been subjective and will remain so. Despite our evolution as a species, all our advancements, refinements, technology, and achievements, we are and will continue to be driven by instinct, sprouting from our reptile brain, by the compulsion to procreate and provide the best possible opportunities and advantages for our offspring. As we advanced, our circle of protection expanded from our immediate family to include progressively enlarged circles of our extended families, friends, communities, towns, cities, states (or provinces), and eventually countries.

Owen Davies

We have evidence for the historical role of subjective thought in our own understanding of the human experience. As farmers, much of our mental energy would have gone to reasonably objective decisions about what to grow, when to plow and plant, and other issues of our occupation. Yet, worrying about the weather, loving our families, and mourning the death of a child was as purely subjective as anything in life.

D. Other explanations (specify):  

Comments

Victor Motti

Increased literacy, increased democracy, and increased unregulated access to ubiquitous tools/technology like blogs, websites, social media, etc to express an opinion. Nietzsche’s point of view about the harmful effects of bad consciousness and corrupt subjective thinking on a massive scale: “The fact that everyone can learn to read not only spoils writing in the long run but also thinking. Once the spirit was God, then it became a person and now it is even becoming a mob.”

Peter King

I don’t accept the premise of subjective dominance, which is probably what you could expect from a physical scientist. But apart from my shrinking cohort that still believes in science, I think a lot of decisions are being made these days by algorithms which by definition are not subjective. The poor masses who are having their decisions made for them by these algorithms may be more inclined to be subjective but leave the difficult decisions like which advertisements to watch to a very rational piece of software. 

Clayton Dean

While subjective consciousness has always been dominant and fed by those who shape public opinion, you didn’t get as many countervailing viewpoints. Never before have our trusted institutions been subject to such public, visceral and effective counter-points that will resonate with our subjective selves.   So whereas before your choices were Walter Cronkite or David Brinkley or John Chancellor, nowadays your choices are a myriad panoply of choices.   And while the ability for a society to be manipulated has always existed, just as we now can mass customize Nike shoes — so too we can ‘mass customize’ our information — which serves to fuel our subjective consciousness.

Young-Jin Choi

I believe we have entered an unprecedented age of existential risk and uncertainty, which is giving rise to irrational fears, primitive tribalism, and perhaps collective pathologies (e.g. paranoia, narcissism, delusion, denial). Rethinking the “hierarchy of consciousness” I would like to suggest that this is actually the reverse of cognitive progression – a regression towards lower primitive levels of consciousness in the form of badly informed emotions, black-or-white worldviews, and unscientific superstitions, while ethical wisdom and scientific rationality are losing the authority they once enjoyed. Our civilization is at risk of falling back into pre-enlightenment maturity levels. The spread of misinformation and conspiratorial thinking through social media serves as an amplifier, and it is enabled by a lack of critical/logical/scientific thinking training in our education systems and poor quality news journalism.  

Owen Davies 

The rise of psychology eventually considered objectivity and subjectivity. The West’s growing awareness of Asian philosophy teaches that our entire view of the world is subjective. Digital media are an important but distinctly second-generation factor here. The bottom line is that none of these answers completely explains the growth of subjectivity. Any real understanding of this issue will include them all.

2. When is a shift to global consciousness likely to happen? 

The transition between stages of evolution is accelerating dramatically. It took roughly 10,000 years from the Agrarian Age to the Industrial Age in 1850, about 100 years to the Services Age in 1950,  50 years to the Knowledge Age in 2000, 20 years to an Age of Consciousness about 2020 – today.  The year 2020 is a conservative estimate. Today’s “post-factual” madness started about 2010, but the pivotal date was 2020 when the US experienced a political insurrection.

This raises profound questions: The pandemic has convinced most people that a social transformation is badly overdue. The status quo is unable to address pandemics, climate change, inequality, conflict, and other existential threats. Most sense civilization is not likely to survive without a revolution in thought. How long will the world tolerate these escalating damage, costs, and pain without taking bold action?  When are we likely to witness a “mental revolution” of “global consciousness?” to form a sustainable global order?

Survey Results

Comments

Andrew Micone

We are already creating a global network of interconnected learning machines that understand the basics of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. As we hand over some consciousness and tasks to machine consciousness, this frees human consciousness towards higher-level questions that are interconnected and cybernetically enhanced. So, if current trends hold, we arrive at greater consciousness not necessarily because we strive for it but because our tools allow us to do so. It becomes more of an evolution than a revolution toward an age of consciousness.

Ian Browde

When thought leaders advocate and model global consciousness worldwide, it will catapult us to critical mass so we see the change where humanity lives and acts as part of the overall system and not as if we “have dominion over it.”

Global consciousness might arrive and we still may experience disaster. Because systemic change, no matter how awake, adult, globally conscious we are, takes time and no one fully grasps how enormous the required changes are to affect a sustainable civilization. The challenges that confront humanity are “wicked problems.” These are beyond the ken of the species until that global consciousness is normalized. To quote Einstein, “we will not be able to solve the problems we have created with the same level of thinking that created the problems in the first place.” That means that not only will we require the consciousness we allude to, we will also need to raise our intelligence.

Just because people do not believe that humanity will not achieve global consciousness, doesn’t necessarily mean that they believe doomsday is inevitable. Perhaps it, like most other species we know about, will be culled by pandemics, weather-related disasters, fires, drought, etc. Once that occurs perhaps a smaller population with global consciousness will restart and new and very different ways of being on the planet will be the norm.

Art Murray

In essence, yes, we are seeing a shift in global consciousness occurring right now, but such shifts are always FIERCELY resisted…always. This is why even though people don’t like to talk about civil war, such an occurrence is highly likely, not only in the USA but in many other countries as well. As a result, forces build up on both sides, much like the pressure on tectonic plates, ultimately resulting in turmoil and bloodshed.

This will clearly come to a head in the 2022 and 2024 elections – as extremism on both sides intensifies (boosted by technology, social media, disinformation, etc. The GOOD NEWS IS, a new day always dawns after the bloodshed and turmoil

so, yes, we are seeing a shift in global consciousness that will ultimately resolve the threats we’re facing, but ONLY following a period of turmoil, upheaval, and even bloodshed that typically accompanies major change. Remember, the “Old Guard” never likes to see their monopoly taken away.

Adolpho Castilla

Without a doubt, people in the coming years will pay more attention to the world of emotions and feelings, the world of the spirit and to rationality. It will, however, be rationality different from that of the Enlightenment

Margherita Abe

I would like to think that this new stage of evolution will result in a global consciousness that will resolve the multiple massive threats that are combining to destroy global civilization. Unfortunately, one possible outcome of this evolution is the emergence of massive destruction that aims to derail actions that are crucial for the survival of human civilization. This is the possibility of a failed revolution…I estimate that this has at least a 35% probability of occurring, maybe even higher but I tend to be an optimist. My estimate is based on my thoughts about the present world turmoil exemplified by the covid pandemic and the climate change crisis.  Both of these may be pushing the need for global change in the very near future.

Bo Newmann

I believe that the leading-edge recognition of the reality of something like global consciousness is likely by the year 2035 if not sooner. But, if the post-factual perspective continues to dominate, such leading-edge recognition may be hard-pressed to gain traction. Even if the advocates of global consciousness can prevail, it may take until the year 2100 or even longer to reverse and overcome the stagnation, if not outright loss, of global knowledge triggered by the post-factual perspective. Only then will we be positioned to enable the shift to a true, expansive and sustainable global consciousness

 Steve Hausman

It would seem to me that while a social transformation is overdue it is not likely to occur in our current environment.  Historically, the social transformations that have occurred have been driven by external factors.  A prime example of this is how the Black Death in the mid-1300s resulted in a complete change of the social and economic structure of Europe.  While some might consider COVID-19 to be such a factor in the present it is not nearly the magnitude of the disruption caused by the Black Death.

I have been doing a lot of study on climate change specifically over the past year and feel that we are very close to a tipping point that may well be irreversible.  For example, we are very close to a major breakup of one of the largest ice masses in the Antarctic, the ice coverage in Greenland is rapidly deteriorating, we have seen record temperatures in Alaska and Siberia, and there is major instability in the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) [i.e., the Gulf Stream].  All of these taken together are very bad signs which cannot be counteracted by planting a few hundred million trees. My bottom line in this regard is that I am not at all sure that we can do much to avoid the climate change catastrophe.  

Mike Ryan

This may never happen. As a believer in chaos theory, a wild card will need to randomly occur (think Covid as an exemplar of this type of event) that changes everything. A future world populated with no more secrets will counterbalance the lies and fiction peddled for profit or personal gain that have skewed subjective consciousness. This battle will determine if and when we get to an age of subjective consciousness.

Kerry Ramirez

Actually, there is a movement now toward a global consciousness/sustainable mindset but if you mean a sweeping, worldwide movement, I think it will happen but it will not be a smooth, trouble-free action but a very rocky road, resistance to change, etc.  Some people are threatened by big change while others embrace it (the early adopters).  As more people travel into space, it will change them, but not enough numbers will have that opportunity in the short-term, not even by 2030.  But, I still think the resistance to a global sustainability movement will be strong.  It would take a global event more powerful than the current pandemic to push people into embracing global consciousness.

Sami Makelainen

I don’t really share the somewhat rosy view that I think the concept of a global consciousness entails. The whole terminology reminds me of Peter Russell’s book White Hole in Time from 30 years ago which, while taking a markedly different approach and belonging to the ‘new age’ school of thought back then, basically called for the emergence of global consciousness as well as means of preventing a global disaster.

That didn’t happen, and I don’t see the signs of it happening anytime soon either – on the contrary, there are more divisions, more splitting into extreme points of view, and much of that is driven by technology. Unfortunately, I don’t see the technology doing a 180-degree turn anytime soon to start helping humanity with it.

I don’t subscribe to that end of the spectrum either; we are not necessarily looking at doomsday, but we are, I believe, looking at a very challenging, disruptive and occasionally violent period of several decades as we re-adjust to the new world that emerges as we enter deeper into the 21st century.

Christopher Jones

I question some of the basic assumptions in your pyramid of social consciousness. I’m not happy with the literature review either. Seems to me that many of those functions happen simultaneously. Cognitive research seems to show that consciousness of the gut/somatic systems and body knowledge have important roles to play in our overall consciousness.  We are a LONG way from that, collectively or among thought leaders.  

More fundamentally I question how global consciousness comes about. I am no doubt influenced by Kuhn’s Structures of Scientific Revolutions and other work on paradigm shifts. Amy Webb’s latest is about biological technology, so maybe the next scientific paradigm is going to be sociobiological? I don’t think it’s digital, despite the popular media opinion to the contrary. I don’t think it’s consciousness, per se, either. I am also heavily influenced by McLuhan — that’s where I will pick up below. 

I think this question is impossible to answer in a meaningful way. It is like predicting when the Singularity or super AI will emerge. It depends on too many variables. For example, some form of peak planetary crisis might shift the collective consciousness. I am very fond of spiral dynamics and the role of complex adaptive systems in the emerging global consciousness. What is the threshold not only of leading thinkers but of the population as a whole that is required to support such a consciousness shift? Civilizational culture is too fragmented, fractured, and diverse for this to happen. So, “it depends.”  I offer Jim Dator’s New Beginnings: maybe global consciousness requires the collapse of Western civilization/take over by AI or the Galactic Federation. 

Kastuv Ray

People are fed up with sitting on the sidelines whilst governments do nothing. Trust is also starting to erode in political leaders due to exposure of various lies and the trend of not practicing what one preaches. People are also very concerned about the catastrophic impacts of climate change, the potential for a global conflict and a lack of coordinated action to tackle new global health crises. Some sort of call to arms in the form of a consciousness movement/task force urgently needs to be taken to address the various issues facing humanity before it is too late.

David Passig

I believe there is a profound shift that is taking place in human consciousness. Our consciousness has been always evolving, opening, widening, etc. for millennia. We are at the threshold of another phase in an infinitive journey. At this early stage of the emerging phase, it looks like subjectivity is dominant, but I believe it’s only a prelude to a deeper inward and outward reach of sentience. That stage will be experienced by more and more people after the pandemic will be a thing of the past. It might take a few decades to be noticeable by the masses.

Jacques Malan

I believe the assumptions on which the “profound questions” in the framing are based are wrong, or at the very least somewhat biased. For example, the statement “The pandemic has convinced most people that a social transformation is badly overdue” is simply not true. Who are the “most” people referred to here? It certainly does not include me. If anything, in my personal opinion, social transformation has already gone too far, for me and a lot of the more conservative folks out there. Worldwide, life in every conceivable metric has been improving dramatically for at least two or three centuries. Thinkers like David Pinker have provided verifiable evidence to this effect. Perhaps I should add that the idea of a “sustainable global order” is a really bad idea. In fact, it is terrifying!

Jonathan Kolber

This shift is, tragically, not the rise of a collective consciousness–mediated by either the metaverse or something more mystical–but rather groupthink enforced by Orwellian masters. I expect many if not most authoritarian regimes to import China’s system, and a post-democracy American fascist regime to reverse engineer it.

Peter King

If subjective thinking does become dominant it is more likely to foster tribalism and the breakdown of the nation-state rather than bring everyone together in some quasi-nirvana. The US is already divided in two and that is a country that is supposed to have a functioning education system. Maybe the vaccinated and unvaccinated will form a separate schism. What it means for countries that are already tribal doesn’t bear thinking about.  

Clayton Dean

Democracy vs Autocracy vs Socialism provides a wide range of divergence of the characteristics that peoples and cultures will (and won’t) accept.  The Arab Spring of 2010 fizzled just as the EU is slowly, but seemingly inexorably, cratering.  China has huge pressures and basically is a police state suppressing various populations.  And so while I’d grant that there are enlightened souls, global consciousness can overcome the all too human traits of bias, competition, tribalism, prejudice, or thirst for dominance.

Milind Chitale

[The shift to global transformation] will be the landmark year when people start to change operating systems and methods to encompass consciousness as a tool in decision making even for commercial enterprises.

Dennis Bushnell

I do not understand the basis of “global consciousness,” do not see much of a global anything except a vast panoply of what I perceive are very worrisome existential societal issues that require a shift to longer-term strategy and major changes. With the population being terminally change-averse, and with the overarching continued drive for profits, we humans are lemmings at this point making progress toward going over the many edges we are heading for. Global Consciousness is not required to muddle through. When things get bad enough, changes will happen, there are MANY solution spaces for almost all of it, but folks hate change.

Young-Jin Choi

It will take some major disruptions to awake us from our collective fever dream. It currently feels like there is a 20-33% chance of long-term decline and a dark age (doom), and a 66-80% chance of potential future progress (although it will be hard times).

Owen Davies

The argument might be made that many thought leaders have already reached this insight. Unfortunately, leaders without a critical mass of followers have little influence on public policy, which will be an essential part of any such shift. My best guess is that global consciousness will not arise, or at least will not be practically relevant, until the wealthy and politically powerful fear their lifestyles will crumble if our path remains unchanged.

Peter von Stackelberg

I think we need to look at what is happening from the bottom up rather than the top down. We will see political systems and established hierarchies of power in government, academia, media, and business begin to change as society changes underneath them. Political systems in their broader sense only begin to change when the societal systems they are built on beginning to shift underneath them.

A new global consciousness will not happen all at once. Rather, there will be a decade or so in which academics, politicians, business leaders, etc. begin to shift. It has already begun, although it is very small at this point and the “leading edge” will actually lag behind what is happening at a societal level. Leaders in our society are actually laggards who are only responsive when change is already painfully obvious.

Based on my own research, we are well into the maturity phase of the Information Age. At the same time, we have just hit the rapid growth phase of what I’ve been calling the Molecular Age, which is a period during which the technologies to tinker with things at the molecular level advances and never-before-seen rates of change. I think the rapidity of the development of COVID vaccines is an early practical demonstration of the power of molecular technologies (biotech and nanotech).  

I think the resistance to COVID vaccines is symptomatic of a broad realization within our society that major change is upon us, with science and technology driving change that many people are deeply afraid of. Resistance to the science and technology around COVID is coming not just from the right side of the political spectrum. I am seeing significant resistance from many on the left, although it is not quite as dominant as the resistance from the right.  (See this timeline I created in 1998 for details… https://www.datavis.ca/gallery/images/timelines/futureswatch-org.pdf).

We are emerging from a period in which Christian conservatism played a huge role in American society. If we look back to the late 1990s and early 2000s, conservative Christianity reached a peak. It has been in decline for the past 10 to 15 years, as indicated by church membership, political influence, and several other variables. I think this points to the emergence over the past decade and into at least the 2030s of a new social morality and philosophy in American society.

Part of this, I believe, will be the emergence of “global” consciousness brought on by the combination of international communication, the global impact of COVID, climate change, and other factors that all point to the interconnected nature of life on this planet. At this point, I think the futures community needs to be looking past traditional indicators and trends and seek out evidence that will help us get a good fix on whether this shift to a global consciousness is actually underway and, if so, when and how it will manifest itself.

Chris Garlick

Cultures and people have survived for millions of years because of the strength of indigenous cultures and tribes’ sovereignty. Indigenous people and tribes serve relevant information to people that they can understand and act upon.  We can all think globally and make more information available at a global level, but actions and relevance will remain in small communities. Those communities may benefit from information and knowledge shared globally but the concept of global consciousness is too complex and not relevant to be a global practice.

Peter King

Pre-scientific societies presumably made all of their decisions subjectively and this resulted in some pretty nasty outcomes like witch-burning and ethnic cleansing.  If this is a trend, what evidence is there that it is likely to be overwhelmingly positive? Could we descend into tribalism and only associate with people who have the same beliefs and values as ourselves? I think we know where that trend leads us – think Rwanda of a few years ago.  Is this view of subjectivity globally, or does it just represent a predominantly older, white, Anglo-Saxon, male, academic view of today’s world, rather than the hip hop, TikTok, rap view of the younger generation, which at times seems to be not concerned about anything other than the immediate moment? Does it represent the semi-literate or even illiterate view of the global South, where science and objective information have not yet entered their decision processes, and they are still bound by traditions and indigenous knowledge (often drawn from nature)? 

Wendell Wallach  

My prognostications indulge less empirical languages including those of spirituality and ethics. For example, the languages of ethics get empowered, as they are now, by the expansion of uncertainty and felt instability in the social-political order.

I have been privately predicting that we will witness a new spiritual wave/movement in the second half of this decade. That prediction is based largely on anecdotal evidence. The last significant worldwide spiritual movement/wave occurred in the 60s and 70s, took many forms, and in its latter stage gave birth to an evangelical movement that morphed into contemporary evangelical conservatism. This was perhaps in reaction to the more left-leaning New Age forms of spirituality.

It is important to note that the rise of the language of consciousness during that period was in pursuit of less religious and more secular, philosophical, and pseudo-scientific ways of talking about unusual psychological states, whether natural or as a result of psychotropic drugs. It was only with the emergence of the cognitive sciences in the 70s that the term ‘consciousness’ slowly evolved to become more scientifically acceptable. And even the search for a science of consciousness has left many prominent naturalistic philosophers in the field willing to consider “panpsychism”, the possibility that consciousness has a universal property and is not reducible to the output of biological systems.

So why all this preamble. Yes, climate change and the impact of emerging technologies will appear attractive to some political leaders as a way of catalyzing international unity around responses to geopolitical challenges.  But this is only likely to be effective if accompanied by a spiritual/emotional demand for action.  Indeed, we have a chicken or an egg problem as to the relationship between the emotive demand and the political challenges.  While the politics might be represented empirically, the forces that give rise to emotive demands continue to be mysterious. We can of course speculate about some of the factors raising spiritual/political movements but should at least have the humility to recognize that our theories are just that. 

Whether the early evidence I perceive of a growing spiritual wave will coalesce into a politically effective movement by the end of the decade or disintegrate as a last gasp effort to create unity around internationally shared challenges, is unclear at this time. 

Analysis and Conclusions – Round Two

Conclusion 1:

Digitalization and Social Trends Are Driving Consciousness

Round One above showed that the modern world is now living beyond knowledge and entering an Age of Consciousness. To recap the results, roughly 60% of major issues across individuals, organizations, and governments are based on subjective factors – emotions, values, beliefs, etc. 

This remarkable finding is explained in the comments below. Scanning through the thoughts of our experts, it seems clear that many attribute the rise of subjectivity to smartphones, social media and other aspects of the digital revolution. This confirms our hypothesis that digital technologies are the primary causes of subjectivity. The downside is that many also fear that subjectivity leads to tribalism, disinformation and the other ills of our time instead of more enlightened behavior.

A parallel theme suggests that the pandemic, globalization, divisive politics and other social trends are also raising subjective consciousness. We think technology acts as an enabling force that amplifies these social trends and spreads the subjective level throughout societies. Both technology and social trends are flowing together into a wave of subjective thought.

Conclusion 2:

Global Consciousness Is Likely to Emerge About 2030 

The bar chart above shows two modes in the data:

The left mode from the present to 2035 estimates that some type of global consciousness is most likely to enter the leading edge about 2029 on average. The right mode includes data from 2041 to Much Later and Never. Comments reflect trends supporting the 2029 forecast and the many doubts that cause this group to challenge it.

How to resolve this stark difference? We note that the left mode contains 18 responses while the right mode contains 11 responses. This simple measure suggests that 62% of the total responses favor the 2029 forecast while 38% oppose it.

A final test is possible by considering the 3 data points from 2041 to 2050 as the right tail of the left mode. This interpretation would include all of the yearly estimates from 2020 to 2050. That would raise the average forecast to 2031 and raise the proportions to 72% vs 28%.

Based on this analysis, we conclude that the leading edge in modern nations is most likely to witness a shift to some type of global consciousness about 2030 +/- 3 years or so. We also conclude that 28% of respondents think it will happen Much Later or Never.

This analysis also suggests that the doubts supporting the right mode represent valid obstacles that must be overcome to realize this possibility. Comments above show serious concerns about the enormous social resistance to such a historic change in thought. Some are convinced that muddling through is enough to produce solutions. A few think that social change has been excessive and should be undone.

 General Comments

Yul Anderson
I think that AI/ML will take the thinking out of the living process. Even government will have to rely on a new social consciousness that is free from current tax-based models. Business models especially as we move into an inherited/transfer of wealth economy. In the age of disruption, possibly the world as we know it will operate as a global collective.

John Meagher
In my view, all elements of the pyramid describing the Structure of Consciousness are active for the three areas  (Individuals and Families, Management of Organizations, Government and Politics) identified in the survey.

As a scientist, I think that objective knowledge is paramount and rational decisions that have wide acceptance over time. But I respect that subjectivity is separate and is sometimes influenced by objectivity, but in many instances is ignored. With misinformation/disinformation, rationality/objectivity is supplanted as the basis leading to various outcomes and decisions. Objective knowledge also changes with new evidence but subjective elements on many occasions far less so.

Jacques Malan
This is an extremely complex question.

I immediately need to highlight two additional dimensions that are not adequately reflected in the framing of this problem.

1) There will be a huge divergence between the developing and developed worlds.

2) There will be a large divergence along the political spectrum.

Only at the individual and family level every person in the world would be subjective no matter his/her level of development, income, means, education or political view. It is driven by instinct to procreate and advance our offspring in the best way possible. We each think our kids are the smartest/strongest/best.

There is a huge difference in the way business is conducted in the developing and developed world. In the developing world, many more decisions are driven by short-term goals based on emotion and culture than in the developed “west”. For similar reasons, political orientation will drive decisions with liberal companies (Meta, Twitter, Google) being more focused on (emotional) social issues than the more conservative and often criticized hardline profit motive (Tesla, Apple, Big Oil).

This is quite controversial, but the way nepotism and bribery are viewed in the developing world is very different to that of the developed world and these are driven by culture, not objective factors. And it is quite clear that even in that bastion of the west, the USA, liberal and conservative politics are worlds apart, but both sides are still influenced to various extents by subjective factors.

Robert Finklestein
My favorite definition of consciousness is: “Consciousness is a state or condition in which an intelligent system is aware of itself, its surroundings, its situation, its intentions, and its feelings. (Albus and Mystel, pp xii–xiii, 2001). Given the extent to which humans lack this awareness, it is questionable to what extent, if any, humans are conscious).

Ian Browde
Regarding consciousness though, there are certain things that are missing in my view. Intuition, instinct, hunches, feelings as distinct from emotion – could tie in with hunches. Urges, drives, cravings, addictions and awareness of them. Awareness, presence. 

Also, topics like choosing, selecting, opting, deciding and so on as integral to consciousness. As well as responsibility, accountability and dependence. 
I’m looking at your pyramid and agree that it works. Perhaps add a tier entitled Innate Characteristics. That would be a catch-all for instinct, intuition, etc. 

Another thought is you might want to add dimensionality to the pyramid. 
The 3rd dimension would be a temporal classification of Now and Not Now Consciousness. Some folks, very few, achieve full nowness consciousness. Something to which I personally aspire. 

Peter King
As a scientist, your questions evoke deep questions about where science is headed and why it has become so distrusted in modern times.  My suggestions are as follows: 

1.    What other relevant facts should be added to the above list of background data? The outcomes of COP26 on climate change and COP15 on biodiversity, where science clearly shows a global crisis, but the response is derailed by political and industry interests (even where they believe the science, as the fossil fuel industry has done for nearly 50 years already).

2.    What are your thoughts on the way questions are framed above? In view of the anti-science movement globally, the “values” question has to be framed as both positive and negative.  We are not necessarily headed into some sublime paradise because people trust their selfish interests instead of the scientific, objective view of the world.  We could be headed into extinction caused by our own self-destructive consciousness, including first knocking off the species that inhabit the planet with us.  

3.    Should other questions be added? I would add “why has the world turned to reject scientific knowledge in favour of ideologies, post-facts, fads and fashions?”

4.    Any other comments on this study? I think the view that an emerging golden age of consciousness is going to lead us into some nirvana is sadly flawed, but I will be interested to see how your little community of futurists see this unfolding.

Milind Chitale
Other Relevant facts to consider:  The perspective on other Global issues like- Global Warming; Reduction of / steady extinction of species on earth;  Move towards renewable and sustainable lives. The fact of the matter is that the young generation sees these as logical topics (objective as defined above) that are evaluated with a calculative mindset. Older generations on the other hand look at these with great emotional attachment (subjective) , so a great deal of the conscious angles is evident in their evaluation as compared to the genZ.

The questions have been framed with a helicopter view and will not be able to unravel the link between whether future leaders (today’s genZ) have a completely different proportion of Subjective to Objective ratio when they make decisions. However, the older generation as I see it is going to pass on in the next 40 years, and the world will slowly wake up to the Conscious standards of the GenZ.

I feel it is very important to evaluate whether the shift in the Subjective vs Objective mindset is real or just out figment of imagination. I for one can vouch that my son ( aged 23) has a very clear view of global issues, which is almost 80% Objective. His mind works in the Objective domain very well as compared to the Subjective aspects of consciousness. Almost every discussion we have on global and other issues, he tries to sum up some kind of model to explain his view.

This means that the intelligent young generation has already contemplated a method of measuring how much emotion-ethics and personal views to devote to issues  ( which is very low) as against me and many of my classmates who struggle to see things so Objectively even today.

The above two facets of my reply point to the need for a few questions that can actually grapple with the percentage difference in the world view as Subjective and Objective for different age groups as perceived by respondents to the survey. I seriously feel that this is essential as it shows the slow roll-over to a more pragmatic set of governing mindsets that don’t spend too much emotional energy on things they have already perceived to be Objective.

The question I would like to add to the survey:

Think clearly of the generation before you, your generation and the two generations after you. Based on your judgment, what is the proportion of Subjective to Objective approach you see in their decision making on issues at the three levels depicted: individual and family; corporate organizations and global or country levels. 

Young-Jin Choi
Even if decision-making is believed to be “fact”-based, this doesn’t necessarily mean that it is “rational” when the “facts” themselves are actually irrational or flawed – e.g. distorted by misinformation, misinterpretation, or unconscious/ideological biases.

There is also the aspect of practical constraints – decision-makers may feel they have little choice/options and are forced to make decisions they don’t personally prefer, e.g. due to shareholder primacy and fiduciary duty. A key problem with the modern corporation is that director duties are narrowly defined and constraint the voluntary action space.

I’m currently writing a commentary about a recent article by Nicholas Stern on the failure of current climate economics. Accordingly, many “rational” decision-makers are not well informed today and severely underestimate the stakes of climate catastrophe. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oVGX_QeF8pZTSLkfk7e2PRLOOqgdd-bI4JwegtJRPYw/edit?usp=sharing

As long as a large share of voters is not well-informed and behaves irrationally, politicians are driven to behave accordingly – in addition, the political sphere is currently subject to rampant lobbying, corporate capture and misinformation, which even worsens the quality of decision making. In spite of human intelligence, there is a lack of wisdom across the board. Another question to ask might be: “How high is the quality of decision making in relation to what’s ethically necessary, scientifically grounded and “wise”?”

In my opinion, measured by the dimensions of wisdom, empathy and time horizons, current human societies are still far from achieving an advanced level of consciousness, unfortunately.In this context, here is a brief text I wrote a little while ago:  

Perhaps you are familiar with the old Greek proverb: “Society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.” I sincerely hope that — as a civilization — we can learn to embrace this kind of intergenerational stewardship at a planetary level. Today, we are in a situation where “old” men and women would literally have to plant a trillion trees, in combination with establishing bold climate policies, in order to facilitate a desirable future that they know they may never see. But doing so requires a belief in something higher than individual and tribal self-interest, such as the abstract idea of humanity worth caring for, stretching across time and space far beyond the confines of one’s own lifetime. While establishing such a belief is certainly not a trivial task in today’s postmodern era of general confusion and short-termism, I believe that succeeding at it is what fulfilling mankind’s dreams of perpetual global peace and deep environmental sustainability require. It is what characterizes a truly advanced and enlightened civilization in my view, more so than any technological achievement.

Kent Myers
I think you would get much more interesting results if you clarified the question. Your diagram doesn’t seem to correspond with anybody’s theory of the “structure of consciousness.” I would say that is more, not less vague than most other sources.

You say you want me to “estimate a level of consciousness,” but when the actual question comes, there is no level at all. You are asking about the balance between subjective factors versus objective factors. 

And then you asked me to give a 1 to 100 score. I should really be giving you a response on a Likert scale: zero in the middle, with 1,2,3 going out either side, subjective and objective. And the question is: “Across society as a whole, is this issue being interpreted and advocated for using a mix of functions that favors either subjective or objective functions of consciousness, and it one side is favored, is it favored weakly 1, strongly 2, or very strongly 3?”  That is a question I can answer for cases that are more specific than your three categories, which are overly broad. Those responses might be interesting.

You have an additional interpretation of these responses: that increased subjectivity is a sign of an advance of consciousness. But that is NOT something that your respondents are necessarily agreeing to or confirming. If you want to know whether anybody agrees with you, you could ask two additional questions: “Do you think that an overall increase in subjectivity is
1) evidence of a serious, civilization-scale change in culture
2) this change is an evolution of consciousness that may aid humanity in developing a  sustainable existence?

Clayton Dean
Regarding an ‘Age of Consciousness’.   I think you’re on the right path but maybe aren’t quite asking/phrasing the questions fully. I hope this critique is constructive but also gives you some ideas about how to nail down the questions a bit more … quantitatively.

As note, we are going through a period whereby ‘Truth’ is harder and harder to come by.  I still remember in the MBA Capstone hearing you, presciently, talk about upcoming societal upheavals as institutions proven unable to adjust to new realities.  And we are seeing, and living, that as people no longer trust their church, their government, or even their neighbors.   I think this is fairly self-evident and undeniable.  

So how do we handle it?  People are busy and just as it’s not helpful to have 47 cereal or beer choices in the grocery — having to hunt and kill your truth is probably too much to ask most people to do.  A lot of this is cultural.  As Americans, we generally want to believe in our institutions and leaders.  We tend to believe people are truthful.  But this is NOT the case for many people.  One need look no further than Russians, Chinese, (North) Koreans or even Easter Europeans to see, if not understand, the pervasive nihilism that throws ice water on any objective truth.   Interestingly this lack of objective truth is creeping into American society as we question ‘lived truths’, who our heroes are (statue controversies, Columbus, etc..), and even around COVID.  So we all need help.

Ironically technology was supposed to help: essentially something like dis-aggregating the news among many sources would magically ensure the ‘truth’ would prevail.   But what we’ve seen is that tech, as it becomes focused, has become too good at allowing everyone to publish, and as a corollary, much too easily spread misinformation if not outright disinformation.  

If this fabric:  1)Objective Truths, 2) Cultural views towards truth, and 3)Technology is all working against us,  how are people who are new to jobs, or starting families, or want to enjoy retirement, to have any chance???   I think the answer is through technology and specifically AI.  We are seeing AI drive truths at two of your three ‘Organizational Realms’ (e.g. the Gov’t, Business, Individual), specifically the Government and Corporate levels but not nearly as explicitly on the Individual level.  There are deep and complicated algorithms to drive efficient decisions (even if the algorithms are often imperfect) for the best policy, the best stock trade, the best judge to get in a Court Case.  Our Twitter and Facebook feeds do not hesitate to shovel outrage and dopamine driving clickbait our way.   And so Tech has gotten really good at knowing your likes and feeding us what you like — whether it’s Facebook outrage, or suggestions to music on your playlist (you’ve played Moonlight Sonata every day, perhaps you would like XYZ by Wagner) or on Netflix.   And I think that’s the next step:  Easy, Personal AI.   Easy, personal AI gives people a chance whereby they’ve never had it.   Some may argue we have some of that: for instance, we can select our news feeds — but it’s all ‘hard coded’ and often not well correlated.   We need ‘easy AI’ to help us with our objective truths.  To better curate what we see, what we get, and to understand the counterpoints.  To better shape the bottom of your pyramid below (the Structure of Consciousness) to help drive better knowledge, better decisions, more accurate memory and emotions to then reset the foundation.

In conclusion, we are at the cusp of an age of Consciousness.  However, unlike our last Renaissance, it’s not humans that will be awakening.  Rather it’s the merger of tech and humanity at the personal level.  The consciousness you’re speaking of will be software-driven — but it has to be programmed in.  The very act of being sentient, of consciousness, is to realize that it was missing previously, to be self-aware.  And so as we know subjective factors ALWAYS trump [bad word choice?]  objectivity in the human animal.  Sociologists often say you need to compliment a loved one eight (8) times to every perceived slight to ensure they feel safe, loved and comforted.  Eight times the good vs the bad — and that’s in a trusted relationship!!!  We are nowhere near that out there in the tech wilderness.   All in all to say Tech has not yet had that moment of realizing that Consciousness exists, can’t be assumed, and so needs to be hardwired in —  but it is about to.  And it will be a wild ride applying binary decisions to non-binary live choices.  But that’s exactly where we are and it’s coming faster than anyone realizes.   The best inventions have always been time-travel — things that save time (Amazon makes shopping take minutes rather than hours) — and that’s exactly what is needed in the AI space.   An easy, functional, personal AI.

Christopher Jones
I have no confidence in these aggregate numbers. As a trained political scientist, I found these levels of analysis a bit off. That is, I would separate individuals and families. The organizational level is fine, but I would disaggregate government and politics – I see those as separate entities. Governments can be studied as a level of analysis, but not politics. And I find it difficult to aggregate any of the categories because of the wide diversity in each. It does not seem useful, to me. I agree with some of the initial comments about whether there is an agreement whatsoever about what consciousness is. That, to me, is a more interesting question.

1.  What other relevant facts should be added to the above list of background data? 
These do not appear to me to be data but categories and events. In futures work, I would prefer emerging issues trends in STEEP categories. I’m not sure why you are not using more traditional typologies that are more standardized and potentially consistent over time. The list does not seem sensitive to international, cross-cultural, or global issues. Very Western.     

2.  What are your thoughts on the way questions are framed above? 
Framing and assumptions are a problem for me. For one thing, this seems very technologically oriented (a strength of yours, to be sure) and exclusive of new or evolved concepts about consciousness, that is, cross-species, intestinal, somatic, and planetary. There is an assumption, based on a quick read, that AI will somehow mirror or parallel human consciousness. I took a brief dive into your new book, and from a deep ecology or deep Mountain approach, this scheme neglects the human/Gaian aspects of emerging planetary consciousness. Transhumanism and posthumanism do not see human agency the same way.   

4.  Any other comments on this study? 
I am uncomfortable with the hierarchy and the apparent belief that human consciousness is necessarily the peak, the Omega point. There is certainly no consensus whether that is a good thing, and it seems to me we are becoming more fractured, polarized, and individualized — certainly barriers to a global transformation. At least in spiral dynamics, there is a sense of moving from stages, and not all people, not all societies, are at the same level in emerging consciousness at the same time.    

I have only begun looking at your book, but I do not understand how knowledge fits into consciousness, it seems to me knowledge and facts are external to consciousness — but that’s a big epistemological debate.   

Finally, the whole quantitative approach seems misguided to me. Selection bias will be an issue, and I’m not convinced that the numbers mean anything in the scheme of things, given global driving forces, such as climate change, wild cards, such as the Kessler Syndrome, or any other number of increasingly likely events (the next bird flu epidemic). I do not see how we get “enlightened” transformational consciousness until the bottom billion are fed.  

as we know it will have to rely on a new social consciousness that is free from current tax-based models. Business models especially as we move into an inherited/transfer of wealth economy. In the age of disruption, possibly the world as we know it will operate as a global collective.