{"id":66992,"date":"2024-03-16T06:53:02","date_gmt":"2024-03-16T11:53:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=66992"},"modified":"2024-03-16T06:53:02","modified_gmt":"2024-03-16T11:53:02","slug":"the-next-ten-years-and-the-fate-of-civilization-why-were-at-a-crossroads-in-history-plus-what-broken-ages-end-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=66992","title":{"rendered":"The Next Ten Years and the Fate of Civilization, Why We\u2019re at a Crossroads in History, Plus, What Broken Ages End In"},"content":{"rendered":"<header class=\"single-header gh-canvas\">\n<h3 class=\"single-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theissue.io\/untitled-26\/\">The Next Ten Years and the Fate of Civilization, Why We\u2019re at a Crossroads in History, Plus, What Broken Ages End In<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"single-content gh-content gh-canvas\">\n<hr \/>\n<p id=\"why-we%E2%80%99re-at-a-crossroads-in-history\"><strong>(Why) We\u2019re at a Crossroads in History<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s hard to believe, but we\u2019re almost halfway through the 2020s. It\u2019s the year 2024, and\u2026how would you say things are going? For us, whether as societies, the world, a civilization, human beings?<\/p>\n<p>I often say that we\u2019re at a turning point or crossroads in human history. I think that sometimes people imagine I mean this metaphorically. But I don\u2019t. I mean it literally. It\u2019s almost halfway through the 2020s, and we\u2019re at a turning point in human history,\u00a0<em>right now<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>This year, the next one, the rest of this decade. They\u2019ll determine the trajectory we\u2019re all on, collectively, for decades to come, and perhaps longer. Think of the next year, two, five, as a hinge, that\u2019ll determine whether history swings up\u2014or down.<\/p>\n<p>Today we\u2019re going to talk about just how\u2014and why\u2014a little bit.<\/p>\n<p>This year is a crucial one for democracy, if you haven\u2019t heard already. An unusually large number of elections are taking place. But it\u2019s hardly just that. In a very specific context, and not a sunny one. Democracy\u2019s barely hanging on by its fingernails, at just 20% of the world fully so, and dropping like a rock. Meanwhile, these elections are also, therefore, unusually crucial. Like America\u2019s choice in November, between Trump\u2019s overt authoritarianism, and Biden\u2019s nascent path towards, perhaps, modernizing a decrepit America. The EU will vote for its parliament, too, in June, and we\u2019ll see if its rightwards drift continues. And many more.<\/p>\n<p>What does all that mean, though? The central questions are: will history repeat itself? Will growing fissures of collapse become jagged cracks, fragmenting our civilization itself? Are we going to choose implosion or reinvention?<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Next Ten Years and the Fate of Civilization, Why We\u2019re at a Crossroads in History, Plus, What Broken Ages End In (Why) We\u2019re at a Crossroads in History It\u2019s hard to believe, but we\u2019re almost halfway through the 2020s. It\u2019s the year 2024, and\u2026how would you say things are going? For us, whether as [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,5,6],"tags":[150,204,253,281,16981,827,834],"class_list":["post-66992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","category-geopolitics","category-liberty","tag-collapse","tag-democracy","tag-elections","tag-europe","tag-umair-haque","tag-united-states","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=66992"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66992\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":66993,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66992\/revisions\/66993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=66992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=66992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=66992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}