subj
Seems pop culture-ish and anglo centric but kind of interesting (I can't judge or counter though)
why is everything falling apart?"
"
The answer may sound dramatic, but it’s true:
It's not falling apart. It's being torn down.
I get it, though… It feels chaotic.
Financial markets are collapsing , supply chains keep breaking, basically no one trusts anybody anymore.
But this isn't some random crisis. We're in what historians call a "4th Turning" – and we're only about halfway to three quarters of the way through the storm.
Here's how this works:
Every 80-90 years, society resets. The old guard gets swept out and new systems get built.
➡️ 1940s: Depression + World War II
➡️ 1860s: Civil War
➡️ 1780s: Revolutionary War
We entered the "Crisis" phase around 2008. Which means we won't exit until roughly 2030.
Which means, we have another 6-7 years of this intensity ahead of us.
But here's what keeps me up at night:
Most people are preparing for the wrong thing.
They're trying to preserve a system that's already dead: Buying gold, building walls, stockpiling astronaut food and bottled water.
But that’s not preparation, it’s living in denial with what’s really going on.
The clients I work with aren’t trying to save the old world…
They're building the new one.
(BTW, this is why we called our company 5th World, we want to be part of building this new world)
And asking the right questions:
"How do we design systems that get stronger during chaos?"
"What infrastructure will the next economy actually need?"
"Where are the opportunities hiding in this breakdown?"
They understand something crucial:
Every 4th Turning creates massive wealth transfer: From those clinging to the old systems to those building the new ones.
It’s not a matter of whether or not a massive change is coming, we are already in it.
The question is: Are you positioning yourself as part of the solution being built, or still trying to preserve what's being swept away?
Because the people who figure this out first? They don't just survive the transition.
They own it.
P.S. For a deeper dive into this, take a look at the graphic below and read The Fourth Turning by Strauss–Howe. Their book is shockingly accurate!
"
The answer may sound dramatic, but it’s true:
It's not falling apart. It's being torn down.
I get it, though… It feels chaotic.
Financial markets are collapsing , supply chains keep breaking, basically no one trusts anybody anymore.
But this isn't some random crisis. We're in what historians call a "4th Turning" – and we're only about halfway to three quarters of the way through the storm.
Here's how this works:
Every 80-90 years, society resets. The old guard gets swept out and new systems get built.
➡️ 1940s: Depression + World War II
➡️ 1860s: Civil War
➡️ 1780s: Revolutionary War
We entered the "Crisis" phase around 2008. Which means we won't exit until roughly 2030.
Which means, we have another 6-7 years of this intensity ahead of us.
But here's what keeps me up at night:
Most people are preparing for the wrong thing.
They're trying to preserve a system that's already dead: Buying gold, building walls, stockpiling astronaut food and bottled water.
But that’s not preparation, it’s living in denial with what’s really going on.
The clients I work with aren’t trying to save the old world…
They're building the new one.
(BTW, this is why we called our company 5th World, we want to be part of building this new world)
And asking the right questions:
"How do we design systems that get stronger during chaos?"
"What infrastructure will the next economy actually need?"
"Where are the opportunities hiding in this breakdown?"
They understand something crucial:
Every 4th Turning creates massive wealth transfer: From those clinging to the old systems to those building the new ones.
It’s not a matter of whether or not a massive change is coming, we are already in it.
The question is: Are you positioning yourself as part of the solution being built, or still trying to preserve what's being swept away?
Because the people who figure this out first? They don't just survive the transition.
They own it.
P.S. For a deeper dive into this, take a look at the graphic below and read The Fourth Turning by Strauss–Howe. Their book is shockingly accurate!
subj
Epic chilling lines
Inez Aponte (https://www.linkedin.com/in/inezaponte/) wrote this, not me.
The Machine Stops is a short story written by EM Forster in 1909.
It depicts a future society in which the Earth’s surface is no longer habitable, forcing people to live underground in separate pods. Real-life experiences have been replaced by mere imitations via the Machine, a complex technological system that can producing anything - air, food, water, music, literature - but each is only an artificial or simulated version of the real thing.
It seems strikingly prophetic, as we move towards an increasingly disembodied existence, where our lives are automated and tech-assisted at every turn.
"The room, though it contained nothing, was in touch with all that she cared for in the world."
Are we going to stop the machine before it stops us?
Some quotes below, but I recommend reading it in full.
It will chill you to the bone.
"Then she generated the light, and the sight of her room, flooded with radiance and studded with electric buttons, revived her. There were buttons and switches everywhere – buttons to call for food for music, for clothing. There was the hot-bath button, by pressure of which a basin of (imitation) marble rose out of the floor, filled to the brim with a warm deodorized liquid. There was the cold-bath button. There was the button that produced literature. And there were of course the buttons by which she communicated with her friends. The room, though it contained nothing, was in touch with all that she cared for in the world."
"And so with the mouldy artificial fruit, so with the bath water that began to stink, so with the defective rhymes that the poetry machine had taken to emit. All were bitterly complained of at first, and then acquiesced in and forgotten.:
"Cannot you see, cannot all you lecturers see, that it is we that are dying, and that down here the only thing that really lives is the Machine? We created the Machine, to do our will, but we cannot make it do our will now. It has robbed us of the sense of space and of the sense of touch, it has blurred every human relation and narrowed down love to a carnal act, it has paralysed our bodies and our wills, and now it compels us to worship it."
"By these days it was a demerit to be muscular. Each infant was examined at birth, and all who promised undue strength were destroyed. Humanitarians may protest, but it would have been no true kindness to let an athlete live; he would never have been happy in that state of life to which the Machine had called him; he would have yearned for trees to climb, rivers to bathe in, meadows and hills against which he might measure his body. Man must be adapted to his surroundings, must he not?"
The Machine Stops is a short story written by EM Forster in 1909.
It depicts a future society in which the Earth’s surface is no longer habitable, forcing people to live underground in separate pods. Real-life experiences have been replaced by mere imitations via the Machine, a complex technological system that can producing anything - air, food, water, music, literature - but each is only an artificial or simulated version of the real thing.
It seems strikingly prophetic, as we move towards an increasingly disembodied existence, where our lives are automated and tech-assisted at every turn.
"The room, though it contained nothing, was in touch with all that she cared for in the world."
Are we going to stop the machine before it stops us?
Some quotes below, but I recommend reading it in full.
It will chill you to the bone.
"Then she generated the light, and the sight of her room, flooded with radiance and studded with electric buttons, revived her. There were buttons and switches everywhere – buttons to call for food for music, for clothing. There was the hot-bath button, by pressure of which a basin of (imitation) marble rose out of the floor, filled to the brim with a warm deodorized liquid. There was the cold-bath button. There was the button that produced literature. And there were of course the buttons by which she communicated with her friends. The room, though it contained nothing, was in touch with all that she cared for in the world."
"And so with the mouldy artificial fruit, so with the bath water that began to stink, so with the defective rhymes that the poetry machine had taken to emit. All were bitterly complained of at first, and then acquiesced in and forgotten.:
"Cannot you see, cannot all you lecturers see, that it is we that are dying, and that down here the only thing that really lives is the Machine? We created the Machine, to do our will, but we cannot make it do our will now. It has robbed us of the sense of space and of the sense of touch, it has blurred every human relation and narrowed down love to a carnal act, it has paralysed our bodies and our wills, and now it compels us to worship it."
"By these days it was a demerit to be muscular. Each infant was examined at birth, and all who promised undue strength were destroyed. Humanitarians may protest, but it would have been no true kindness to let an athlete live; he would never have been happy in that state of life to which the Machine had called him; he would have yearned for trees to climb, rivers to bathe in, meadows and hills against which he might measure his body. Man must be adapted to his surroundings, must he not?"
express, not stress