Megatrends 2026 Explained: The 11 Forces Shaping our Futures
Full transcript
Andrew: Lex Fridman, eat your heart out. We are going for, actually, I think his longest was over eight hours. We do not have the memory to do a Lex Fridman here.
Sean: That's the thing. It's like, this is podcasting YOLO life right here. If we lose, if we go, I'm looking at the deck. I'm like, we've got plenty of room. But if we don't, we deserve to lose the episode if we cross four hours. I know, I know. Oh my gosh.
Andrew: This is not going to be four hours.
Sean: No. And by just saying that, we've cursed ourselves for it to be longer than intended.
Andrew: But, you know, I don't know, we'll see. We'll go. This is where we need the closing credits now because nobody else is actually going to get to them.
Sean: Well, we should totally be like, this is where we ask for you to rate, you know, subscribe to Modem Futura, join in the fun.
Andrew: Because that way... Subscribe, leave us a rating, whatever,
Sean: Yes. Do all the things, man. But also, I think this is also good. I want to make sure I give ourselves a plug. Yes. A nice little attaboy, if you will, for us. And also to a special thank you to Stephen Dupont and the folks over at the Association of Professional Futurists because Modem Futura, along with several other wonderful podcasts, were featured in as a sort of like a little special feature in Compass magazine, which just released. Yes. It's their August, September edition, 2026, entitled What Makes a City of the Future, which is filled with all kinds of really interesting pieces and some trends and all kinds of stuff. These sort of future magazines are really fun because they package all these different kind of things together. And there was a whole section dedicated to podcasts that futurists, in their words, should consider. I would have been a little stronger with that personally. Must, I think. Must consider, yes. I think must consider. You have to, I would just say must. Should have on that playlist. I would have just removed the word consider if you, you know. So if you're open for a revision, I would just remove the word consider and just say a podcast that futurists should listen to. But it was a really nice little spread of it. And also it's fun too to see it because again, when you see us amongst other podcasts, again, it's just, you know, a moment of pride to look back and like we're well over a hundred episodes now, cruising into that space and also gives us always an opportunity for reflection and going back and looking at the, just the depth of episodes and topics and all the kind of stuff that we've been covering.
Andrew: Yeah, no, I really good to see that. And actually, that reminds me, what was the date of our first episode? We must be almost there. I think we are like super,
Sean: Super close. I think it was like, it might've been October 1st, actually. That's what I was thinking.
Andrew: I think it is right now. We're recording here on October the 1st, 2026. So this could be our two-year anniversary. Not a week dropped. Not a week.
Sean: Not a single week. We have no life. Oh, my God. Yeah, I do. I'm going to look. Nothing makes riveting podcasting like, hold on while I look this up real quick. But I think it's worth checking the date on Apple Podcasts for the very, very first one. 'Cause I do think it dropped, 'cause it's funny, 'cause my brain handles them all so differently, because I'm like, why is it only showing me the top five? That's weird. Hello, new update on the thing. Where's all episodes, please? But yeah, it's interesting, 'cause my brain always works a little bit differently. Yeah, why is this only showing me?
Andrew: This is not good. Oh, here are all episodes. This is not, here we are. No, I asked Grok. Grok said the first Modem Futura episode dropped on October the 8th, 2024. It was the pilot. There we are.
Sean: So well done, Grok. You are faster than Sean. Yes, you are. And by a long shot. Although, let's see, when did our trailer... Oh, well, we've updated the trailer before, so let's change it. But yeah, okay, so next week. I think, you know...
Andrew: Next week. By the time this airs, actually. Yeah, you're listening to this
Sean: On the anniversary of how we recorded... Yeah, yeah. Whatever. Welcome to Modem Futura, and thank you for listening, and please...
Andrew: Anyway, we should probably move on to more interesting stuff.
Sean: Yeah, well, why don't we... This will be a good opportunity after that, after that, botched... After two years, you'd think we would have gotten this a little bit better ironed out. But hey, that's part of the charm. There we are. That's why you come, I don't know.
Andrew: Yes, yes. Authentic, I think is the word.
Sean: 100% authenticity. Scrappy, but authentic. Lack of planning, all these kind of things, right? But this will give us a good pause. Why don't we just take a break right here? We'll come back and we'll dive into this thing because if this doesn't give you reason to think about why it's important to think about the future, we'll come back with some megatrends and talk about that.
Andrew: There we are.
Announcer: Initializing waveform. Modulating signals for transmission. Exploring the possible, probable, and preferable futures. Welcome to Modem Futura.
Sean: Okay, all right. I've collected myself, I think, I hope. And that means, and again, after two years, I stumble on my own introduction of my name because I feel like it's a little awkward always. But I am Sean Leahy, joined by my two-year running co-host extraordinaire, Andrew Maynard. And that means, why not? You're listening to Modem Futura, the show that explores the intersection of technology, society, and the possible, probable, and preferable futures, asking deep questions like, what will it mean to be human in the future? And so I think not only what does it mean to be human in the future, but right along with that is like, what on earth will the future hold for us? Right. Yes. And so today I thought it would be really fun for us to dig into the very recently released updated megatrends from the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies. Yep. From our friends and colleagues over in Denmark.
Andrew: It has just come out.
Sean: It has just come out just a couple of days ago. So basically late September, it was, you know, officially released. And yeah, it's in what's interesting with these megatrends. First of all, the timing of this. So also for any of my students who are listening right now, sorry, you're using the older megatrends because they're doing their futures projects and stuff right now that are they'll be presenting their final projects next week. But we actually spent quite a bit of time talking about megatrends very recently. So it was always very, it was already something that I was deeply engaged with, with a bunch of students this semester. So I was very pleased to see an update of this come up. Because I think, and again, so I should back up a little bit and talk about like what a mega trend is. Yes, yes.
Andrew: Before we even talk about this report. And even before you get there, I gotta say, I'm so glad we're doing this because I am so tired of talking about AI. And I know AI is going to come into this, but this again goes back to our roots and goes way beyond artificial intelligence. That's right. So a nice refreshing week. It is.
Sean: It was like a splash of cold water, whatever, to kind of wash the filth of AI off.
Andrew: You're going to be quoted on that one, the filth of AI. Wash the filth of AI off. That's the mood you're in today.
Sean: We'll go with that. And I can't help it. I, you know, so again, it's by the time this airs, it'll have been several weeks since the SNL skit on Weekend Update. Yes. Yes. And I had seen it once. I was quite funny. And then it keeps coming back up now, like in all of my social media feeds. So I've probably watched this way too many times. But some of the the again, massive props to the Saturday Night Live group for capturing this stuff, because some of those phrases, I find them just stuck in my head. Right. Like, "AI is the devil and I its creator." I strongly urge you to strongly stop me from what I'm doing. And I'm like, there's so many gold lines in there. And I just, oh, it's so good. And so if anyone hasn't seen it, it's easy to find SNL, you know, Dario Amodei. Yes, Amodei,
Andrew: Yeah.
Sean: And watch his. Just the Gollum-esque, like, internal monologue.
Andrew: So actually, I was watching it. I actually think it's Venom. So I was thinking Gollum, because it felt like Gollum, but actually I think it's the duality of sort of Venom. That's true. I'm just this monster inside Amodei. Tell him the milk thing.
Sean: I've already tried and it didn't work. Right, yes. What was the line? It's like, if you could drink milk that would make you feel better, but had a 10% chance to kill you, would you do it? And Che was like, no. He's like, really? Like, are you crazy? Of course you would take it. So anyway, it's one of those... The reason it's worth mentioning, I would say, is it is a gift that keeps on giving, because the writing on that was just so, so spot on. And I think it captures also so much of the ridiculousness, but also that internal sort of just, like, absurdity where they're like, you know, "All of us believe you should not let us do what we're doing," and just, like, this is the way. They just kept with it. So good. Yeah, so good. So anyway, back to megatrends. So what is a megatrend? And so one thing to be clear: while, you know, I got excited and we want to talk about this particular Megatrends publication from the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies, megatrends themselves are not something that is owned or outright controlled by any one organization, individual or industry. It's a commonality that's used, especially in futures work to basically describe. So we have, and we've talked about in some of our past hundred plus episodes, we've talked at depth also about megatrends before and sort of weak signals and things like that. But essentially megatrends are a ways for us to look at essentially the horizon of what is happening out there in the world. There's lots of mechanisms that start at the very small granular layer. So things like doing a horizon scan. So looking, scouring the globe for weak signals, things that are new, novel signal that something is changing. Over time, as you collect those signals, those signals develop into trends where you can see there's now momentum behind these things. So it's not just a one off. Things are starting to build and you're starting to even even formally in terms of a trend, you can start to actually measure things. You can change. You can test whether something is growing, shrinking, having an impact, what have you. And then just as you might suggest, as those trends continue to build and build and build, they become this new category of a megatrend, which generally sort of like, and we can get into like the specifics of how the Copenhagen Institute defines it. But broadly speaking, a mega trend is basically defined as a trend that has massive, at this point, we would define it as having massive global impact or scale, but also that these trends show evidence that they have not only been around for a while, but will stick around for a while yet. So generally speaking, megatrends are trends that we expect to continue on in their impact for anywhere from like, you know, five to 10 to even 15 years. So longer term trends that are representing a massive scale and also massive potential impact of change that's happening. But one of the key things to remember is when we talk about these trends and these megatrends, immediate one of the, because one of the first sort of, I would say, trappings that people get into is that, because we talk about the length of time that they expect to be around, that does not mean the development of them or the movement of them is linear in any stretch. And so some megatrends can sit there like a big old lazy blob that doesn't do much. Right. And so presumably those appear
Andrew: Sort of year after year with these reports.
Sean: And what's natural too is interesting to look. And one thing I'll talk about again as we kind of dig more into the report is, and I will, right now, I'll say it right now, hands down a massive thank you to the team at Copenhagen Institute for publishing their methodology. Because that is, again, one of these key pieces that is often missing with a lot of these publications.
Andrew: But this is where you can do the due diligence and see where these come from and actually test them. Absolutely.
Sean: And again, for me, again, the gold here is also using this as a teaching instrument for people who are new to futures, understanding like where do these come from? And understanding also not only the history, but also, you know, megatrends, while a useful tool, are not in any way, shape or form a crystal ball that tells you. Right, yes. Again, because that's this sort of common background of all futures work is it's not about predicting future. Yep. It is about preparing for an uncertainty that comes with the future, right? And while megatrends can be very insightful, and they help us navigate that uncertainty, and starts to add color to those questions of like, well, why, how, what if? They themselves are no guarantee. They are not linear.
Andrew: But it helps you have agility and to prepare. So if you've got a rough idea of where things are heading in the landscape, you can at least prepare for that. And as things change, you can begin to adjust and adapt.
Sean: Yep. No, absolutely. And so they're massively important. So that's one thing. And so, but Copenhagen, again, the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies has been, at least in terms of my work too, and what I've shared with students, has been one of the premier sources because of exactly what they've demonstrated here. They demonstrate their methodologies, how they work through them. And it sort of, it is itself, along with their own history, brings with it the credibility that this isn't just something that they're plucking out of the air. Right. Or worse, something that represents sort of like an affective forecast, that they are sort of, you know, picking and choosing. They're vibing it. Yeah, right.
Andrew: Hey, man, I gotta... Just the vibe-coded megatrends. We feel this.
Sean: You know what? You don't even, just be in tune with the universe, you know? And they just start to happen. But it is really important. But it is. And so these megatrends, again, while often a lot of people may not know or see them named, a lot of the background, especially when you start looking at the categories to which they represent, people will start to go, oh, right, right, right. Like, I get it. So, because when you break them down based on like their topic, they're quite recognizable.
Andrew: They are. Yes. Yeah. And I think when we actually get to the list, list of 11, I want to ask you why 11 actually, because it's such an interesting number. But when we get to it, people will sort of say, yeah, that makes sense.
Sean: Yeah, it is. Well, it's interesting because the number, so this is the other thing, right, is there's no golden rule. It's, you know, somewhere someone goes, well, five is too little, 20 is too many.
Andrew: You know, I was actually wondering whether it was a human thing, because an AI would choose 10. You know, yeah. Maybe they thought we've got to have one more to make it look like it was one in the eye. You know, I don't know. Either that or it's, it's like when you're at the gas station and you're trying to hit that exact round number of dollars and it goes over. You got the, yeah, you're like $10, one cent. Yeah. This is the number of effort.
Sean: $42 and one cent. Well, it's going to be 44 now. And then you're, you know, yeah, exactly. Yeah, no, I actually don't know if there's a, that would be something new to me if there was a methodological reason for 11. I don't believe so. Because typically, and again, if you look over time, a lot of times you'll see these represented, you know, I think the one that I've used before had 17 and then it becomes too watered down, right? Right, yes. And it also, again, these morph, and so the last CIFS publication, of this exact megatrends was about five years ago. It was like 2021. Oh, right. Okay, so this is not every year. Yeah, not every year. Because again, their nature of megatrends, they are big. And it also, what you can see too, again, using this report as its own sort of artifact is understanding the amount of work that goes into this, right? This is not something you go, hmm, it's Tuesday. Let's just run a new megatrend board, right? I mean, because each of these megatrends that are selected go through a fairly rigorous sort of filtering process to go, is this a megatrend or is it not?
Andrew: Right.
Sean: Right. And because there isn't a natural state of observation where you can be like, aha, it turned green. That means it's a megatrend. There's a lot of subjectivity to it as well based on what exactly are you looking at? What evidence to you satisfies the question of, does it have big enough impact over a long enough period of time? A collection of enough sub sort of trends to make this thing build up to momentum. So again, any organization can claim to publish a list of megatrends. But I will say, again, what makes me so happy to see a publication like this is they even intentionally went out of their way to express a lot of concerns around what they term as the conceptual drift of megatrends, which is a problem. So when megatrends drift or any sort of futures speculation has this drift, it's usually a response of basically trying to fit something into your preconceived idea. So this is where you can trigger all these things we've talked about at length before. Bringing those biases in, yes. Yeah, used futures, a disowned future, like literally or the opposite of ignoring megatrends because that's not good for your bottom line or your business. So let's just ignore it and not have it.
Andrew: And of course, I mean, bringing it back very briefly to AI, this is what we see with AI. People come to the table with their own ideas and concepts of what the future should be like, or what they think it should be like, whether it's an age of an abundance or whether it's the apocalypse. And then they fit all of the evidence into that. So it's totally the reverse of what it should be.
Sean: Yep. And that's a really dangerous thing, right? And it happens. And that's something, you know, we're all biased. We all have our own issues.
Andrew: But that's where mechanisms exist to de-bias. Exactly. This is what you do if you're in research, science, scholarship, whatever. You understand those biases and you do everything possible. And there are very, very specific methodologies to remove that bias as far as you can.
Sean: Absolutely. And that's one of the trends, like when you come into this, is also that exact thing is recognizing, I know I'm going to do my best, but I know I have my biases. And then it's not enough to just say that, but then it's like, well, then how do you check to do that reality check to be like, am I, is this just because I want this to be the case? Right, right. I want space whales on frozen ice planet moons. Which, which megatrend was that?
Andrew: Oh, you see, number six, yes, space whales.
Sean: Sadly, it didn't make the list. But maybe I'll talk about it right now, just so we don't have to labor it. But in their report, they go through and identify, I think it's a seven-step process that they go through that they identify as their sort of filter process. And then, of course, adding a little bit of color and context to that of, like, you know, can we define what is changing? If no, then it's not good. If yes, then you continue on to the next filter. Is there a clear directional pattern developing? If no, it's not. If yes, you continue. So a very simple tool to run through basically a system of filters so that as you're going and figuring out how to create these things, that ultimately what you end up with then is something you can stand behind that says, we chose these 11 and all 11, we can show you the maths. They all went through our process and this is what came out. And then there's, honestly, you can't argue with that at all. Because you might say, I think there's a 12th one.
Andrew: Right, right. Or you would change the order. You say there's something else that should be in or out. And which is all sort of part of the discussion that comes out of this. But the fact is that the foundations of the discussion are solid. Even if you disagree or there's other evidence there, it's a really good starting point. Yeah, absolutely.
Sean: And that's where you're like, okay, great, cool. So then you and your futures tools, go find more. And if you can find ones that don't fit, that's great.
Andrew: So what is on the list? I'm realizing that we said we're going to be short with this. I've already ruined it. 20 minutes in or something.
Sean: But some of that was just absolute audio gold of the smoothest episode opening, I think, to date.
Andrew: You and your bias, Sean.
Sean: We're going to have a Modem Futura de-biasing session here. Talk about affective forecasting.
Andrew: But to the list. Where do you want to start? Do you want to go through an order? Or do you want to sort of give the big picture overview of this?
Sean: Well, why don't, so why don't, okay. I think, let me just name them all. Yes. And then we'll go through and pick them because we don't have time to go through. To all 11, yes. Or if we do, we'll give each one like 90 seconds. So in order, and again, the key, when I look at any sort of megatrends, the order is irrelevant. It's not, now it doesn't necessarily mean like, so when you're putting together these publications, again, you get to pick and choose where they go. Typically megatrends are usually displayed as a wheel because to try to avoid that positionality, but also, you know, hey, if you're the editor of doing it and you think shifting world order is the top one, which it is in this case, because it might have the most dramatic impact on, you know, the near to long-term future.
Andrew: And the reality is if you've got a linear report, you can't present it as a circle.
Sean: You are somewhat limited as an editor. That's right. Text, you know, we still have to do carriage returns and go down to the next line.
Andrew: That would be kind of interesting. I don't know how you'd do that.
Sean: Yeah, well, then you're getting into all that funky word art and it just looks terrible.
Andrew: Actually, I think it should just be a pack of cards. Yeah.
Sean: With all of the chapters. You know, that would actually be a cool artifact. So of doing a megatrend report just like that, as like a playing card. That'd be actually pretty cool.
Andrew: Anyway,
Sean: To the list. So here's the list. So 2026, these are the 11 megatrends. I'll run down through them and we can pick through some of them. We can maybe cherry pick our ones that we like. That sounds good. So the 11 megatrends are listed as this, in this order, shifting world order, which is basically a new phrase of what used to be called like the geopolarization kind of thing. Right, yes. Inversion of the population pyramid, the green transition, individualized everyday life, health beyond the clinic, the rise of embedded AI. AI had to get in somewhere. Had to. Also, it would be weird if it wasn't on here. The biotech revolution, the constrained economy. That's an interesting one. The new force of urbanization. Oh, no, face. The new face.
Andrew: It could be a force, I suppose. May the force of urbanization be with you. The new face of urbanization.
Sean: I'm on a roll today, man. Power through networks. And the 11th one rounding out is the concentration of wealth.
Andrew: Yeah, and interesting, because I'm pretty sure people listening to this will think two or three of those, yeah, those have been around for a while. Concentration of wealth. We've been sort of talking about that in depth for the last decade or so. Same as the biotech revolution, the green transition. But as you said, it doesn't mean that they're not relevant. And this to me is critically important. And I'm coming at this from doing the World Economic Forum Top 10 Emerging Technologies, because we grapple with this every year where we need something new. And yet these things take decades to mature. And the beauty of the megatrends is that it allows you to see them through that lens. So even though something like the green transition has been happening for a while, it is still relevant. It is still important. It is still a trend that we need to pay attention to.
Sean: No, absolutely. And if you look at them, what's interesting too, so again, the title or the large category of a megatrend, because again, what is the megatrend, right? So if you kind of pull back its anatomy again, that it is basically this momentum ball of all of these other sort of sub-trends that have made this up. So while the megatrend itself may still be, you know, green transition of moving from fossil fuels to renewable energies, that could take centuries, right? So that will stick around and most likely will be very persistent. What will come and go, though, will be the subtrends underneath it will have a lot more sort of variability and fluctuation. The landscape changes. Yeah, absolutely. And again, because these are not linear, you might have something that represents this massive trend that might feel kind of stale, that it's sort of stalled out. And the World Economic Forum is a great example of that. We're suddenly then putting two older technologies together or finding a new way to apply an older trend with something. Suddenly it then rockets to new momentum and new vectors of movement. And so the point of a megatrend as well is to be somewhat resilient to that short-term oscillations of the different trends. Because they can come, they can go, new things come, new things fall off. But the megatrend in the futures world is the closest thing we have to stability. Right, right. That's right. You know, in terms of like, these are big.
Andrew: A moving target of stability. That's right.
Sean: You know, it's like, you know, you can think about how fast the earth is spinning and how fast we're moving around the sun and how fast we're moving around the galactic core. But like, it's the closest thing we have. Even though everything is moving, it's the closest thing we have to stability.
Andrew: And it's a good reminder that because sometimes we look at AI and we think the world is changing faster than we could ever imagine. Actually, it's changing at some level slower than you might imagine. And the reality is that even with the pace of technology innovation at the moment, things take decades to really take hold and change the world around us. And it always surprises me with this. I go back to my work for decades now on technology innovation and the realization that even with digital systems, from that original concept of something, in most cases, not all, but in most cases, that original concept is something that changes the market and changes the world. You're looking at one to two decades.
Sean: Yeah, yeah. And then in that too is understanding that those changes are not linear. They take, you know, if you look, they take two steps forward, one step back,
Andrew: One step left, one step right. And then of course you get to sort of anything which requires physical manufacturing. Yeah, the delay, the lag. And that adds another layer there. So we used to say that if you're actually making something, you're taking something like sort of biotechnology and you're transferring a lab experiment to a commercial product where you actually have to physically make stuff, you're looking at at least 15 to 20 years before you see a return on that investment.
Sean: And then also the lag behind that of like measuring what impact did it actually, before you go, did it work? Right? I mean, that's a long career.
Andrew: It's an entire career. Yeah. But anyway, we've got to get back to the list. Okay. So looking down through these, let's sort of start from the top and take a couple. So shifting world order. I'm pretty sure I know where they're going with that, but you've got the details in front of you. So what are they picking out there?
Sean: Yeah. So shifting world order. So again, this changes from a previous, you know, basically the same thing, again, representing some new change. But basically, we're looking at reshifting the world powers. Yes. And most notably, the role slash rise, depending on how you want to look at it, of the role that China has been having on the global stage. Yeah, that's what I was wondering. But not only that, but also looking at, in the last several years, also looking at these things of increased regionalism as breakdowns in international treaties and international collaborative agreements. So you're seeing this sort of...
Andrew: And I guess isolationism. So you look at what's happening with the US at the moment. The US are really sort of pulling back. China is expanding, trying to sort of get that global stability. And then you've got those little pockets of really interesting innovation and sometimes slightly troubling innovation around the world. So it's a really interesting dynamic.
Sean: 100%, absolutely. And again, not surprising. I mean, again, if you look over history, these things swing on a pendulum of expansion and contraction, right? Of international cooperation versus isolationism of like, nope, this one's ours. And right now too, I mean, also, again, we can't escape, you know, what did I say? The filth of AI. Because, you know, that is driving a lot of this right now too, is the technological dominance or leadership globally right now, especially between the US and China. And so you're seeing that also sort of impact a lot of the other, you know, sort of elements around the world, realignment and global alignment and military spending as a result. So again, all of these different, so you can look at a lot of these different sub trends that are sort of all contributing to this bigger thing of basically there's a lot of uncertainty around and a reordering, if you will, or jostling, maybe is a better word of it, of this sort of world power, world order out there. And that, and the thing to take it from that, right, is not necessarily, and this might be helpful too, as with all of the megatrends, is that understanding this is not going to be like this isolated thing is like, oh, this is just a geopolitical thing. And it's, it's when you start thinking about education, when you're thinking about, you know, transportation, right? Manufacturing. Yep. How does this shifting world order?
Andrew: Yep.
Sean: Impact that. What is the relationship between those?
Andrew: That, I think, is critically important. Because it's one thing just to list these things. But then if you look at, if you're a decision maker in a company or a government or elsewhere, you're trying to work out how this emerging landscape affects the decisions and the investments you make over the next sort of 5, 10, 20 years. And so you just take this one, shifting world order. If you want to sort of work out how you achieve your goals or objectives or your mission within this is then critical to how you sort of plan for that.
Sean: Absolutely, and this is across the board for all megatrends, right? This is the power of them, is one, they can be very useful just on their own in terms of aggregating those sector-based sort of trends or things to go on, if that's your bread and butter, that can be very helpful. But the real power of them is to understand how they interact with each other. And because the other piece to this is, no megatrend is in isolation from the others, right? Nothing, no innovation, nothing we do as humans in our modern life are like in any way separated from these.
Andrew: Everything merges together. And so just to show this, I'm going to jump and I'm going to go to the constrained economy, number eight. And I have actually, because this is the first time I'm reading this, I have no idea what this means, but I'm intrigued to see how this, the constrained economy connects with shifting world order. So let's see whether we can do this on the fly.
Sean: Yeah, sure. I had to jump down to it. So again, so pulling off just from the report, so the sub-trends that make up the constrained economy include rising fiscal and private financial stress. So basically financial insecurity, constrained global growth. So you have a competition there where you have other companies and organizations going like mad, others constrained, fading demographic tailwinds shrinking labor supply.
Andrew: Okay, yes.
Sean: Geopolitical uncertainty. So tagging directly into it. Rise in trade and supply chain disruptions. Yeah. As we speak to this day, we have a massive, talk about a, I don't know if you can call that a disruption. That's a chokehold on some of, I mean, yeah, not to go into that too. But also, again, this is also where you can start to connect these things together where if you're just taking a very, in a political viewpoint, just looking at the supply chain, in the United States, the cost of diesel fuel going through the roof, globally, right? But cost of diesel fuel. And so initially you could look at that at a very short term and go, okay, well, yeah, hard times. It's gonna cost more for everybody. That kind of sucks. But then when you start digging deeper, it's like, well, diesel powers the world supply chain. That's how trucks move. That's how all that. And so suddenly that's how farm equipment runs, right? So now you're starting to see the impact of something that started as a geopolitical, you know, chokehold, disruption, whatever, now impacting how well or how much farmers can profit based on running their equipment in the field, let alone the cold chain that picks up the food or the grain, whatever, transports that to mills, distilleries, to the grocery stores, to your house. I mean, it has this
Andrew: It's absolutely sort of essential. And of course, you pull that back to shifting world order because if you're talking about supply chains, you're looking at supply chains across economies. And so the world order is vital in understanding how those work, how those move, where the chokeholds are, where the opportunities are. So I love the fact that this came out, that when you talk about the constrained economy, you're effectively sort of digging down into another layer associated with shifting world order. So you can begin to see that intersection.
Sean: Yeah, I mean, there's a great question that is listed under their uncertainties. And again, this is why I would really, I want to, and I'll put a link to where you can go get it on the web and sign up for it. But really encourage people to chew through these. Because, again, what they've also gone is not just listing the subtrends and giving some of the write-up. It's listing what are called key uncertainties. So these are those big questions that are like, what happens if or how might this go one way or the other? And, I mean, to that end, one of them is asking this question around how will geopolitical tensions and shifting trade and industrial policies reshape the global trade? Like, how does that work? Yes. How does it change investment flows and the resilience of an economy towards some sort of external shock or external economic shock as a result of, you know, again, change in political tariffs that are changing trade between two organizations?
Andrew: And of course, what comes out of this is it's tempting if you just look at one of these in isolation. So you look at sort of trade and supply chains. And if you just looked at that in isolation, you could say, well, we've got changes which are changing that. We just need to turn the clock back and get back to where we were. The trouble is when you look at these other mega trends, when you turn the clock back, the whole landscape has changed. So you can never go back to where you were.
Sean: Not at all. And another key uncertainty, for example, in this one that picks up other, again, how they start to merge into other different trends as well is talking about the age of workers. Yes. Like in your economy. So like...
Andrew: What a great transition to number two, inversion of the population pyramid.
Sean: So literally asking this question, like how does an aging economy, both in terms of, you know, the policies and regulations of it, but also the aging of the people who make up your economy. How does that change your resilience? And also what does that do for how that's tied in with the geopolitical element of migration? Do you let, are you bringing labor and, you know, intellectual capabilities?
Andrew: To fill in sort of the lower parts of the pyramid.
Sean: Or are you experiencing brain drain where what you wanted to keep locally is leaving for some reason or not? And so you can see like, again, these things, what's beautiful about when you, and again, it's a nod to what they've done here with the 11 that they've selected is it doesn't take much of a scratch to see how it's connected to the other ones, which is wonderful.
Andrew: So jumping forward here, one that stood out to me, the individualized everyday life. Oh, yeah.
Sean: This is an interesting one. Yes. It's funny. I look for it by the graphic because that's how I remember things. I'm like, it's the one with the wheel with the guys running on the thing. Always a nod. I don't know who exactly does all of their like layouts and visualizations, but they always have some top-notch stuff. But yeah, so this individualized everyday life. So this, again, so the sub-trends that are sort of building to create this blob of trend is decline of traditional social institutions. Right. So, and we, and again, whether you've heard this in other phrases, the epidemic of loneliness, the loss, the loss of community, right? So just the, just the decline of what those, those social institutions used to support.
Andrew: Just how easy it is to sit at home and listen to podcasts rather than talk to real people.
Sean: Hey, I'm not going to complain as long as that podcast is Modem Futura.
Andrew: No, no, no, no. What you should say is go and talk to somebody about it.
Sean: That's right. Like a virus, spread it. Like, tell them about the thing. I should have had a routine. I want to tell them about the thing. I already did. I told them to sign up. Tell them it's free. It's free. They know it's free. I think I'm going to milk that for a long time. But in the end, so also implicating the individualized life are also these other sort of longstanding trends that we've seen, especially in, I would say, more economically prosperous nations, downsizing of households, right? Lowering number of, I mean, and you see this, you'll see this like tick up on the news every so often where there'll be this sudden like response of like, oh no, the birth rate is, we need more kids. People aren't having kids. And, you know, blurring of life phases, right? So I would say, and again, there's no judgment on whether this is a good or a bad thing, but this recognition of what used to be, at least I remember even my childhood, it was very clear. It was like kid, teenager, you worked for this part, then you had this period of retirement or whatever. And now when you look at it, you're like, it's just kind of a blurred life, right? Where you're like transitioning here and there.
Andrew: I'm sorry, Sean, this is just you getting old and not being in touch with the current generation.
Sean: Well, that is true. This music, these kids are listening to, I don't understand it. And it's been years, by the way, since I, you know, we have those annual like award ceremonies with all the celebrities. And I look and I scroll, I'm like, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. Hey, I know that one. Nope, nope, nope. Yeah, it's all ready. I'm like, I've lost it. I'm not even gonna pretend anymore. But then, you know, so including this other, just other ones, right? So lifestyle and consumption as identity markers. Oh, interesting. Individual life becoming place-polygamous? Place-polygamous? I don't even know what that meant. I don't even know what that one is. Is it? That's what it read. And I was like, wait, is that right?
Andrew: Hey, ChatGPT, what does place-polygamous mean?
Sean: Yeah,
Andrew: I guess you just, you don't live in one place anymore.
Sean: It's all cool. I guess. Right, right. We're just sharing. You're fluid. You're fluid. You're very light. You're just coming and going. Alternative family formations, things like this. Right, right, right. Speaking of polygamous. Yes. You know, yeah. Interesting. Yeah. And expansion and access to education, things like that.
Andrew: So again, from everything you're saying, it feels like there is a sense, you certainly see this in the West. I'd be interested to know how far this extends. The individual both feels empowered because of what we have at our fingertips, but also entitled to sort of be themselves and create their own space and live their own life. And to exclude others and other institutions and other things if they don't want it.
Sean: Yeah, and I would say a tag onto that and also potentially severe isolation as well. Right, yes. And so also raising some of those challenges.
Andrew: But of course, that sort of follows on from this because if you have everybody sort of saying, well, I can do what I want or I can not do what I don't want, that's fine. But in a community, if you've got that one person that nobody wants to engage with them or nobody sees the point in engaging with them, that then fuels isolationism and loneliness.
Sean: Oh, absolutely. And I think one of the questions that is asked right in the report as one of these key uncertainties I really like because it gets at this issue too with, again, with that, you know, degradation of these traditional sort of social systems, the ability to pick and choose what you want. The question is like, does that individualization produce more trust overall in a society because relationships are chosen or selected rather than inherited by like, oh yeah, my neighborhood. And it's just kind of thing. Or does it create a complete erosion of trust because you in those, again, I will use the air quote of like traditional because what does that mean? It's very biased and local and regionalized. But like for like a neighborhood example, if you don't ever meet your neighbors, for example, whether it's an apartment complex building, a brownstone, a single family home environment, if you never meet your neighbors and you only choose to meet and talk to the people you want to, that raises a really interesting question. Like, does that mean you would trust your neighbors more or less?
Andrew: That's right. It depends whether you know whether you've got neighbors or not in the first place. Well, yeah, who they are, right? Well, it's crazy. And again, I may be pushing this too far, but I was thinking about this and thinking sort of when I was sort of younger and grew up, there was this very strong focus on social responsibility. And again, this was coming from the UK, that it was really embedded in us that we had a responsibility to the community around us. And it feels like in certainly some cases that is being sort of pulled back from where the mantra is, I have a responsibility to me. I have a responsibility to the people I like, but nobody else. And you've got to ask sort of where that takes us as a society. And actually how it goes up through the levels, you get to sort of going back to number one, shifting world order. Is there a connection or a disconnect between that individualism and how we work as a society and as a whole economy?
Sean: Yeah, no, absolutely. And again, looking at the broader globe, you have this like scale of collectivism and individualism that depending on where you are from and what you're, it can be very different and looked upon very differently. But certainly like in places in the United States, for example, I think the biggest concern with that is like it creates this adversarial sort of setup. It's always, cause it's an in-group and an out-group.
Andrew: That's exactly,
Sean: Yes, yes. And what concerns me about that overall is it hyper sort of like miniaturizes that in-group, out-group, you know, because we do this naturally, right? It's like, oh, them versus us. And then you go inside there and you're like, well, that team versus my team. And then even within your team, you're like, that's the kicker and I'm the quarterback. So you, I mean, we do this. But I think the concern is when you start doing this in your, like where you live, work and play, for example.
Andrew: And if you've got reinforcement learning there. So the more you do it, the more you feel comfortable doing it.
Sean: Exactly. And also the drift, you start looking for evidence to support why you think that way. Right. You're like, I knew I shouldn't have talked to that neighbor. He's a weirdo. I saw, did you see what he did? Right. Or whatever. Or whatever my neighbors are saying about me. But my concern with that though, too, is then you can see how, while that's playing out, You have other people pushing and clamoring for more and more influence and power. Using that, again, that sort of in-group, out-group is a wonderful way to leverage that to your own benefit because you can then push through things that otherwise collectively everyone would have been like, no way. But because you took advantage of that rift, that strife between two groups or whatever, like then you slip these things through and then before you know it.
Andrew: So here's a test. And number 10, so going on from this, power through networks. And I'm fascinated to know whether any of this comes out with the megatrends and subtrends there. It may not do, but it strikes me as you're talking that we're talking about networks here, and we're talking about selective networks where people decide who's in and versus who's out of their network. And then others, once they see that, they can work out how to leverage those networks.
Sean: Yeah, no, it's really interesting. And so, again, looking at some of these, the subtrends. One, this was an interesting one, because again, this ties right back into the embedded AI, all this concept of a hyperscaler, this dominant. So hyperscaling literally meaning, so you can almost take all of these AI companies as an example for that, of being able to create these infrastructures that are so powerful, so important to the function that they run. And again, even these AI companies now being used as part of like the national, I don't want to say security, but like the national... It is.
Andrew: It's a national security debate around...
Sean: Priority, whatever, right? For economic, for military, whatever you have it. But this idea that you have these hyperscaling companies and corporations that at some level rival the global influence of nation states, right?
Andrew: And some would say you have some companies that have already exceeded that.
Sean: Sure, absolutely. And then, but not only just that they exist, but that this hyperscale dominance builds over those critical digital infrastructures. Right. So the very things that we rely on for our, you know, our daily digital human, techno human lives being dominated by a few of these hyperscaling entities and things like that. Right. So really looking at that and with that, too, is this idea of this like shift from a territorial to an operational sovereignty. Yes. So this jurisdiction over territory control over other infrastructure. So really, again, it creates this really interesting way of essentially asserting a dominance over all this infrastructure.
Andrew: And I do find this interesting, that aspect in particular, because people have been looking at this and writing about it for a long time. There are a number of novels, both science fiction novels and non-science fiction novels, really looking at this idea of the business as sovereign state. And shadowy organizations, sometimes not so shadowy, that actually have more power and influence than sovereign states.
Sean: Yeah, and doing it sometimes right in the open to your face. Right, yes. And also kind of connected to that is also the dependence on, let's say, again, if we take the United States, for example, looking at something like the space program, like NASA, right? Starting to become reliant on a non-governmental agency like SpaceX to conduct governmental... Now that one we can say, okay, that's space exploration. We're all cool here, right? We're all good.
Andrew: But it's not because SpaceX is really a commercial outfit. And of course, NASA has used this for a long time. They outsource a lot of their stuff. But SpaceX is sort of a hand in glove with them. I would say sort of others are as well. Blue Origin is there as well. But yes, it's this merging of the boundaries. So now if you ask, what would NASA be without these mega companies?
Sean: Which those make, and SpaceX is a good example. It could never have existed without NASA. That's right. Yes, it's a symbiotic relationship. And so now, but also, and then this expands too. So you have things like military operations leveraging, using things like Anthropic. I mean, we had famously in the US back, when was that? Over the summertime, right? There was like the fallout where Anthropic was listed.
Andrew: They decided not to use Anthropic. But who knows what that relationship is like now? Is it on or is it off? I guarantee it's on.
Sean: It's guaranteed. It's like, we don't use that. Keep using it. Don't tell them about the thing, you know, but it's, so, but that...
Andrew: You realize people got to go and watch the skit, otherwise they'll have no idea what's going on in your head at the moment.
Sean: You know what? That's okay. But, but, but that is also, again, and this is not also a new sort of feeling or, or even phrasing that people will say it was like, well, the tech is moving so fast government can't keep up. And there is some legitimacy to that where again, you know, if we think about sort of like the digital transformation, of how as humans, our behavior is driving these things that we expect. Why can't I can go to my, pull up my phone and I can do X, Y, and Z. Why can't I do that with my taxes? Why can't I do that with this or that or this other thing? And you can see there would be this, based on the change in human behavior, sort of this catalyst for maybe a government agency to be like, okay, well, we can't do that. We can't figure that out. So we'll leverage private company and we'll let private company do it. And then, I mean, you can see a scenario in which a government might turn over things like tax collection to a private company because they've got the system. You think they haven't already? But they've got their systems and their things, and we can just leverage that. But then, now they have you, and now they have control.
Andrew: Who owns it? And yeah, and of course, this has been part of government for eons, but it's getting more and more integrated these days. Because if you look at the tech capabilities that we have outside government, it's very hard to see how government can operate without buying in those services and without collaborating and partnering with them. And government can't build this on its own. And we know governments are really bad at building stuff. Yeah. Having been a Fed for many years. Yeah, you had a front row seat of that. I can tell you, if you leave it to government agencies to build stuff on their own. Yeah. Yeah.
Sean: Well, I mean, even, even like people may remember all the way back to the original, like the Obamacare, like signup webpage that the government did. It was, and it was like this horrible disaster. And luckily a handful of, of like very talented web designers from Silicon Valley were like, hold on, we'll do this for you. But you can see that.
Andrew: But there it is, the conundrum. So you want to make government more efficient. You bring in private enterprise, you bring in private enterprise, you begin to sort of undermine the nature and purpose and the legitimacy of government. It is not an easy sort of thread to sort of, or needle to thread.
Sean: Yeah, no, absolutely. And then even just coming back again to come back to the AI piece too, is this ability where companies are basically holding up private operated infrastructure as a demonstration of their own power, right? So I think about like the Stargate project and all those kind of stuff or, or whatever the, you know, the fact that, you know, whatever the, the reoccurring sort of meetings between, you know, government officials and OpenAI and Anthropic basically being like that, look how powerful we are. We have them. Yep. Right. And so it's sort of using it as this proxy of, you know, so it's really interesting. Yeah. Concerning again, not a new trend.
Andrew: Yes. Yeah. But, but something that I think organizations and individuals need to be aware of as they're beginning to work out how you navigate to the sort of future you want.
Sean: Absolutely. And again, one, you know, maybe we can, again, we don't have time to go through all this. But again, looking at them, you know, again, one thing that is really interesting to see is how they're interconnected with each other. But also then kind of returning back to this idea of like, it's not a one-off or a one-all be-all for that thing. What you do with that information, what you do with these mega trends is then ask those deeper questions about whatever question you're trying to answer for your context, right? What are the, what will, what would it be like to be human in the future? Well, what if, then you start asking questions. What if it goes this way with this? Because all of these are uncertainties. These are trends that are, that are, that are built upon these, these critical or key uncertainties, some of which will be persistent. Some of which will come and go as part of those sub trends that will rise and fall and kind of how they play out. New ones will come on. Some will disappear. But it's really trying to ask those critical questions of like, okay, so if you're trying to think about how will AI impact higher education or something, right? Taking, looking at some of these megatrends to pick some of those critical uncertainties, doing, you know, rise of embedded AI, yet changing political order.
Andrew: That is a great one because it's so tempting. And I see this all the time with educational establishments to think if we're thinking about, say, AI in higher education, we just think about ourselves, we think about it in a very siloed way. You can't. You've got to think about it in the broad context of what's happening in the world. And this is where you've got to understand how to integrate these perspectives around megatrends.
Sean: And that is what you just described is the classic misstep that leads you to that end result where you go, how could we not have seen this coming? Right, right, right. Because it is. What you do then is you say, well, there's all this, even without knowing it, you have foreclosed what type of uncertainties are open to exploring. And really, when some really rich sort of scenario development happens is when you can take what might look like these disparate megatrends or the uncertainties that are sort of building and bubbling within them and putting those together. So when, for example, in a place like higher education, look outside of higher education to start to understand how human and like behaviors and things that are forces and shifts that you have no control over.
Andrew: And of course, you think about higher education. You've got sort of students coming in to sort of follow their undergrad degree, undergrad degrees, and then going out to get a job. So you've got to understand the formation, what happened before they got there. You've got to understand the trajectory afterwards, what happens after they leave you. And you've got to understand the context within which they're learning and being educated. And all of those are connected with almost everything on this list. Oh, yeah.
Sean: I mean, just right now, as you're saying that, I'm like, okay, so if that is just starting from there, I would say, okay, so grab some stuff out of the individualized everyday life of those uncertainties and push that against the population pyramid. Who are your students now and what would your students be in the future? How would you understand where they're coming from, what they're looking for, what they're needing? Again, not to say one is bad, good, or somewhere in between. Sure.
Andrew: But it's actually understanding it so you can make informed decisions.
Sean: You start to build those scenarios. And then from those scenarios, you can start to create or formulate a strategic actionable plans. If you want, you know, scenario three to come true, because that one seems beneficial to the stakeholders and me, you would ask rightfully questions like, how do we engage with backcasting technology, you know, processes to understand what would need to happen for that to come true? What are the, what are our escalation triggers?
Andrew: So it reminds me of a, of a mantra that, that I often came across and even used when I was working fairly heavily in environmental health and toxicology, which is you've got to respond to the world as it is, not how you think it should be. When you're looking at making decisions, don't get so lost in your fantasies that you say this is how the world should be, therefore I'm going to react as if it is. Because you'll end up in a complete and utter mess.
Sean: Yeah, typically. Well, and there's like, you know, to kind of steal a line from somewhere else, right, is like the world is under no obligation to make sense to you. Right, right. And so, and to think it does, is also that again, that's one of those dangerous things. And that's for people who are interested. That's one of the muscles that you work out heavily when you engage in futures work is the natural impulse is to base the projection of your future based on everything, you know, and are right. And the muscle that you have to develop is recognizing that and saying, cool, that's how I would like it to be. And then back up and then understand there's more to that. How could it really be? But it takes practice to do that. It really does, yes. And all the way up to organizations. A lot of organizations refuse to do that. They don't. And that's an interesting, maybe a topic for another time is also looking at this change. Another trend seeing too is that organizations that are engaging in futures work and processes and futures thinking are developing a much more resilience for that uncertainty than ones that are not.
Andrew: Not nearly as fragile.
Sean: You know, and so as things continue to roil and boil and heat up, like, you know, hey, there's one thing that, you know, as what's the line is the only thing constant is or the only constant is change or whatever it is. It's like same could be seen with uncertainty. The only thing you can guarantee is that there will be continued uncertainty. That's it. Yeah.
Andrew: So where are we? Do we want to do one more or do we want to wrap up? Do you got you got a hot one on your list? Actually, there's one that I want to see what it says. And I'm going to completely sort of change the tenor here and look at number seven, the biotech revolution. Oh, biotech, yes. This is something I've been involved with and following for, again, decades now. So I'm interested to see whether they're just looking at some trends that have been there for a while or whether there's something new coming up. And of course, this is one, actually, that integrates across a number of these others in surprising ways.
Sean: Yeah. So the biotech one is, let's see, let's go. So things that I think we'll kind of recognize, right?
Andrew: You're going to come up with fermentation here at some point.
Sean: I mean, bio-enhanced food production, I think would probably count as that, right? Precision fermentation. That's right, exactly. Genomics becoming the operating system of life's essentials. So again, thinking about the last, the WEF top 10 of thinking of, again, how can you leverage those? What was it called? Oh, what's the name of that protein thing that would have your DNA in it? Exome?
Andrew: Oh, the exome, yes.
Sean: But again, looking at all those ways of using the genetic information as a delivery system for medicines, for food production. I was thinking too, again, falling right in line with that is that ability to externally from life create proteins. So like for consumption, for food.
Andrew: Can you make cow without having a cow? And this is actually when you get to the precision fermentation. The idea that you take a microbe. Goodness me, my brain is addled. You take a microbe and you reprogram it to produce certain proteins, certain molecules. And you do that at scale. Which, of course, is a technology that's been around for a while. But now with everything coming together, you can do it with more precision and more scale than ever before. So this is effectively engineering biology to get it to do what we want it to do, rather than what evolution told it it should do.
Sean: Yep, absolutely. And again, right there, you can see the connection to the inverse, the pyramid, right? How people are living. If you can target things, medicine delivery, food production. I mean, how do you feed a population where the traditional methods of raising animal protein, for example, will be insufficient given population demands and all this kind of stuff?
Andrew: I thought you were going to go along the lines of how do you keep the old people alive longer? Because that's the problem.
Sean: Tell them about the synthetic cells. We've already had an episode about synthetic cells. We're creating artificial life. But yeah, and other subtrends in that category, bioengineering leading to more sustainable heat and fuels.
Andrew: Oh, very interesting. A lovely crossover there then with the green transition.
Sean: Yep, absolutely. Biological carbon sequ... I can never say this word. Sequestration. Sequestration. Yes. Emergence of biobased materials, right? So manufacturing. I will say, can I just add a plug in here for the best toy ever created, and I will fight anyone who wants to come at me with this, is Lego. And also just recognizing as a
Andrew: Okay, tell me how on earth you made that Lego. Because... So this is where we have a sponsored by Lego. Somehow you have a random connection with what we're talking about and Lego.
Sean: If that's all it took to get a trip to Billund, Denmark, to go visit the home, the motherland of Lego. But so even, so a company like Lego, so notoriously, these are plastic bricks, right? of the highest quality plastic bricks, I must add. Not like the cheap ripoffs. Exactly, that don't snap together. You know this, you know if you have Lego or not. But one of the things, so again, looking towards bio-based materials to replace plastics. So Lego has a whole line of, which of course is all, I love the meta approach to it. They have lots of like, if you've ever built a Lego set that has like little plastic trees and little plastic, like they're green bits. Those are made out of plant-based materials. They have a plant-based plastic that they are using. And other manufacturers are taking cue to that as well. Very interesting, yes. Of manufacturing things with a sort of a more sustainable or a plant-based, rather than using those traditional like petroleum-based plastics.
Andrew: We're gonna get vegan Lego kits.
Sean: Hey, you know what? You do, technically, I guess, right?
Andrew: But of course, this is part of the biotech revolution. It's this ability to utilize bio-based materials in increasingly sophisticated ways.
Sean: Yep, absolutely. And then you've got your bio-enhanced food production, and of course, AI enhancement of biotech innovation.
Andrew: So that mix right there. Which is potentially a game changer. I think we're just seeing the beginning of this at the moment. But as well, I mean, this actually goes back to some of my work from a number of years ago, talking about base coding. The idea that with digital systems, obviously you have control over the code. You can design systems how you want. With biology, it feels like it should be possible with DNA and RNA and the epigenome. But it's fiendishly difficult. This is a non-linear operating system and coding system. But with AI, we're beginning to work out how to crack that. So we can now effectively, I mean, I know this will have people sort of rolling their eyes who actually work in this area, but we're beginning to get to the point where we can code with the basics of biology in a way that we could never do as humans, because we've got AI that sees the world differently.
Sean: Yes. And also just with the, I mean, look, how long did, what would, do you know off the top of your head, how long it took us to crack the human genome?
Andrew: Oh, it was, it was decades. 20 years? 20 plus years? Yeah. And it depends when you sort of consider the end point. I'm sort of talking about 10 years plus, because even after 10 years, it wasn't complete.
Sean: And that's with scaling computing hardware, right?
Andrew: And it was stupidly expensive. So what it took, I don't want to put a figure out there, because I can't remember off the top of my head. Massive. Massive. But what it took sort of a decade plus to do, and gazillion dollars, you can now do with an off-the-shelf piece of kit in a matter of minutes. Yeah.
Sean: And what's crazy again, again, is also representing in there the complexity of what's in there. And also, you know, again, sorry, sorry, everybody. Our brains can't hold the many things they want. And so, but again, having that aid where, again, something like AI, where, again, it sees everything all at once in this different way of how, you know, it does, it's not...
Andrew: Everything everywhere all at once. This is AI.
Sean: That's right, you know? So, yeah, again, right? It is the devil and we its creators. I can't leave that alone. But yeah, no, I think, let's see. So we covered like what, four or five of them? We did. We did okay.
Andrew: I think we gave a big overview, but I would encourage people to actually download the report.
Sean: Absolutely.
Andrew: Can they download it?
Sean: They can. They can. It might require you to give over your email address, but it is otherwise free. Okay, great. And you can just Google it yourself. You could just literally type in CIFS, which is the acronym for Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies, and Megatrend, and you will find it. And, you know, I would also encourage you to look around for other ones. Again, these because of their size, their nature, megatrends typically are not published annually. They usually go in cadences of, you know, five, two, three years and so forth, just because even just as a publication, often there's not a lot that'll change. And so you risk that, you know, challenge of just publishing the exact same list every year for a while. So sometimes they don't change that often, but when they do, it's always a great opportunity to go grab. And usually what will happen, this will be my prediction, is we'll see a flood now of other ones come out because of, you know, again, when one notable organization puts one out, then suddenly I think we'll probably see a few more. It's quickly updated as well to make sure that they don't miss the party of everyone talking about it as well. But I'll put the link for it for certain in the show notes also so you can go there. For the very few people who actually dig into show notes, I mean, I'm guilty of that myself. I'd never look in show notes. But it is there for your reference in case you want to know. But I would encourage you to open up that one, but also search for some other megatrends. You know, our friends over at...
Andrew: Okay, resuming transmission.
Sean: You live by the YOLO, you die by the YOLO.
Andrew: So for anybody that's wondering what just happened there, You remember at the beginning of this episode when we were saying, I'm sure we've got enough space. Yeah.
Sean: I said, we have four hours.
Andrew: We certainly have enough. We got to the end of a fantastic recording and Sean looked at the deck and said, the light's green. Oh, no.
Sean: I think my exact words were, oh, no, the light's off. So the recording stopped.
Andrew: Thankfully, we got most of it.
Sean: Oh, except for the last, what you missed is the last three hours. Right.
Andrew: Oh, my goodness. But we're not going to replicate it. So we're just going to sign up.
Sean: We had wrapped it up. We just put the final bow on it. But I will say, I got exactly what I had coming to me when I said, eh, we'll just, what did I say? We're podcasting YOLO. And sure enough, man, well, now we learned. Or what we also learned is that according to the RodeCaster, one hour of us talking is four hours for the RodeCaster. That's too much for it to handle. Oh, my goodness. But also a reminder, hey, before you start recording something important, Why don't you clear off some of that memory and learn from Sean's sort of rookie mistakes?
Andrew: You need a little bit of futures thinking, Sean.
Sean: What could go wrong? Right. What could go wrong? Oh my goodness. Well, anyway. We should wrap this up. And I'm thinking all the way back to four hours ago, we had started the episode with our usual plugs, but why not for repetition? We'll revisit those. We'll add them back again. Because I would also be curious, if you're using megatrends or finding ones or you have your other favorites or whatever, just want to comment and chime in about how amazing the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies Megatrends report was, leave us a rating and review and let us know right there because you can do that. And it's open and everyone else can see it as well. But likewise, hey, if this was important to you or you thought something sparked a new interest there, share it with your friends. Again, pass it along. We love to grow our increasing network of listeners. Check us out in the Compass magazine if you have access to that. It's floating around. You can find snippets of it on LinkedIn and stuff like that as well. But yeah, and also don't forget to visit our website.
Andrew: Yep. modemfutura.com. And if you want a weekly reminder of episodes, just go to modemfutura.com/signup and sign up. And I can't stress enough, it is such an easy way to get those heads up. You don't need to sign in with any other service. And we won't bug you or spam you. We'll just give you a simple email reminder each week that there's a new episode to listen to. And you won't miss out on gold like this.
Sean: Have the plug pulled away from us, you know, right at the crescendo. But yeah, no, that's fantastic. Andrew, thanks again for always opening your home studio in our transition here and letting us make this magic.
Andrew: Always a pleasure, yes. Yeah, and of course, a reminder for people, just if you're looking at the video, just check out the background.
Sean: Yeah, always investigate. Always be investigating the backgrounds. So awesome. Well, that's it for us. And so we'll see everybody on the next episode of Modem Futura. We'll see you then.
Announcer: Demodulating signal. Modem Futura is a production of the Future of Being Human initiative at Arizona State University. Be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. To learn more about the Future of Being Human initiative and all of our other projects, please visit us on the web at futureofbeinghuman.asu.edu. End transmission.
Sean: Could have been a lot, lot worse.