Wild Globalization in the 21st Century…
How the World Works… OR NOT!
Wild Globalization in the 21st Century…How the World Works…OR NOT!
Wild Ecology… Wild Sex, Demographics & Culture… Wild Technology… Wild Economy… Wild Governance… Wild 21st Century Wealth.
Our Provocative Statement
Welcome to the Wild Globalization Project! So, What is “globalization? How does it drive and shape civilization? “What’s going on? …How does the world work?"
The 20th century opened with the promise of prosperity and fantastic new technologies – the automobile, electricity, continental railroads, and telephones – it then collapsed into chaos, warfare, pandemic, genocide, holocausts, environmental destruction – 70 million lost in global wars, 50 million in the 1918 global flu pandemic.
But the second 50 years, in spite of nuclear and cold war threats, seemed to bring a new, re-globalizing order, a “rising tide” of wealth over poverty, foodstuff abundance, and even more amazing technologies.
Today, in our 21st century, wealth and populations are exploding – a hundred trillion of gross domestic product (and that’s just what we can count) and EIGHT BILLION folks on the planet.
But the wealth is uneven, often unfairly distributed, and people are on the move in wild migrations. Humans threaten…and we are threatened…by the Earth’s wild ecology. In spite of all that, the 21st century’s global human family is the largest and measurably the healthiest, best nourished, and most prosperous in history.
But then we wonder: “Is the 21st century again collapsing into global conflicts, economic meltdowns, supply-chain chaos, energy crises, and now pandemics and new global wars? Do we find ourselves disillusioned, living a new “angst? “Does at least part of our anxiety come from an uncertainty, or a fear, about how the global human community will get along, work together?” OR NOT!” As I speak, Western Civilization’s holy land is again on fire and we’re staring down the throat of global war.
So what is this “globalization” thing? Or is it now a de-globalizing or a re-globalizing thing? Which way are we headed – to the first or second half, or both, of the 20th century’s outcomes? “What’s going on…how does the world work?”
Global business network, iStock 959802730 2-28-22
Our WILD GLOBALIZATION PROJECT is wondering if civilization's life-world might in fact work like a "BLACK BOX." In modern physics this is called a “quantum entanglement.”
Imagine a wild river, but then imagine several divergent rivers crashing and flowing together – An Ecology River… …A Sex-Demographics-Culture River…a Technology River…an Economy River…and a Governance River…and a Wealth River. Each has its own origin and force. Each is carving out canyons, destroying and then building the world back up again. All are wildly inter-, over- and under-flowing, at once, in a total, surging momentum.
But then…oh wait a minute! Maybe the wildest thing of all is…whoosh! – there goes a human and she’s holding a paddle and she’s riding …a KAYAK!
So we’re riding this flow, hanging on, trying to stay afloat. It’s carrying us, but we’re really just riding “it!”
What’s happening is a superbly complex and changing phenomenon…we’re part of the force…but we’re also just along for the ride! It’s from this flow, this quantum entanglement of forces, that the spontaneously emerging orders of life are both created…and destroyed. The great Austrian economist, Joseph Schumpeter, called this the “perennial gale of creative destruction.” Joseph Schumpeter
Look at Covid-19. The pandemic was first a Wild Ecology event – but did it come from nature or was it a Wild Technology “gain of function” virus that humans created? Whatever, Covid shows us how humans respond to and can radically change the natural world – we could have lost 50 million like the 1918 Flu… but we didn’t! Instead, literally overnight, in 24 hours, and as soon as they had the virus’ genetic code, scientists came up with a “genome-based vaccine,” or at least we called it a vaccine. Both events, the virus if it was “gain of function,” and the genome-vaccine, were NOT un-natural, we’re going to talk about how they were “hyper-natural” human creations – like the kayaker with the paddle! That’s just what we do! And wherever it came from, authorities at first hid the virus from us. Why was that? The pandemic became a Wild Governance geo-political football. The virus raced ahead of the vaccine but Wild Economy’s big pharma got paid billions by taxpayers and grew fat anyway. Sweden put kids back in school with no risk, while Wild Culture American kids were locked up and probably lost at least a year of their freedom and education. Economies were shut down, trillions of dollars were printed, and Wild Finance inflation exploded. Serious ethical blunders took more lives. Our supply-chained, Wild Global markets were exposed. As smart as we think we are, we really didn’t know what to do. Millions were lost; we survived. But the order of civil society has changed. Covid was a global quantum entanglement event.
The pandemic shows us how the entangled orders of life race ahead of our common sense, our critical thinking, and our rational governance. And tragically, ahead of our moral and ethical response.
This global quantum entanglement is “WILD!”
And that leaves us with…what? What do we have to work with?
We assess that humans have evolved from the natural world by virtue of two more or less unconstrained, unique abilities.
First, we can be smart…OR NOT! Nature has given us – and we’ve worked at it – the ability to think and alter the natural world – someone did come up with the kayak and the paddle! We bundle these abilities under “Science and Technology.”
Second, we can love and care for each other and the planet…OR NOT! Humans have the capacity to do good or evil for humanity and planet Earth – we bundle these abilities under our “spirituality,” or, for many, our “faith or religious traditions.”
So we’re asking big questions, questions that probe our intelligence and our conscience. Like, “What is globalization? What do we mean by these “rivers,” these “flows”? – Ecology? Sex-Demographics-Culture? Tech? Economy? Governance, Wealth? “How can humanity and the Earth survive in this 21st century?” “What’s going on, and what can we, or should we, do about it?”
Wild Globalization is not claiming to have simple answers…or even any answers at all! As tech entrepreneur, Uri Levine, suggests, we’re just trying to “…fall in love with the problem.” Uri Levine. We’re trying to come up with conversations, indeed, civil conversations – OK, maybe some healthy arm-wrestling – that might lead us to, let’s just say, better critical thinking.
So maybe we’re trying to change the state of “play” of how we live together, how we come to grips with things, how we care for each other and this Earth-home.
We’re watching how the 21st century is racing ahead of our intelligence – our “common sense” – our “ethical response” – and our “conscience.” Right now we have hot wars in Europe and the Middle East, and another cold war in Asia. The nuclear arms race is hot again. We’re even staring down “Hal” the artificial intelligence, or “A.I. guy,” from 2001 Space Odyssey.
Here’s our “provocative statement:
“Humans have not just emerged from the wild. We are wild Homo sapien, and we’ve spread ourselves over the planet for 250,000 years. The wild is happening right here and now. To get here we’ve relied on our critical thinking but really, more vitally, our tenacious re-thinking, of this quantum entanglement. So we’re trying to see it from inside and outside the “box.” From divergent takes: ecology…culture…tech…economy…governance…wealth. And somehow think it all at once. How is this entanglement affecting the planet, changing it? But then, how are we getting kicked around by it? Like the kayaker, we’re launching into these wild, entangled flows of energy that constantly create and build, and at the same time that breakdown and destroy, the orders of life on Earth.”
Here’s a preview of our Wild Globalization suite of YouTube videos and, by the way, because the “order” is wild, they can be viewed in our sequence:
Ecology >> Sex-Demographices-Culture >> Tech >> Economy >> Governance >> Wealth…
or in any order you choose. It’s wild, after all, and you choose the order!
WILD ECOLOGY: Wild Energy, Climate, the Wild Sun, the Earths’ Fire, and Dark Matter
We’re still at the very beginning of learning how Earth, the Solar System, and the Universe work. Wild Ecology tries to re-set the conversation by first looking at the “order” of energy. Ecology also includes climate, so we try to take in both the 150 year weather or meteorological perspective, but also the thousands and millions’ of years paleo-climatological perspectives…for example, the ice ages – or not! Climate includes the Earth living in the Sun’s climate, or its “solar weather.” Then there’s the Earth’s great mega-volcanoes. Finally our quick survey considers the implications of the Universe’s “dark matter.” Ecology, we will see, is wild…and we’ll come to see how civilization is more vulnerable than ever to the wild Earth, a wild Solar System, and a wild Universe!
WILD SEX-DEMOGRAPHICS-CULTURE: Cities and Urbanization, the “Great Demographic Reversal,” Religions…Science…Culture
We’re just beginning of learn how sex, or population flows, drive human culture? Did you know that over one million people every week are moving into cities – it’s the greatest demographic shift in human history. And when we move to cities we don’t need, or want, as many kids. This is the “great demographic reversal” and it is completely reshaping 21st century civilizations and ecologies.
Or you might also be shocked to learn how all of humanity – all 195 countries, 7,000 indigenous peoples and languages, ten thousand cities, all of us, came from the genomes of just a few thousand survivors of a “demographic bottleneck” that struck about 50,000 years ago. So all 8 billion of us from just a few thousand – that’s a lot of sex for 50,000 years!
None of this can really be understood, though, without diving into why we don’t get along, why we fight viciously and ferociously over land or money, or, even worse, over “Gods” or “truths.” Why can’t we get along? And what can we do about it, or not?
It boils down to what we can call “human culture.” On the one hand, it’s about our more or less unconstrained powers to create and make stuff, to innovate magical but also horrific tools and devices, so it’s about “Science and Technology.” But maybe even more it’s about the human instinct to “believe,” in gods, religions, ideas, or ideologies.
Human culture is about magnificent art, music, love and care for ourselves and our planet. But in the same moment, we can hate and destroy things, people, the planet. We’re wild and maybe we need to figure it out, or not!
Sex, demographics and culture are wild!
WILD TECH…a new order of Evolution…
Our Wild Technology YouTube tracks how we humans survive because we adjust, we adapt, we even change nature. We innovate. We’ll consider how humans represent a new order of evolution.
Technology, though, when you think about it, moves wildly ahead of our ability to manage its impact on our lives or the planet. And tech’s impact is accelerating. Listen to the American Nobel economist, Robert William Fogel: “…it took four thousand years to go from the invention of the plow to figuring out how to hitch a plow up to a horse… just 65 years to go from the first flight in a heavier-than-air machine to landing a man on the moon…” Kling and Schultz
Technology, it seems, is a double-edged sword. Consider atomic energy…then consider atomic weapons. Unleashing the atom’s power says everything about the wild promise and yet the wild horror of human technology racing ahead of human culture. We’re still struggling to live with the atom.
It’s the wildest tech and our wildest challenge.
WILD GLOBAL ECONOMY…Wild Labor…The Stealth Economy…Wild Finance…the Great Financial Crisis…
Hang on for our Wild Economy YouTube.
Learn how global labor is wild – robots, digitization, but even wilder, workers competing head’s up around the globe. Millions of jobs created…and destroyed…every year, as the human community globalizes, but are we now “de-“ or “re-globalizing?” Get a glimpse of half the world working in the “stealth” or “shadow” economy – 1.8 billion folks. A stealth economy that likely dug up the cobalt in our smartphone’s batteries by “workers laboring in slave-like conditions in open-pit mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo.” Terry Gross
So, would you have gotten a smartphone if you knew about these miners? But then, can you get along now without your smartphone?
We’ll also re-visit, and surprise you with our take on the 2008-2009 Great Financial Crisis, another “global quantum entanglement” that changed the economic order. Wild banking, wild lending, wild governance, and wild consumers exposed what is really just our everyday economy – and it’s even wilder today!
The Wild Economy rivers are really wild!
WILD GOVERNANCE…Democracy…Totalitarianism…Big Data…and Wild Debt…
By the time you get to Our Wild Governance YouTube may not be surprised to learn how all of the stuff above – the 21st century’s cities, environment, its wild technologies, wild money and markets, or the new fights over lands and gods, are moving way ahead of human governance. We’ll see how our head-strong governments are getting pushed out of the public square by the global mega-tech companies that manage culture with algorithms!
Wild Governance considers how both “democracies” – like the U.S., Europe, Japan or India – but then also “totalitarian” governments – so China, Russia, or Iran and North Korea – have been driven by their own wild ambitions, but also by demanding citizens, all 8 billion of us. And now they’re all now massively “BIG!” – and governing over bewildered, overtaxed, often over-regulated and now big-tech monitored citizens in the street.
Finally, as all national governances try to keep up with globalization, demographic reversals, and their own inane errancies, they are ridiculously entangled in quantum debt. The U.S. Government owes $33 trillion, and counting – and that’s before the $50-100 trillion in unpaid bills for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. The U.S. Debt Clock Debt is a global crisis – China, Japan, and Europe are also buried. And with Baby Boomers retiring around the globe, how will governments keep all their promises?
The Wild Governance rivers are flowing in all of globalization’s quantum entanglements.
WILD WEALTH…Tracking…Bushwhacking Your Wealth in the 21st Century…
So what do you do with your wealth, or your future wealth, in this wild civilization? Our Wild Wealth talk will try to bushwhack the concrete and steel canyons, but also the emerging digital flows that move in micro-seconds with A.I. in the driver’s seat, or not!
We’ll consider how 21st century wealth might be more about protecting what you’ve earned and got in hand than about building more.
And then, once you’ve got it, what do you do with it? Do you want to get it, or some of it, to your kids or grandkids? Or maybe you want to get it out to others, to humanity, or to protect the Earth.
21st century wealth is wild…it’s about tracking known trails but, at propitious moments, it might also be about “bushwhacking” new, uncharted trails.
SUMMARY
So, to gather it all in, Wild Globalization tries to track and bushwhack what we’re calling this global quantum entanglement.
So, to gather it all in, Wild Globalization tries to track and bushwhack what we’re calling this global quantum entanglement.
We’re observing how human intelligence and conscience are more or less free and unconstrained. That freedom makes the human experience uneasy with itself. Our freedom is wrapped in the entanglement’s anxiety and angst, and that angst moves and changes at the pace of modern life. And yet the 21st century’s prosperity continues to emerge, to surprise. It’s precarious, fragile, but powerful and profound. Maybe in spite of itself.
So we’re really asking: “If the entanglement is racing ahead of our practical strategies and our ethical responses, how does that change the way we think about it or try to make it work? How can we live with it? How can governances, and really every citizen on the street, adjust our game plans? How can we be more pragmatic or practical? If we come up with possible solutions, can we keep the ones that work and move on from the ones that don’t? Can we fall in love with the problem and work from there? “What’s our game?”
So if we’ve peaked your interest, or your angst, listen on! You can also go to www.substack.wildglobalization.com for transcripts, or our web site, www.wildglobalization.com.
That’s it for now…take care – it’s wild out there!