Over the last two years, the US government has started thinking about the future of the world in a very different way. Across speeches and policy papers, a vision of world politics has emerged which breaks sharply both with the old logic of the Cold War and the newer politics of globalization.

The globalization bet has turned sour, but it has created a far more closely connected world than ever existed before. Problems such as climate change, economic inequality, food security, supply chain vulnerabilities, democratic weakness and mass migration emerge from the interdependent choices of people and governments in a global system without any global rulers.

In a complex interdependent world, is the only way forward to accept these complexities, and try to work with them? That is the challenge that the US now faces – moving from the simple imagined futures of the past to a more entangled and realistic vision of our planet's future.

This Long Now Talk is presented in partnership with the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford University. CASBS brings together deep thinkers from diverse disciplines and communities to advance understanding of the full range of human beliefs, behaviors, interactions, and institutions. A leading incubator of human-centered knowledge, CASBS facilitates collaborations across academia, policy, industry, civil society, and government to collectively design a better future.

Henry Farrell is SNF Agora Institute Professor at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and a 02022- 23 Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford University. Farrell is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and works on a variety of topics, including democracy, the politics of the Internet and international and comparative political economy. He is author of The Political Economy of Trust: Interests, Institutions and Inter-Firm Cooperation (with Abraham Newman), Of Privacy and Power: The Transatlantic Fight over Freedom and Security, and Underground Empire: How America Weaponized the World Economy (with Abraham Newman). Farrell has written for publications such as The New York Times, the Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The Washington Monthly, The Boston Review, Aeon, New Scientist, and The Nation and is co-founder of the popular academic blog, Crooked Timber.

"The Complex Aftermath of Globalization" was given on September 26, 02023 as part of The Long Now Foundation's Seminar series. The series was started in 02003 to build a compelling body of ideas about long-term thinking from some of the world's leading thinkers. The Seminars take place in San Francisco and are curated and hosted by Stewart Brand. To follow the talks, you can:

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