Brave New World

The End of the Beginning or the Beginning of the End? 23/02/2018

Too much has happened in the space of time since my last post for a retrospective. There has been too much procrastination from me trying to account and analyse the cataclysmic events that have piled on top of each other in the last two years. I just need to get started again and provide a write a daily post on “the thing”- Brexit, Trump and the enormous and potentially terminal changes in world geopolitics and society.

As I write, Trump is addressing the CPAC convention in Washington- having suggested arming teachers in the aftermath of the Parkland school shooting. This comes in an atmosphere of utter poison in the US, with death threats being made on traumatised school students who dared to speak up for gun control. I have long believed that America has been heading for a civil war. Until now I thought this would largely be a “cold war”, largely fought on social media and segregation and sectarianism similar to Northern Ireland. I now realise that moment has been with us for a number of years and we could be about to enter an actual, violent civil war going forward, with a complete breakdown in government. Russia will be delighted- an astonished- by how successful its cyber campaign to teat America apart is going. There is much much more to write about this, but my prediction is that the US is now on an irretrievable path to destruction. And it breaks my heart.

Meanwhile in the UK, 20 months after the Brexit referendum, the Government has finally agreed its position on the relationship with the EU- to negotiate a free trade agreement similar to the EU-Canada deal, but then try to embellish it by securing better access to the single market for goods and services through close regulatory co-operation- in other words, have its cake and eat it. The UK is heading for disorderly No Deal Brexit and is providing strong competition with the US as country heading towards dystopia.

All of this ties in with the hugely disruptive, distorting and dangerous effects of social media and tech.

All in all it feels, in February 2018, to be a very dangerous time to be alive. I hope we make it- it seems like we’re going to need all the luck we can get.