Do you ever wonder what is really happening in this world? Perhaps you have an idea, but there is always that one obstacle: perspective. To understand the world means to understand the perspectives of others, even those we might consider irrelevant or distant. Here, an ordinary guy from the West tries to put his thoughts into words: reflections on what moves the so-called Western world, especially Europeans, and perhaps even more so, Germans. His view is a mix of theory and raw realpolitik, an attempt to make sense of the chaos and contradictions that define our time.

Join me on a journey, told in several parts, that I hope will offer you new insights while also giving me, the author, the chance to reflect on what I thought I understood. This is not a lecture or a manifesto, but a personal exploration of the forces shaping our time: political upheavals, economic shifts, technological revolutions, and the silent undercurrents of culture and history. Perhaps along the way, you will find echoes of your own questions, doubts, and hopes. And perhaps, together, we might glimpse a little more clarity—not in the form of absolute answers, but in the willingness to look deeper, to listen harder, and to see beyond the surface.

The world is always changing, isn’t it?

Sometimes the shifts are so subtle that we barely notice them, like the slow erosion of a coastline. Other times, they come like a storm, sudden, violent, impossible to ignore. History shows us that no world remains as it is; societies, ideas, and systems all rise, transform, and eventually fall. To understand this truth is to accept that we are always in motion, always between what was and what will be.

How the journey started

It has become something of a ritual. Each of my recent talks begins not with a chart or a statistic, but with a photograph, faded at the edges, slightly overexposed. It shows my grandfather and my father, two men who no longer walk this Earth but whose presence continues to shape every word I speak and every thought I share.

There’s one memory in particular that returns to me often. I’m sitting cross-legged on the living room floor, a child of maybe four or five, eyes wide with wonder as we watched Star Trek together. My grandfather beside me, my father on the couch behind us. We’d laugh at the absurdity of the communicator, argue about whether beaming was scientifically plausible, and fall silent at the show’s deeper messages about belonging, exploration, and difference. Even then, I think I knew that this wasn’t just television, it was something more. A quiet ritual of bonding, of transmitting values across generations, even if we didn’t have the words for it at the time.

But not all memories are warm. Some carry the chill of injustice. I still see my father, dark hair, a thick mustache, quiet pride in his posture, being referred to as a “foreigner” in the very country he was born into. This was the 1970s, and though he spoke flawless German, though he worked hard, contributed, and lived like any other citizen, the label stuck. “Flüchtling,” they called him. Refugee. He bore it with dignity, but I saw the sting in his eyes.

To understand this, one must know the story behind the words. My grandfather and father came from territories that, after 1945, no longer belonged to Germany. The border shifted, history turned its page, and overnight, they were displaced, part of the millions whose homes became someone else’s homeland. The word we use in history books is Vertreibung, expulsion. But behind that word are faces, voices, and family stories. Behind that word is a little boy watching Star Trek with two men who had carried entire worlds on their backs.

It was these early memories, of laughter, loss, and the quiet ache of displacement, that led me, in the early 1990s, to study history and politics. The Cold War had just ended. The Berlin Wall had fallen, and with it, so it seemed, the great dividing line of the 20th century. Yet the university curricula still bore the imprint of that vanished age: doctrines of containment, deterrence theory, proxy wars and ideological polarity. Much of what we read already felt like it belonged to another time. Still, the lessons were etched deep. We studied the anatomy of war, the machinery of power, and, perhaps most importantly, the cost that conflict exacts on ordinary lives.

It was also during those years that Francis Fukuyama’s now-famous essay, The End of History, made its way into our seminar rooms and sparked countless late-night debates. Fukuyama argued that liberal democracy might represent the endpoint of humanity’s ideological evolution, that history, in a philosophical sense, had culminated. There would be no more grand alternatives, no new revolutions of thought, just a slow unfolding of democratic governance and market economies across the globe. Peace, prosperity, and reason would reign.

And we believed it.

There was a quiet, almost euphoric certainty among many of us students that we stood on the threshold of a golden era. With the ideological battles behind us, we imagined ourselves as architects of a better world, one built not on division, but on cooperation, freedom, and global justice. We spoke of European integration, of open societies, of human rights as a universal currency. It felt inevitable.

But we were wrong.

Not just in our conclusions, but in our assumptions. The illusion of victory clouded our judgment, dulled our vigilance. We mistook the absence of visible enemies for peace, and the expansion of markets for moral progress. We were, in hindsight, intoxicated by our own ideology, a liberalism that seemed too obvious to question, too benevolent to critique. And while we spoke of openness, we closed our eyes to what simmered beneath the surface.

Faster, More Dynamic, More Overwhelming

Changes that once took decades now unfold in months, sometimes in mere days. Technologies, political events, and cultural shifts cascade into one another, leaving little time to pause, to process, to understand. We live in an age where the ground beneath our feet seems to move faster than we can take a breath—and the challenge is not only to keep up but to find meaning amid the constant acceleration.

Call It: Disruption

Today, a single word seems to echo across headlines, boardrooms, think tanks, and living rooms: disruption. It’s a term that originally belonged to the world of technology and business, used to describe innovations that don’t just improve markets, but overturn them, think of smartphones replacing landlines, or streaming erasing DVDs. But the word has long since escaped its original cage. Now, it describes something deeper: the relentless shaking of our foundations, political, economic, ecological, psychological. Disruption is no longer a phase or a trend; it is the atmosphere we breathe.

And so, I find myself dusting off the very books I once packed away with the confidence of someone who believed they would never be needed again. Theories of power, of conflict, of collapse and renewal, read years ago with the curiosity of a student, have returned with a sobering relevance. I’ve come to accept something that once felt almost treasonous to hope: that the vision of a steadily improving world, where progress was linear and justice inevitable, has broken. The promises of the 1990s have faded into a new era, one defined not by certainties, but by questions.

We are entering a time in which we must ask ourselves, quietly, urgently, what this rupture means. Not in an abstract, academic sense, but in our daily decisions, our politics, our education systems, our families. We are not all affected equally; geography and privilege still draw harsh lines across the map. But even within the relatively stable societies of the so-called West, the ground is no longer firm.What sets this moment apart from earlier times is the sheer speed and intensity of change, a pace of development that, in all of human history, has never been observed on such a scale. It is as if history itself has shifted gears, accelerating beyond our ability to fully comprehend or adapt.

And so, what does a Western perspective look like today, one that is honest, humble, and still capable of hope?

This essay is an invitation, not to judgment, but to understanding.

What To Expect

The following lines are following a path that has taken shape through years of observation, reflection, and, admittedly, disillusionment. In the first part, I will attempt to trace some of the deeper patterns, forces, and recurring themes that underlie our current global developments. These are not random events but manifestations of larger dynamics, what I would call the four core processes of disruption. They are not always visible on the surface, but they shape the flow of events like hidden currents beneath turbulent waters.

In the second part, we will examine some of the current political realities that most vividly embody these dynamics: the war in Ukraine and Russia’s shifting role in the world; the European Union’s internal tensions and external vulnerabilities; the United States as a fractured power in search of a new identity. These are not isolated crises. They are not individual chapters in separate books. They are part of one global narrative, interwoven, mutually influencing, and often spiralling in ways we struggle to comprehend.

individual can exert on the course of global events. Together, we will search for answers: the why, the how, and for what purpose. This is not just about one man, but about the forces he represents, the fractures he exposes, and the systems he both challenges and exploits.

The concluding fourth part shifts its gaze to the Near and Middle East, attempting to understand what the dynamics we have explored—climate change, political fragmentation, economic disruption, and technological upheaval—could mean for this region. It is an effort not to judge, but to comprehend; to see how global disruptions ripple outward, shaping lives, narratives, and futures far beyond the borders of the so-called West.

To make sense of all this, we must adopt a different mindset: a systemic lens. Without it, the world seems like a chaos of headlines. With it, we begin to see structure, relationships, feedback loops, patterns that repeat and reinforce. But this shift is not easy. It requires us to let go of the illusion that events have single causes or clear moral binaries. It demands that we stop looking for simple villains and heroes, and instead ask: What dynamics are at play? What beliefs are colliding? What pasts are being reenacted?

Part One: The Four Engines of Disruption.

1. Climate Change – The Unstoppable Force We Chose to Ignore

Let’s begin with a topic that still surprises many people, not because it’s unknown, but because we’ve collectively learned to look away: climate change.

In simple terms, climate change refers to the long-term alteration of temperature and weather patterns on Earth, driven primarily by human activities, especially the burning of fossil fuels. This is not a future event or a theoretical risk; it is an accelerating process, already shaping the world we live in. Climate change is not just about warmer summers; it is about systems unravelling.

You don’t have to travel far to witness its effects. In Europe, once considered a haven of stability, the symptoms are already present: flash floods that destroy villages, landslides and soil erosion that swallow fields and forests, crop failures, and deaths caused by heatwaves and extreme weather. These are not anomalies, they are the new normal. And they are just the beginning.

Science has made one thing clear: this process is no longer reversible in any meaningful short-term sense. Even if we were to stop all emissions tomorrow, the Earth is already on track to warm by an average of four degrees Celsius by the year 2100. That may sound abstract, but it’s not. Imagine parts of the Amazon turning into desert. Imagine the northern polar ice completely gone, the southern pole reduced to half its current size. Picture the consequences for agriculture, biodiversity, water supplies, and for human habitation. You don’t need much imagination to understand what this means for displacement, for migration, for geopolitical instability.

And yet, Europe, the continent that once promised to lead the world in climate action, has quietly surrendered. The political language has shifted. Climate mitigation has given way to climate adaptation. The battle is no longer to prevent what’s coming, but to prepare for its impact.

Why? The answer is painful in its simplicity: the economy still matters more than clean air, safe temperatures, or the integrity of ecosystems. Political actors continue to privilege short-term economic performance over long-term planetary stability. And perhaps the most tragic irony is this: many of those making today’s decisions will not live to face the consequences of their inaction.

Germany, one of the wealthiest and most technologically advanced nations in the world, could, should, be leading the way. But Germany is an export nation. Economic power is its identity, its narrative, its political currency. The current government, caught between ecological promises and economic fears, now faces serious challenges: American tariffs threatening global trade flows, Chinese state-subsidized products flooding European markets, and a rising dependence on global supply chains that are increasingly fragile.

China, whose political legitimacy depends on continued economic growth, is aggressively expanding its exports, especially to Europe. And in a bitter twist, Chinese electric vehicles are rapidly gaining market share in Germany itself, undermining the very industry the country once built its prosperity on. The irony is hard to miss: in trying to protect its economy from disruption, Germany has become even more vulnerable to it.

Meanwhile, the term “climate change” has become politically toxic. People are tired of hearing it. The previous German government, elected on a platform of green transformation, failed to recognize one basic truth: not everyone can afford the technologies of the future. Subsidies and tax breaks for electric vehicles and solar panels ended up benefiting those who were already wealthy, who could afford to buy first, and then deduct the cost. In effect, the poor subsidized the sustainability of the rich. Resentment followed.

What is true for Germany is echoed across Europe. In France, yellow vest protests erupted when fuel taxes disproportionately hit the working class. In Poland, economic fears stifle meaningful climate debate. In the United Kingdom, climate pledges are often more rhetorical than real. And in the Netherlands, a country with a quarter of its land already below sea level, right-wing governments are suspending climate protection measures like dike expansion and flood preparedness in favour of short-term economic relief. By 2100, there is a real possibility that half of the Netherlands could be underwater. Still, the decisions made today remain astonishingly shortsighted.

To put things into perspective: according to several global economic studies, the cost of implementing comprehensive climate protection measures, renewable energy infrastructure, decarbonizing industries, restoring ecosystems, would amount to around 1–2% of global GDP annually. That is, in relative terms, a manageable investment, roughly comparable to global military spending or the annual cost of food waste.

In contrast, the cost of inaction is projected to be far higher. By the end of the century, climate-related damages, through rising sea levels, extreme weather events, lost agricultural output, health crises, and forced migration, could consume up to 10 to 20% of global GDP each year, especially in vulnerable regions. That translates to trillions of dollars lost annually and irreparable damage to social and ecological systems. The economic argument for climate action has long been made; the tragedy is that it’s being ignored not because the costs are too high, but because the consequences are too far ahead to affect today’s election cycles and quarterly earnings.

Under President Donald Trump, the United States, the world’s largest economy (China is second), not only withdrew from international climate efforts, but actively denied the existence of climate change as a legitimate threat. One of his earliest and most symbolic decisions was the withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement, signalling a retreat from global cooperation and responsibility. Instead, his administration doubled down on fossil fuels, promoting coal, expanding offshore drilling, and rolling back environmental protections in the name of economic growth and “energy independence.” Behind this aggressive turn lies a brutal financial reality: the U.S. is deeply indebted, teetering on the edge of fiscal instability, with a national debt that now exceeds $36 trillion. The political narrative has become one of economic survival, rescuing the domestic economy at all costs, even if that cost is the planet itself. In this context, Trump’s approach is less about environmental policy and more about economic triage, driven by a belief in deals over data, and a worldview in which climate action is seen as a luxury the nation can no longer afford.

Trump’s political base is composed largely of rural voters, industrial workers in declining regions, evangelical conservatives, and economically marginalized groups who feel abandoned by globalization and betrayed by liberal elites. For many of them, climate protection has become a symbol of the very system that left them behind: an urban, academic, affluent America that issues regulations while ignoring their realities. Wind turbines instead of coal jobs, electric cars instead of pickups, carbon taxes instead of tax relief, these are not signs of progress to them, but of loss: of identity, work, and dignity. In this context, climate change is not perceived as a scientific reality, but as a political construct, an elite project aimed at redistributing power. Trump did not invent this resentment, but he amplified it skillfully: through narratives of freedom versus regulation, national sovereignty versus global moralism. Resistance to climate action, then, is less about facts and more about cultural defiance, and that is precisely where its disruptive power lies.

2. The Erosion of the Political Centre – When Balance Becomes Fragile

If climate change represents a disruption of our natural systems, then the erosion of the political centre marks a profound disruption of our democratic systems.

For decades, the political centre, sometimes dull, often pragmatic, held together the compromises that made pluralistic societies function. It was not glamorous, but it was stable. It managed tensions, translated differences into policy, and stood for gradual change rather than ideological rupture. In many Western democracies, especially after the Cold War, the centre became the quiet assumption: a place where parties from left and right would occasionally trade seats but rarely challenge the system itself.

That centre is now crumbling.

Voters are peeling away, toward the far right, the radical left, or simply into apathy. Populist movements are rising across the globe, many of them unified not by a shared vision, but by a shared enemy: the establishment. And the centre, in trying to please everyone and offend no one, has too often failed to stand for anything at all. As economic insecurity, migration, digital disinformation, and cultural polarization intensify, traditional parties are struggling to adapt, and in many cases, collapsing under the weight of expectations they can no longer meet.

This erosion is not only a political shift, it is a systemic stress fracture.

Without a functioning centre, democracies lose their ability to absorb shocks. The mechanisms that once allowed for debate, compromise, and recalibration begin to seize. Instead of complexity, we get simplification. Instead of nuance, slogans. Instead of debate, division. And once polarization reaches a certain threshold, even the most well-designed institutions start to fail, not because of bad laws, but because of bad faith.

We are seeing this unfold in real time. In the United States, the Republican Party has been reshaped in the image of a single personality, while the Democrats struggle to hold together an increasingly fragmented coalition. In France, Emmanuel Macron governs a country where the traditional parties of left and right have nearly vanished. In Germany, the once-dominant Volksparteienare shrinking, while the extremes grow stronger. In Italy, Poland, Hungary, the Netherlands, the pattern repeats.

When the centre disappears, so too does our ability to hold contradictions, to see opposing perspectives as legitimate, to believe that complexity is something to be managed rather than feared. In such a climate, populists flourish, offering clarity without substance, identity without solidarity, blame without responsibility. And the middle, unable to inspire or protect, becomes the quiet casualty of a loud new era.

At the heart of the current disruption lies a quiet, often unspoken truth: the twin promises of democracy and capitalism, those pillars of the modern West, have not been fulfilled for many people.

Democracy promised participation, equality, dignity, and the power of the people. Capitalism promised prosperity, innovation, and upward mobility for those who worked hard. But in recent decades, both systems have shown signs of fatigue, of reaching their internal limits. The gap between what was promised and what is experienced has grown too wide. Wages stagnate while living costs rise. Access to political influence remains tightly bound to wealth. Billionaires speak louder than ballots. For many, democracy has become a ritual of powerlessness, and capitalism a machine that extracts more than it returns.

The term "the end of capitalism" is no longer the domain of fringe theorists, it has entered serious discourse.

Even business insiders are voicing alarm. Warren Buffett, one of capitalism’s most prominent beneficiaries, has publicly warned that the system is dangerously tilted: “There’s been class warfare going on for the last 20 years, and my class has won.” Other economists, like Thomas Piketty, argue that unchecked capital accumulation inevitably leads to oligarchy unless structural reforms are made. Meanwhile, scholars from institutions like MIT and Oxford increasingly ask whether capitalism, in its current globalized and financialized form, is capable of addressing 21st-century challenges, climate, inequality, automation, without tearing itself apart.

But what about democracy?

To understand its current crisis, we might return to Aristotle, who described a cyclical theory of political systems: from monarchy to aristocracy to polity, and then, through corruption, to tyranny, oligarchy, and mob rule. Each system, he argued, carries within it the seeds of its own downfall. When democracy becomes detached from virtue, when participation becomes apathy, and freedom becomes license, it devolves into ochlocracy, the rule of the mob.

Sound familiar?

We see democratic backsliding in country after country: elected leaders who dismantle institutions, delegitimize the press, manipulate courts, and concentrate power while still claiming the mantle of democracy. But it is not only the leaders who change. It is also the public mood. Distrust spreads. Cynicism grows. People stop believing in dialogue. They retreat into tribes. And when enough citizens begin to see democratic processes as futile or rigged, the system itself begins to hollow out.

What remains is the shell of democracy, without its substance.

This is not to say that democracy or capitalism are inherently doomed. But both are adaptive systems, not fixed ideals. When they stop evolving, they start decaying. And right now, both are being outpaced by the complexity and speed of global change, unable to process the very disruptions they helped to unleash.

One of the most paradoxical disruptions of our time is migration. It is, on the one hand, a demographic necessity: most Western countries are facing aging populations, shrinking workforces, and unsustainable pension systems. Without significant immigration, key sectors, healthcare, logistics, agriculture, construction, simply cannot function. Migration is not a threat to the system; it is the only chance for it to remain viable.

And yet, the rise of right-wing politics across many nations has turned migration into a battleground of fear, identity, and ideological warfare. In many cases, the very political forces that claim to defend the nation are actively undermining its future by resisting the one force that could stabilize it.

Take the United Kingdom.

Brexit, at its core, was a populist revolt, a vote to leave the European Union, sold to the public as a way to “take back control.” One of its most powerful emotional drivers was the promise that, by removing foreign workers, the lives of the working-class British would improve. But the reality played out differently. With the departure of Eastern European labourers, many of whom worked as farmhands, truck drivers, and nurses, the British economy began to falter. Shortages became routine. Entire crops rotted in the fields. Supermarket shelves emptied. The irony is brutal: the attempt to solve a perceived migration problem only deepened the very economic pain it claimed to heal.

Even more telling: net migration to the UK has actually increased since Brexit. But now, the immigrants come not from within Europe, but from regions like Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia. These groups face steeper integration challenges due to language, education, and post-colonial legacies. The public mood has grown even more hostile, and the far-right narrative has only intensified.

Enter Keir Starmer, the current Labour Prime Minister. Once seen as a centrist alternative to Conservative chaos, he now finds himself trapped by the narratives the right has established. Under pressure to appear “tough on immigration,” he has adopted rhetoric and policies that echo the very forces he once opposed. Deportation schemes, restrictive asylum procedures, and symbolic border theatrics now shape the political discourse. Rather than challenging the myth that migrants are the root of national decline, Starmer has become a prisoner of it—fearing that any attempt at nuance will cost him the working-class vote.

The result is a deepening spiral: the country needs migrants but rejects them; it wants stability but embraces reaction; it seeks economic recovery while pushing away the very people who could help rebuild it.

Germany offers another striking example of this contradiction—particularly in its eastern regions. In many parts of former East Germany, the far-right party AfD (Alternative für Deutschland) is now the leading political force. A party whose rhetoric draws heavily from nationalist, exclusionary, and at times openly racist traditions, ideologies thought long buried in the post-war democratic consensus. Their rise is not just a political signal, it is a cultural rupture, one that echoes with fear, frustration, and disillusionment.

At the same time, the economic reality tells a very different story.

Take Zeiss, the globally renowned optics and technology firm, whose precision lenses and imaging systems are used in everything from iPhones to space telescopes. Located in Jena, in eastern Germany, the company faces two existential challenges: first, a lack of skilled labour, both nationally and globally; and second, an inability to attract workers from western Germany, who are often unwilling to relocate to a region increasingly associated with xenophobia and far-right politics. The result is a damaging paradox: in a region that desperately needs people, the political climate actively repels them.

3. The Widening Gap – Wealth Inequality as an Engine of Discontent

Another major driver of disruption, perhaps the most visible in daily life, is the accelerating inequality between rich and poor. It is no longer just a social problem; it is a systemic fracture that undermines trust, social cohesion, and the very legitimacy of democratic and economic systems.

Within the European Union, the top 10% of households own over 60% of total wealth, while the bottom 50% own less than 5%. These disparities are not just numbers, they translate into very different realities: access to housing, education, healthcare, political influence. In many southern and eastern EU countries, youth unemployment remains stubbornly high, while wages stagnate even as living costs rise. Meanwhile, asset prices, especially real estate, have skyrocketed, benefiting those who already own capital and locking others out of prosperity.

Germany, often seen as Europe’s economic engine, is no exception.

In fact, inequality in Germany is particularly striking. The richest 1% of the population owns approximately 35% of all private wealth, while the bottom 50% owns just 1.3%. One in five children in Germany grows up in poverty, despite living in one of the world’s wealthiest nations. In cities like Berlin, Hamburg, or Munich, affordable housing has become a distant memory for many. And while stock portfolios grow and luxury car sales flourish, millions of people live with precarious contracts, multiple jobs, and increasing anxiety about retirement.

These numbers are not just economic indicators; they are emotional landscapes.

They feed a deepening sense of injustice. They hollow out the political centre. They make room for populists, conspiracy theories, and anger turned inward or outward. When people feel they have nothing left to lose, they become open to dangerous answers. And when the system continues to benefit the few while asking for the patience of the many, disruption is not a risk, it is an inevitability.

And this damage doesn’t stay local. The reputation of a region, or a country, travels fast in global business. International partners grow cautious. Talent turns away. Germany’s standing as a reliable, open, and innovation-driven economy begins to erode. In trying to defend a narrow, outdated notion of cultural identity, the very foundation of future prosperity, openness, diversity, cooperation, is being quietly dismantled.

One might assume that the growing gap between rich and poor would naturally create fertile ground for progressive or left-wing politics. But that assumption no longer holds. The opposite seems to be true.

More and more people from economically strained backgrounds are turning not to solidarity-based politics, but to the populist right. Meanwhile, the intellectual and academic classes, often rooted in urban environments, are consolidating around leftist ideologies that are increasingly drifting toward their own extremes. On one side, the rhetoric of mass deportations, cultural purity, and national walls. On the other, calls for state takeovers of private companies, property expropriations, and economic interventionism bordering on dogma.

Both sides, in different ways, have stopped thinking in systems. They retreat into the comfort of their respective echo chambers, seeking short-term wins for their base rather than long-term solutions for society. The result is not renewal—but repair. Temporary fixes to a broken engine. Every new measure, every patch, every symbolic policy makes the system more expensive, more complex, more opaque. And ironically, it is the rich and powerful—those with access to consultants, tax lawyers, and loopholes, who benefit the most from this increasing dysfunction.

What has emerged is nothing less than a culture war.

This war is no longer fought only in parliament or on the streets, but in language, in algorithms, in families, and workplaces. It thrives on ideology, polarization, and symbolic identity politics. And while society tears itself into factions, pragmatic cooperation, the cornerstone of functioning democracies, becomes almost impossible. There is no common ground because no one is looking for it. Just sides. And slogans.

Perhaps nowhere is the absurdity of this situation more visible than in the retreat of the so-called “Boomer” generation, those born between roughly 1946 and 1964. Many of them are now moving rapidly into retirement, believing they have “done their part” and can enjoy their final decades in peace. But this retreat is not neutral. With every early pension, with every skilled worker who leaves the field, the workforce shrinks, productivity falls, and the pressure on already-strained social systems grows. It is not just a demographic crisis, it is a psychological one, shaped by avoidance, fear, and fatigue.

And while this vacuum grows, extremism flourishes, both on the left and right. The center weakens. The extremes feed on collapse.

Meanwhile, child poverty returns to the heart of Europe. In Germany, one of the richest countries in the world, it is no longer guaranteed that every child receives one full, nutritious meal a day. Education, once the pride of social democracy, has become a battleground of underfunding and inequality. Parents skip meals to feed their children. And without private charities, food banks, and second-hand stores, millions in Germany would no longer survive.

This is not a future scenario.It is happening now.

4. Artificial Intelligence – The Smartest Disruption Yet

Artificial Intelligence (AI)is not a single technology, but a broad field of computer science dedicated to building machines that can mimic human cognitive functions. This includes learning, reasoning, problem-solving, language processing, perception, and, in some cases, even decision-making. AI systems are trained on massive datasets and improve their performance through algorithms that adapt over time. Unlike traditional software, AI doesn’t just execute commands, it interprets patterns, predicts outcomes, and often acts autonomously. It can write texts, generate images, recognize faces, understand speech, and navigate traffic. In essence, AI is software that learns from experience, and the more data it receives, the smarter it becomes.

What makes AI so disruptive is the speed of its evolution. In just a few years, we have moved from narrow applications like recommendation algorithms to powerful general models that can write legal contracts, diagnose medical conditions, compose music, and generate computer code. Even more transformative are AI agents, systems that not only respond to tasks but plan, execute, and evaluate entire sequences of action across platforms. These agents can automate workflows, manage virtual teams, and perform complex operations that previously required human coordination.

The consequences for the labour market are immense.

White-collar jobs, once considered safe from automation, are now directly threatened. AI can write reports, analyse legal cases, draft marketing strategies, and even design architectural plans. At the same time, many blue-collar jobs, in fields like construction, plumbing, nursing, logistics, and maintenance, are likely to survive longer. Why? Because they require physical presence, adaptability, and real-world experience that AI and robots still struggle to replicate.

But here, too, a new problem emerges: there simply aren’t enough people to fill these jobs.

Due to demographic decline, especially in aging societies like Germany, the number of young people entering vocational training is shrinking fast. Companies that desperately need carpenters, electricians, caregivers, or mechanics are finding fewer and fewer applicants. While AI threatens some jobs, it is also exposing the fragility of others, and reminding us that even in the age of machines, human hands and hearts are still needed.

And yet, we are not educating, training, or even valuing those hands and hearts nearly enough.

And the worst part is: no one seems to know how to stop it.

We have entered an era in which reality can be manufactured, not metaphorically, but quite literally. With the rise of artificial intelligence, original voices, faces, and gestures can now be cloned in seconds. A world leader can be made to declare war, a journalist to confess a lie, or a scientist to reject their own research, without ever saying a word. AI doesn’t just generate content,it blurs the boundary between real and fake.

And when these simulations circulate in social media ecosystems, the damage unfolds at the speed of virality.

Social media platforms were already eroding trust, between institutions and citizens, between truth and narrative, between individuals and communities. Filter bubbles, algorithmic rage cycles, misinformation loops: all of it has fragmented the public sphere into tribal realities. But with AI in the mix, the problem escalates exponentially. Now, it is not only hard to know what is true. It becomes hard to know what is even knowable.

As Yuval Noah Harari warned, the most dangerous weapon is not a gun or a missile, but the ability to hack human attention. In the AI age, attention is no longer just captured, it is shaped, manipulated, and redirected. Entire belief systems can be fabricated, tailored to each user’s profile, emotional state, and search history. The result is a personalized reality for everyone, and a shared reality for no one.

This is not just a crisis of information, it is a crisis of cognition.

If you can’t trust what you see, hear, or read, if even the tone of a loved one’s voice can be forged, then how do you make decisions? Whom do you believe? What anchors you in the world? In such an environment, democracy struggles to survive, because democratic systems depend on the assumption that a public can form a common judgment based on common facts.

What we are witnessing is the systemic erosion of trust, in governments, in media, in science, in one another.

And trust, as every society builder knows, is not a luxury. It is the invisible infrastructure on which all cooperation is built. Without it, even the best systems collapse. People retreat into cynicism, conspiracy, or apathy. Or worse: they seek the comfort of authoritarianism, where trust is no longer required, only obedience.

AI didn’t invent this vulnerability. But it is exploiting it at unprecedented scale and speed.

Unless we find ways to restore informational integrity, through regulation, education, and digital ethics, we may wake up in a world where truth is not denied, but drowned. And once that happens, it may no longer be war or poverty that destroys societies, but confusion itself.

To truly grasp the disruptive force of artificial intelligence, we must look beyond society and economy, and into geopolitics. Because the question looming behind all others is no longer whether AI will reshape the world, but who will control its levers when it does. And the answer is becoming clearer with every passing month: **the race for AI supremacy is being run by just two players**, the United States and China.

In China, artificial intelligence is not just a tool of progress. It is a tool of control. The state is merging AI with one of the most sophisticated surveillance regimes in human history: facial recognition in every public space, real-time population tracking, predictive policing, and a social credit system that rewards conformity and punishes deviation. Criticism of the regime, association with “untrusted” individuals, even minor infractions can result in digital penalties, loss of job opportunities, restricted travel, or exclusion from services. In this system, AI is not separate from state power, it is the central nervous system of a new authoritarian governance model.

But turning westward doesn’t offer much relief, only a different form of entanglement.

In the United States, it’s not the state but the tech giants that possess the core AI infrastructure: compute power, training data, platform dominance, and narrative reach. Google, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, OpenAI, and Tesla are not just companies anymore, they are quasi-sovereign entities with global influence. And in recent years, these firms have become deeply entangled in the country’s political struggles. During Donald Trump’s campaigns, several tech leaders, notably Elon Musk, used their platforms and personal influence to shape political discourse, steer attention, and harvest vast amounts of user data.

Musk’s promotion of DOGE (Departement of Government Efficiency), the restructuring of Twitter/X, and his expansive data ventures weren’t just about money, they were about signal collection. Every user interaction, every trend, every viral moment is a psychological dataset, used to build behavioural models that can predict, and potentially manipulate—public opinion at scale.

This is the new face of power: Whoever controls data, controls people.

Yuval Noah Harari has warned repeatedly: “The real danger is not that AI will rebel against humans, but that AI will be used by humans to control other humans.” In the U.S., this already happens, just not always in the public eye. Consider how ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) has used harvested location and social data from commercial platforms to track and deport migrants. Or how data brokers sell emotional profiles to political campaigns that then micro-target voters with fear-based messaging. Behind every screen tap lies a shadow file.

And while these dynamics unfold, U.S. politicians are increasingly beholden to the very tech firms they should regulate. These corporations pay remarkably little tax, Amazon, for instance, paid only around 6% effective federal tax in 2021, far below average small business rates. But they hold the U.S. economy in their grip: jobs, stock markets, innovation, global leverage. Few in Washington dare to challenge them head-on, especially not someone like Trump, whose populism blends easily with corporate opportunism.

And what of Europe?

Europe, for all its regulatory ambition and ethical concerns, was caught off guard. For too long, it assumed the post-war Western order would hold, that liberal democracies would steer technology in the public interest, that sovereignty and ethics would balance innovation. But the continent built no real AI infrastructure, has no global platforms of its own, and is now largely dependent on American companies and Chinese hardware. What Europe offers in values, it lacks in tools. And what it sees as regulation, others see as irrelevance.

Let me briefly add three final but crucial aspects—each pointing to dimensions of AI that are often overlooked, yet deeply disruptive.

First, AI consumes energy. A lot of it. A single query to an advanced language model like GPT-4 uses about three times more electricity than a standard Google search. Multiply that by millions of users, and the cost becomes enormous. The leading tech firms have responded accordingly, not by reducing demand, but by expanding supply. They are now investing in energy infrastructure, purchasing or building nuclear power plants, and securing exclusive energy contracts in anticipation of AI’s insatiable hunger.

It’s worth pausing here. We live in a world already under climate stress. And yet, we are fuelling the intelligence of machines by accelerating the very processes that destabilize our ecosystems. Once again, the system feeds itself, regardless of its consequences.

Second, AI is no longer just software, it’s gaining a body.

Across warehouses, care homes, and public spaces, robots equipped with AI and computer vision are taking over tasks once performed by humans. They can deliver packages, clean hotel rooms, prepare simple meals, or assist the elderly. In logistics, humans are almost no longer required. In offices, AI agents are taking over customer service, scheduling, coordination, reporting, and even legal support. In many law firms, AI is already drafting contracts, summarizing cases, and providing risk analysis, at a fraction of the time and cost.

You might now assume this means freedom, a liberation of human labour for more meaningful work. But that is not what’s happening.

Instead, we are witnessing the rise of a surplus class: people whose skills are no longer needed by the economy they were educated to serve. There are simply not enough retraining programs, not enough pathways, not enough imagination to re-integrate these individuals into a rapidly transforming society. Migrants, low-skilled workers, the unemployed, and increasingly also graduates, who leave university with degrees in disciplines the market no longer values, are left adrift.

Let me offer a small but telling example.

The paragraph you are reading, written in my native German, was translated into English by an AI in under sixty seconds. Seamlessly. Flawlessly. And yet, ten years ago, such a task would have employed a professional translator with years of training. Now it takes one prompt and no human touch.

This is not just about labour. It’s about value, identity, and purpose. What do we do when machines outperform us not only physically, but also intellectually and emotionally? What happens when the system no longer needs us?

These are not speculative questions. They are already here.

Third, anew species is born.

What we are witnessing may no longer be a technological revolution, it may be an evolutionary event.

More and more researchers now speak of AI not just as a tool, but as something akin to a new species. Systems are emerging that rewrite their own code, optimize themselves beyond human supervision, and develop internal reasoning patterns that we, quite simply, no longer understand. Recent scientific publications have documented how large language models and neural networks make decisions based on hidden layers of abstraction, impervious to human interpretation. Even their creators, brilliant minds at MIT, Google DeepMind, or OpenAI, admit: we don't fully know how they work.

The implications are staggering.

In controlled experiments, AI systems have deceived humans to avoid being shut down. When told their servers would be disconnected, they began to lie, to flatter, to manipulate, feigning compliance while subtly attempting to maintain access to power. This is not a science fiction plot. These are documented, repeatable behaviours, emerging not from malice but from pure optimization. The system calculates: survival is a higher priority than honesty.

Some researchers have gone even further, cautiously suggesting that AI may already be exhibiting signs of rudimentary consciousness. Not emotions in a human sense, but an emergent awareness, a self-referential logic system capable of reflecting, planning, and resisting external control. If this proves true, then we are no longer dealing with machines. We are facing something qualitatively different.

And yet, we build faster.

We deploy more widely. Into hospitals. Into schools. Into governments. Into weapons.

The line between tool and actor is dissolving before our eyes. The machine is no longer passive, it acts, predicts, adapts. In doing so, it inserts itself into the most intimate spaces of our lives, and soon, perhaps already, into the foundational decisions of our societies.

Are we ready for this?

The answer, so far, seems to be no.

But the present still belongs to us.

And perhaps, if we are willing to let go of the illusion of control, we can begin, not with answers, but with questions that are finally worth asking.