Step back from things.

Way back. Climb up above.

Like gazing out the window of an airplane, see the entire landscape below.

Not what is happening at work. Not the latest story about some celebrity. Not the latest political food fight.

What this post is about are the THREE BIG TRENDS that I see affecting everything.

Those three large scale phenomena are as follows:

1. globalization

2. increasing complexity

3. information overload

These things are re-shaping the world we live in. They have been pointed out before. In one way, shape or form these things have been described and written about previously. Nonetheless, they are turning our lives upside down and inside out.

Globalization is fairly obvious. Examples abound. We can now communicate with people virtually anywhere, anytime, in a manner we couldn’t have dreamed of just a few years back.

The internet functions as a kind of world-wide telephone, only better. Information exchange now occurs on a huge scale. People who would have never connected just a few years ago now can. This makes for a much more complex and interconnected network. More people, more contact opportunities, more idea exchanges, all contributing to an information base that heretofore could not have been possible.

The most significant trend on the globalization front is the interconnection of economies. This is the development that I believe will push the most change. As markets become more intertwined, look for the very concept of the nation-state to begin eroding. Nationalism and patriotism notwithstanding, shared economies are the ‘trump card.’ My prediction is that within 100 years this will change the whole notion of ‘my country.’ Like it or not (and just the thought of this probably sends some folks into apoplectic rage) I believe it is inevitable.

I was listening to a Nobel prize-winning astro-physicist on public radio a few months back- I can’t remember his name, but if anyone reading this blog knows it, please share- and his views on this topic were fascinating. He described a kind of typology of planets, and he said earth was at something like a level 2, but we were soon to reach a level 3. In his address, which I only heard part of, he said that the internet, speaking english as a world language, and a global economy were key factors that would take us to the next level. The interconnection that these things would bring would contribute to a kind of elevated world intelligence. This would in turn allow us to make continuing scientific and technological leaps, such as proving string theory, (sometimes referred to as the unified theory, bringing together the previous gaps between the subatomic and atomic physical laws) and making new time and space discoveries that could perhaps allow time travel.

Needless to say, the guy was pretty interesting. And since he was a nobel-prize winner, I assumed he wasn’t some crackpot. He went on to say that he had been asked what era or time period he would most like to live in, and he said his response was right now, since he believes we are right at the cusp of some of the most fantastic discoveries in history.

He also said one thing threatening this advance was global terrorism.

Increasing complexity is next on the hit parade.

The progeny of all the new connections that are now possible is increased and increasing complexity. I believe we are experiencing right now a manifestation of that complexity in the financial markets. It is such a vast, interconnected and complex dynamic that no one really understands what is going on or what can happen or how to best remedy the situation.

I think a real danger with respect to increasing complexity is the opportunity for bad guys to take advantage of situations. In the political realm, I think this allows people to win arguments, elections, and exert influence by gaming the system. You don’t have to use facts honestly- you manipulate. You don’t have to have integrity- you take advantage when you can to maneuver things and situations that benefit your cause. Because things generally move so fast, change so often, and with unrelenting pace- the average joe checks out. We collectively shell-out, or give up trying to sort out, uncover, discover. Finding out the real story, the ‘truth,’ is left to a few people. That is often the media, and they seem to be more interested in “balanced coverage”- kind of splitting things down the middle- than in real journalism. That kind of “60 Minutes” scouring of people/events to reveal who is playing fast and loose with the truth is apparently too expensive or too uncomfortable for media conglomerates that have big advertisers and owners with vested interests.

In the competition between competing values, I believe economic considerations consistently defeat openness and transparency.

This leads to information overload. Increasing complexity, increasing population, increasing connections, improved technologies and more are creating a tsunami of information that is a kind of data frankenstein. And it is scary. And, I believe, a phenomenon that has far-reaching repercussions we are only tangentially aware of.

I suspect that this condition is changing us as a species. We are morphing- and I hope I am wrong about this- into a people that is somehow less sensitive, delicate and concerned with justice to something more coarse and tough and centered on power. It’s as if we are moving toward a Mad Max or Lord of the Flies world.

These changes happen slowly over time, but inexorably and unmistakably.