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The Digital Age is Fueling the Polycrisis and Global Catastrophe
How technology is outpacing our ability to respond to crises
We’ve seen crises before. History is littered with civilizations that collapsed under the weight of their own excesses and blind spots.
Environmental disasters toppled entire empires. Just look at the Maya civilization, which crumbled under the pressures of overpopulation and resource depletion.
Public health catastrophes have rewritten the map more than once — The Black Death wiped out a third of Europe’s population, altering the course of history in the span of just a few years.
Economic implosions dismantled once-unshakable empires, from the Dutch to the British, and now, the American empire stands on the precipice, teetering as the weight of inequality and debt threatens to buckle its knees.
Napoleonic France? Overextended, exhausted, doomed.
But those crises were different.
They were slow.
They were localized.
They were limited by geography and technology. Information moved at a snail’s pace, carried by messengers on horseback or sailing ships, whispered along the silk roads or scrawled on parchment. By the time news of disaster…
