Forerunner looks at the future: “We see the seamless blending of two worlds bearing out in multiple capacities. Digital is merging social and professional life together, too. Today’s consumers are no longer just consumers; they are businesses–creating, curating, and coaching their way to financial independence online. In this shift lies an economic empowerment opportunity: Users are willing to pay for access, service, and expertise, and the emergence of Web3 is set to enable more value exchange and efficient payment, only increasing the potential for consumers to monetize…We’re also seeing new paradigms in purchasing. We’re just starting to see the rise of digital goods, with ownership and economic interests aligned with the creator–look for more of this in the years ahead. The consumer has been activated, both socially and economically, and is embracing their power; there is information about all kinds of products at scale, and people will be increasingly willing to “vote their conscience” through their spending decisions. The 2032 consumer will spend an increased share on services, and though they still want to buy, they’ll do so with a stronger interest in recycling, upcycling, and limiting waste.”
Arjun Subramaniam: “An icon who is studied in detail at war colleges across the world is Thucydides, a Greek general and historian from the 5th century BC, who superbly chronicled the Peloponnesian Wars between Athens and Sparta. This set of wars threw up several lessons for posterity in laying out a template for the geopolitical and behavioural drivers of conflict between an established power and a rising power. On another plane, the fine print of Thucydides’s narrative rests on the trinity of fear, honour and interest — a framework that fits most of the ongoing conflicts and less-than-war scenarios that seem to be playing out in contemporary times even if they do not conform to his classical rising power vs established power paradigm.”
Francis Fukuyama: “Liberalism is a doctrine, first enunciated in the 17th century, that seeks to control violence by lowering the sights of politics. It recognises that people will not agree on the most important things — such as which religion to follow — but that they need to tolerate fellow citizens with views different from their own. It does this by respecting the equal rights and dignity of individuals, through a rule of law and constitutional government that checks and balances the powers of modern states. Among those rights are the rights to own property and to transact freely, which is why classical liberalism was strongly associated with high levels of economic growth and prosperity in the modern world. In addition, classical liberalism was typically associated with modern natural science, and the view that science could help us to understand and manipulate the external world to our own benefit. Many of those foundations are now under attack.”
