How Severe are the Megathreats in Our World?
Do you think our world is inhabitable in the future? Do you ever wonder what the world would be like in years to come? Our world is currently facing a large number of problems, ranging from global health crises to political conflicts and technological advancements. The recent COVID-19 pandemic has brought the world to a standstill, claiming millions of lives and devastating economies worldwide. The ongoing Russian-Ukraine war is another major concern, causing political tensions and leading to countless civilian casualties. Additionally, the growing threat of artificial intelligence is a looming concern, with experts warning about the potential risks of AI surpassing human control. These problems are not only relevant to our world but also have far-reaching consequences that affect every aspect of our lives.
These events are considered “megathreats” by the economics professor from NYU Stern School of Business, Nouriel Roubini, as “severe problems that could cause vast damage and misery and cannot be solved quickly or easily” (Roubini). In his book Megathreats: Ten Dangerous Trends That Imperil Our Future, and How to Survive Them, he talks about catastrophic events in our world, which he even compares them to “asteroids” and “cancer”, from a variety of fields such as health, warfare, and technology (Roubini). The author argues that those events might pose a significant risk to humanity’s future, but they could still be mitigated with the actions of the government or people. The author is mostly correct about most of the looming megathreats he names, but the megathreat about nuclear war is actually overstated.
Considering the current global problems, or megathreats, we have right now, Roubini separates our future into two possible scenarios: a dystopian future or a utopian (“less dystopian”) future. By saying that the possible utopian future is just a less dystopian version, Roubini shows how bleak our future could be, while including a slight hint of humor and mockery that a utopian future is ultimately unachievable, given our current circumstances. This also shows how much the megathreats can impact us, as how we choose to deal with it or not, could result in our planet being uninhabitable in the future. I agree with Roubini that our future is leaning more towards a dystopia. He says, “Over the next couple of decades, [the megathreats] will lead to a titanic collision of economic, financial, technological, environmental, geopolitical, medical, and social forces… If they converge, the consequences will be devastating” (Roubini). This does not mean the end of the world, but Roubini suggests that it would require a “quantum adjustment for everyone on earth” to solve them (Roubini). Roubini is correct as we have overcome a lot of challenges in history. For example, the cases of the once dreaded, lethal disease polio was significantly reduced and eventually eradicated from most parts of the world after developments of different types of vaccines starting from the 1950s. In addition, the successful moon landing by the Apollo 11 mission in 1969 resulted from a combination of growing scientific knowledge, advancing technological innovation, and human’s capability and desire to explore the world outside of the earth. These events would have seemed impossible to those living centuries ago, but it was partly because the people living at those times believed that they were able to overcome the challenges and were willing to solve them, that contributed to their successes. If we believe we have the capability to mitigate the megathreats and are willing to act on them, we could possibly achieve similar results.
What Roubini thinks is holding people back from tackling the megathreats is that, “Because megathreats progress in slow motion, solutions do not feel urgent… Megathreats attract attention without acrobatics — yet little has been learned and less has been done to avert their consequences” (Roubini). Indeed, we need better long-term planning since these problems are gradually becoming more severe and harder to mitigate. We have mostly only been dealing with problems in the short run, such as current unemployment, inflation, or supply chain disruptions. Roubini concludes with a sense of urgency and prompting the readers to take action:
We have run out of excuses. To delay is to surrender. The snooze button invites catastrophe. Megathreats are careening toward us. Their impact will shake our lives and upend the global order in ways no one today has ever experienced. Fasten your seatbelt. It’s going to be a bumpy ride through a very dark night. (Roubini)
The use of metaphors such as “megathreats” careening towards us and the “snooze button” inviting catastrophe create a sense of impending doom and urgency. Moreover, it makes me feel like I need to take immediate action to help avoid the catastrophe. The final sentence, “Fasten your seatbelt. It’s going to be a bumpy ride through a very dark night”, adds a sense of foreboding and reinforces the idea that the road ahead will not be easy.
The hardest challenge ahead is the megathreat of climate change, and how we have been overlooking this problem. Roubini predicts that in the worst case scenario, our planet will become uninhabitable, and that “Those who see no megathreat in climate change today will wonder why we did nothing when we had the chance to act” (Roubini). He then proceeds to answer the rhetorical question by saying, “The answers will be the same as always. We listened to the wrong people. The deniers exploited marginal uncertainties in the scientific community. We ignored grim facts. We didn’t believe our eyes. And, most ironic, we didn’t have the resources to act. It cost too much” (Roubini). With these sentences, Roubini reveals the ugly truth many people have been ignoring. The problem of climate change is significant, with many promises made to address it, but little has been done in reality. It is true that people focus more on problems in the short run rather than those in the long run. According to the article “How brain biases prevent climate action” from BBC, “Humans are very bad at understanding statistical trends and long-term changes… We have evolved to pay attention to immediate threats. We overestimate threats that are less likely but easier to remember, like terrorism, and underestimate more complex threats, like climate change” (King). Due to the inherent biases in human thinking, we are hindering ourselves from taking effective action on climate change, even if most people are aware of the megathreat. In addition to that, we are not learning from past mistakes with environmental projects. According to Dr. David Shiffman who studied environmental science and policy, environmental projects “often fail,” and “those failures are seldom covered in the literature. Out of more than 4,000 studies examined… , only 59 — less than 1.5 percent — contained any amount of detail about why a project failed” (Shiffman). This is concerning because “without a record of failed… actions, we’re hampered in our understanding… We may be making the same mistakes or investing in the same failed… initiatives again and again,” as stated by Shiffman (Shiffman). These have all contributed to our failure in engaging in long term environmental planning, as we keep pushing the problem back and not learning from past failures.
Aside from the environmental issues that ultimately determine if our planet would still be in a livable condition in the future, the megathreat regarding our economy is just as important. It determines if we can sustain ourselves in the future. Roubini believes our economy is heading towards stagflation, with the clogging of global supply chains and increasing inflation, resulting from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the zero COVID policy in China, and the years of loose monetary policy in the United States. These are causing a deceleration in growth in many regions of the world, which is similar to what the article “Stagflation Risk Rises Amid Sharp Slowdown in Growth” from The World Bank suggests, that stagflation can be caused by supply chain disruptions, energy price shocks, geopolitical tensions, and protectionist policies (“Stagflation Risk”). The World Bank estimates that real GDP would decrease approximately 0.2% in 2023 compared to a year before, and would stay at 3.0% until 2024 (“Stagflation Risk”). While it is hard for people to feel when GDP growth is slowing down, as sometimes we do not feel an immediate connection to numbers or statistics, we are able to feel how high the prices and how bad the job market have become. As an international student, the slowdown of the job market this year felt even more pronounced. Many of my friends and I myself have found it extremely difficult to receive internship offers for this summer, as the unemployment and company layoff rates rise.
Roubini goes on to suggest potential stagflationary, negative supply shocks that could each act as a megathreat and affect one another: rapid aging of populations, restrictions on migration, deglobalization, reshoring of manufacturing, competition between the US and China, geopolitical shocks, climate change, pandemics, backlash against income and wealth inequality, and cyberattacks (Roubini). His points show a high degree of interconnectedness in the issues affecting the world today. These economic, social, and geopolitical factors interact in complex and unexpected ways, which leads to increasing stagflationary pressures. Also, the challenges faced by one country or region can have ripple effects on others, and global solutions may be necessary to address these problems effectively. The points highlight the need for policies to take into account the interconnectedness of these issues and to address them comprehensively.
While Roubini talks about the megathreat of Stagflation well, he also does for the megathreat about artificial intelligence, though some of his claims could be stronger if he includes more evidence. He states that the advancement of AI has the ability to cause disturbance in the economy and society, potentially resulting in unemployment and social inequity. While he claims that AI would take over people’s jobs in the future, he could be wrong as we have learned from our history that technological progress could lead to replacement of jobs, but could also lead to new types of jobs that are created due to the new technologies. According to Roubini himself, “Ever since the Luddite movement in nineteenth-century Britain, workers have feared displacement by machines. But two centuries of technological progress has not wiped out all jobs. It has led to new types of jobs” (Roubini). Because AI can replace jobs that require repetitive tasks, our economy can become more efficient when people focus more and move on to jobs that require research, innovation, development, and human skills. In addition, a massive scale of unemployment is unlikely to happen because AI cannot completely replace jobs, as machines and humans are just fundamentally so different.
Although AI could be beneficial to our economy, Roubini could also be correct in saying that AI could be disruptive to our society. According to the New York Times article “You Can Have the Blue Pill or the Red Pill, and We’re Out of Blue Pills” written by historian Yuval Harari and his colleagues, social media has already had detrimental effects on society, such as increasing polarization and harming mental health, and AI’s interference with social media could further exacerbate the negative effects of it, destroying our society by corrupting contents online and brainwashing social media viewers (Harari). Even though AI could do a variety of tasks that enables our economy to become more efficient, Roubini is correct about AI becoming too powerful if not enough is done to tame it. As stated in the article by Harari, “The time to reckon with A.I. is before our politics, our economy and our daily life become dependent on it. Democracy is a conversation, conversation relies on language, and when language itself is hacked, the conversation breaks down, and democracy becomes untenable. If we wait for the chaos to ensue, it will be too late to remedy it” (Harari). This supports that AI could be so powerful as to change our government system, possibly from democracy or any forms, to dictatorship by AI, as AI has the ability to change what humans see online, and possibly how humans perceive and how they act.
Even though most of the megathreats Roubini explains in his book are convincing, the megathreat about nuclear warfare sounds overstated. Roubini believes that a nuclear war is likely to happen in the future due to the the geopolitical instability and tensions around the world, including Russia’s attempt to restore its former empire, North Korea’s pursuit of nuclear weapons and cyberwarfare, and the potential for nuclear conflict between Israel and Iran (Roubini). Then, Roubini narrows the causes down to the war between Russia and Ukraine:
In 2022, the war in Ukraine led to risk of its escalation to the Baltics and Central Europe and even a military and nuclear confrontation between Russia and NATO. The specter of nuclear wars — that seemed faded once the Soviet Union collapsed — returned as the war in Ukraine escalated. (Roubini)
However, nuclear war is unlikely to happen because of the international agreements today and the principle of deterrence. The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons was adopted by the United Nations in 2017, with the goal of eliminating the spread and use of nuclear weapons. As of 2023, 92 states have signed the treaty and 68 states have ratified it (“Treaty”). While there are still states in the UN that did not ratify the treaty, the principle of deterrence decreases the likelihood of countries using nuclear weapons, as they would fear a retaliation or mutual destruction as a result which could lead to both countries suffering devastating consequences. This has happened in history, as the United States and the Soviet Union almost engaged in nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, but ultimately avoided it due to the fear of mutual destruction. According to the nuclear security expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, J. Andrés Gannon, for the current war between Russia and Ukraine, if Russia were to use “strategic nuclear weapon against Ukrainian civilian targets or Ukraine’s neighboring international partners,” Western states would certainly respond by retaliating (Gannon). With this principle of deterrence, the war between Russia and Ukraine would unlikely lead to a nuclear one.
Furthermore, Russia would be unlikely to use nuclear weapons, because its relationship with its supporting countries could be at risk. As stated by Masha Gessen from The New Yorker:
The more the Kremlin has signalled its readiness to drop a nuclear bomb, the more the rest of the world has sought a reason to believe that it will not. Earlier this month, the U.K.’s defense secretary, Ben Wallace, reassured the audience at a Conservative Party conference that, although Putin’s actions could be “totally irrational,” he wouldn’t use nuclear weapons because he couldn’t risk losing the support of China and India — both of which, Wallace asserted, had put Putin on notice. (Gessen)
Not only is it possible that China and India could turn against Russia, but any countries in the rest of the world also could. If the war were to happen, countries would form alliances and possibly lead to deglobalization which would be detrimental to countries’ trade and even survival, as numerous countries rely on imported goods to sustain their population. No countries would win in a nuclear war, because it wreaks a devastating effect on every country participating or affected by the war. Because of this, Russia might want to keep its relationship with the rest of the world and not utilize nuclear weapons.
Roubini’s book provides a comprehensive analysis of the major challenges humanity are already or could be facing in the coming years. His ideas about climate change, the global economy, and technological disruption are particularly insightful. While most of his ideas regarding the megathreats sound correct and alarming, his assessment of the likelihood of a nuclear war happening seems to be overly pessimistic. Nevertheless, his book serves as a significant reminder of the threats that exist in our world and calls for a collective change to save it.
Works Cited
Gannon, J. Andrés. “If Russia Goes Nuclear: Three Scenarios for the Ukraine War.” Council on Foreign Relations, Council on Foreign Relations, 9 Nov. 2022, https://www.cfr.org/article/if-russia-goes-nuclear-three-scenarios-ukraine-war.
Gessen, Masha. “Why Vladimir Putin Would Use Nuclear Weapons in Ukraine.” The New Yorker, 1 Nov. 2022, https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/why-vladimir-putin-would-use-nuclear-weapons-in-ukraine.
Harari, Yuval, et al. “You Can Have the Blue Pill or the Red Pill, and We’Re Out of Blue Pills.” The New York Times, 24 Mar. 2023, www.nytimes.com/2023/03/24/opinion/yuval-harari-ai-chatgpt.html.
King, Matthew Wilburn. “How brain biases prevent climate action.” BBC, 7 March 2019, https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190304-human-evolution-means-we-can-tackle-climate-change
Roubini, Nouriel. Megathreats: Ten Dangerous Trends That Imperil Our Future, and How to Survive Them. Little, Brown and Company, 2022.
Shiffman, David. “We Need to Talk about Environmental Projects That Fail.” The Revelator, 25 Nov. 2019, https://therevelator.org/conservation-failure/.
“Stagflation Risk Rises Amid Sharp Slowdown in Growth.” The World Bank, 7 Jun. 2022, www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2022/06/07/stagflation-risk-rises-amid-sharp-slowdown-in-growth-energy-markets.
“Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.” United Nations, treaties.unoda.org/t/tpnw.
