Here's a little bombastic vision on what could be the most important social trend of this century.

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What if the world as we know it today isn't the end of history? The pen ultimate destination of human cultural evolution that eventually (likely sooner than later) collapses due to its own obesity. What if it is merely a stepping stone to something new? Something much better than the increasingly barren monoculture prone to increasingly frequent bouts of malfunction we live in today.

The idea that something new is possible is spreading. Most favorably, it is giving rise to a new type: the cultural entrepreneur.

For these people, the slow motion failure of the global system hasn't resulted in capitulation, depression, or isolation. They don't have a blind faith that things will auto-magically get better. In contrast, to these entrepreneurs, the failure of the global system is a call to arms. An open invitation to build something new. A better social and economic system and not merely another patch on a wheezing status quo.

For entrepreneurs of this type, the goal isn't isolation or withdrawal into the wilds to build communes or stock cabins with ammo. It also isn't about taking control of the current levers of power and of forcing compliance. A clue: it's not about bankrupt ideologies or the politics of the 20th Century.

Instead, this effort is about competition. It is to build new social and economic systems that can compete with the current political and economic monopolies and if successful, force them to compete in order to stay relevant. It's about building something new from the ground up, a start-up culture of independence and sanity, that attracts better participants and delivers more results than any other alternative.

The start-ups these entrepreneurs are building work within the current system and against it, growing in power with each cycle of innovation. They compete against each other to provide the best possible results, yet connect on a level that allows them to accelerate faster than if they were alone.

Sure, as with all start-ups, most will fail. Many will be horribly misguided. But some won't fail. Some will even work spectacularly well.

May the best solution win.

NOTE: This isn't an essay to convince you. If you think the status quo is the best of all possible systems, this likely isn't for you. However, if when the the current system eventually fails you or your kids, you might think differently.