Humanity not only has hope for a better future, but simply needs this better future. Otherwise, there won’t be any future at all, writes Valdai Club Chairman Andrey Bystritskiy.
The year 2025 began and ended on the same sober note: a persistent, if fragile, hope for a better future. While good things are indeed happening, they are neither numerous enough nor swift enough for our wishes. Thus, we are left with grounds for only the most cautious optimism – a fitting sentiment, after all, for a New Year’s reflection.
In his novel Cat’s Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut distilled this very tension. He describes “The Fourteenth Book,” entitled What can a Thoughtful Man Hope for Mankind on Earth, Given the Experience of the Past Million Years? The book, he notes, is brief. “It consists of one word and a period. This is it: ‘Nothing.’”
To be fair, it should be noted that more than sixty years have passed since the novel’s publication, but humanity is alive and continues to dream of a more or less acceptable future. Perhaps not a brilliantly bright one, but certainly not a hopelessly gloomy one. In short, one can “feel hopeful.” But how will things turn out? God only knows.
What we see in today’s world is clearly developing in contradictory ways and is fraught with various challenges, often very dangerous ones.
One of the most striking contradictions is the contrast between the fantastic technologies that people are mastering with astonishing speed and the ongoing, even brutal, conflicts that are sometimes escalating. And in this contradiction lies a great danger. Edward Wilson once observed that we live in a world with the technologies of the gods, medieval institutions, and people with a Paleolithic consciousness.
New biological technologies may help radically extend the quality of a good life, but what social consequences this will lead to is unknown. No one can predict how people will react to such changes, especially if they clearly expose human inequality, social injustice, or other forms of discrimination. The story of the Covid-19 vaccines clearly demonstrated all the problems of distributing vital medications and has clearly taught the elites of non-Western countries a lot.
The development of digital technologies, according to many, calls into question the stability of future societies and could radically impact virtually all civilisational processes. Artificial Intelligence is already being used by humans, often by evil and dangerous individuals, perhaps driven by the vilest of intentions. For example, it can be accessed by scammers, fraudsters, terrorists, and the like. But criminal intent isn’t the only issue. The problem is that AI is increasingly being used in interactions between humans and various social institutions, and misconfigured algorithms can easily put an innocent person in dire straits: blocking their accounts, revoking their passport, imposing exorbitant taxes, and much more.
Furthermore, AI can solve problems that are simply beyond the capabilities of humans, but humans can no longer verify the quality of these decisions. For example, it can process massive amounts of data in a given field and produce essentially unverifiable results. Or create fake information that is virtually impossible to debunk, which could globally undermine all human communication. But the most important sticking point is still with the people themselves: AI itself is just a machine, and all intentions, good or bad, remain with humans. As we all know, they need to be closely monitored. The notorious Paleolithic consciousness is making its presence felt.
This is perhaps another very important, if not the most important, challenge. Many problems in the modern world – conflicts, military clashes, and the like – are the result of growing hostility and bitterness. This manifests itself, in many ways, in the combination of bias, hostility, distorted rumours, outright stupidity, and deep-rooted psychological issues – combined with modern communications technologies. This toxic intellectual cocktail constitutes the information diet of many elites, especially, alas, those in Western Europe. All this, given the conditions of the modern world, has a terrifying effect. As a result, of course, one can only hate the surrounding world, which for some reason thinks differently than the aforementioned elites.
Thus, observing the behaviour of Western European politicians, I noted that many of them seemed to live in a world of illusions, somewhat reminiscent of the worlds in George Lucas’s Star Wars. I once assumed that the trauma of 1938 and of collusion with Nazi Germany was forcing them to invent phantom situations and blinding them to reality. However, I now believe there’s something worse at work. It’s a Kafkaesque process in which absurdity, combined with bureaucracy and a neurotic desire to constantly get things done, leads to truly terrifying results.
In 2012, Christopher Clark published Sleepwalkers, a book about how Europe got into the First World War. It’s a fascinating study of how an incredible catastrophe, seemingly something no one wanted, was brought about: the rulers of much of Europe were actually relatives. I used to think that current Western European leaders also suffered from a kind of political myopia. But today, it seems to me, the process has gone too far, devolving into blind rage and a desire for political vendetta; a kind of aggressive claustrophobia. Although, I would be glad to be wrong.
Of course, the combination of bias and aggression is not unique to Western European politicians. Unfortunately, in many places, it leads to tragic consequences: in Asia, Africa, and, it seems, even in Latin America. Human nature, alas, is contradictory. When Kurt Vonnegut, whom I quoted above, writes about the futility of hoping for a brighter future, he is precisely saying that there is an opportunity to be better and believes that people have the chance to overcome enmity, hatred, and violence. Of course, this requires strength, sacrifice, and courage.
The majority of humanity, sometimes called the Global South, is coping quite well with many challenges. They are creating new institutions and trying, where possible, to avoid long-standing conflicts and, in general, to develop modes of political behaviour that don’t presuppose inevitable hegemony and pressure on dissenters, dissent, and so on. In other words, they want to construct the world in such a way that the volume of challenges and potential disputes is minimal from the outset, or even non-existent (this, of course, is unlikely).
But, alas, the peculiarity of the modern world is that it is globally interconnected. No matter how much one would like to isolate oneself from, for example, Western Europe’s desire to expand NATO, this is impossible. The interdependence in today’s world is such that most actions on Earth affect everyone in one way or another. Orbiting satellites, so essential for modern communications, can only be deployed if there’s international agreement. Countless ships transporting goods can only navigate safe waters. And most rivers, for example, flow through several countries, requiring careful management of their resources. In short, there’s too much to list. So, without the ability to negotiate, without regulatory bodies and rules, it’s impossible to live and develop in the modern world.
All of the above means that humanity not only has hope for a better future, but simply needs this better future. Otherwise, there won’t be any future at all.
Unfortunately, there are risks that the situation may worsen. I already mentioned Franz Kafka’s novel The Trial, the absurdity of which is quite reminiscent of what’s happening today, for example, in Western Europe. Well, this “trial” hasn’t stopped yet. And, alas, not only there. So, it’s a concern for all of humanity.
