Polycrisis and our uncertain future

Getting involved, paying up, and bouncing upward.

Next:Economy Newsletter Image generated using Microsoft Image Creator and Adobe Photoshop   Our growing humanitarian crisis "Crises are vastly larger today than in recent past," and they're only getting worse. As international affairs journalist Mark Leon Goldberg, of the Global Dispatches newsletter and podcast, puts it in a guest post on Slow Boring: "If present trend[s] continue. . .the system we have to limit human suffering in disasters will buckle." The international disaster relief system just wasn't designed to grapple with the enormity of crises in our current moment. As Goldberg points out, it's an urgent problem exacerbated by every new catastrophe. And it isn't one we can "innovate ourselves out of": The solution here is straightforward: donors need to pay up! But the fact is, key donor governments are tolerant of these massive gaps in humanitarian funding. In the foreign policy community, humanitarian issues tend to be an afterthought. That lackadaisical attitude may come back to haunt. Humanitarian relief agencies tend not to regard themselves as political actors. They deliver aid based on needs and needs alone. But in fact, they exist as a kind of bulwark against chaos and disorder that results from mass amounts of people lacking basic necessities for survival. A world in which aid agencies struggle to meet the basic humanitarian needs of 1 billion people is inherently a more chaotic and unstable one—even by today's standards. The "skyrocketing humanitarian needs" Goldberg calls attention to are just a foretaste of an even worse future as climate change and global conflict accelerate. Welcome to the 21st century. This is the next stage of a crisis that will lead to even more radical changes in the global economic and security order established in the wake of the Great Depression and the Second World War. We're heading into a vastly uncertain future where our comfortable certainties will be ripped to shreds and our values deeply tested. As I wrote in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, we must "rise to meet the crises of the 21st century ," refocusing our goals from driving corporate profits to rebuilding the social commitments that fortified the previous era of progress. But if we do so, we have the chance to create a future that's better than our past. + It isn't only that we're seeing more crises than we did in the past—it's that these crises are more deeply interconnected, such that one often amplifies another. We've mentioned the "polycrisis" before as a constructive framework for considering the interplay between the challenges we're facing. Here's historian Adam Tooze with an overview of the term and some historical context. + And here's just one example of how crises tend to compound: "Climate Change Poses a Child Labor 'Threat Multiplier.'"   Uncertainty and discontent Uncertainty about the future makes for an uneasy bedfellow, and that's true even for those whose immediate circumstances may not be so dire. In her Risk Musings newsletter, Stephanie Losi tries to make sense of the "discontent" many Americans are feeling despite an economy that seems to be doing pretty well. Losi zeroes in on that feeling of uncertainty , which she illustrates using the example of a roller coaster: A steep future is a scary future for many people. And I think that's the missing piece of the discontent puzzle. The butterflies in your stomach, whatever your perspective, are waking up and telling you: things are going to change soon. The unknown is frightening. But Losi explains that overcoming that fear can be as simple as boosting your personal resilience—by "building and strengthening connections with family, friends, acquaintances, and trusted organizations far and especially near" and "getting involved and helping others." Which sounds a lot like a zoomed-in version of Goldberg's appeal for humanitarian aid. As Losi notes, strengthening our connections with one another may seem like a small thing (and is also likely easier said than done), but it's a first step toward tackling the challenges we'll meet in our uncertain future.   Planning for a future with fewer people One aspect of the polycrisis that could reverberate throughout the Next Economy is the declining birth rate. As Bloomberg's Jessica Nix writes, "Economic strains, work instability, political polarization, student loans, access to health care, climate change and global conflicts" are all contributing to Americans' decision to put off having children. And the same is true in other wealthy nations, fanning concerns about long-term economic stability. Earlier this year, Brink Lindsey dedicated four issues of his newsletter, The Permanent Problem, to the topic: " Depopulation and Decadence," "Weird Scenes from a Shrinking Planet (Part 1)," "Weird Scenes from a Shrinking Planet (Part 2)," and " Robin Hanson on Declining Fertility ." It's a long but worthwhile series that considers some of the wider (and unusual) implications for society at large, including Lindsey's optimistic take that a less-populated world might promote the creation of new countercultural communities that reinvigorate innovation—an idea we shared back in January. + Here's a deep dive into the global fertility rate from Our World in Data. + From The Economist: "America Is Uniquely Ill-Suited to Handle a Falling Population." + Economist Tyler Cowen argues that poorer countries might not fare much better, at least economically. But he still "expect[s] most of the world to be better off" in the future. + While plans to improve the birth rate have yet to show much promise, most commentators agree that we're unlikely to address the challenge without social programs that support parents and caretakers.   "The social floor is actually a trampoline" "What if raising the floor—of social benefits like income, health care, housing and more—might actually accelerate our economic growth?" That's Roy Bahat, the head of venture capital firm Bloomberg Beta, on why "we need to guarantee everyone's basic needs." Citing Natalie Foster's recent book The Guarantee: Inside the Fight for America's Next Economy (which we've mentioned before) and echoing Losi's commentary above, Bahat argues that "economic 'precarity'—the complicated word for people feeling fear—prevents them from participating in our economy." But "by providing a foundation of economic stability," he explains, "we can enable a new generation of innovators and creators across every field": If we see these benefits as a floor, then they can lift people up. Best, though, might be designing a higher social floor as a trampoline: to bounce people upward into the dignity of inventing, of caring, and of serving our society's needs. + You can read an excerpt from The Guarantee here. Here's an interview Foster did with philanthropic and nonprofit strategist Parker Blackman, and another with the Institute on Race, Power and Political Economy's Darrick Hamilton.   —Tim O’Reilly and Peyton Joyce This message was sent to alexvarboffin.abbb@blogger.com. You are receiving this because you've signed up to receive email from us. Privacy Policy | Unsubscribe From All | Unsubscribe From Next:Economy O'Reilly Media, Inc., 1005 Gravenstein Highway North, Sebastopol, CA, 95472 (707) 827-7000