The State of the World Today and Considering its Future Viewed from a Global Historical Perspective
Resumen
This article discusses the state of the world and its possible future seen from a global socio-ecological point of view. All our global changes can be described as processes that take place within the biosphere, the thin outer layer of Earth. Departing from William H. McNeill’s book The Pursuit of Power of 1982 it is argued that all human processes are driven by this pursuit, even though not all humans are pursuing power all the time. This is demonstrated by discussing two current violent conflicts: Palestine / Israel and Ukraine. Subsequently, major global trends are discussed, followed by an analysis of what the future may bring. Even though many specific processes can be forecast with some degree of reliability, the future as a whole is inherently unpredictable because there are too many interactions, many resulting from chance effects, while others are small yet with potentially large effects that may or may not happen. By further developing our theoretical model of society using the sociology of Norbert Elias as a starting point, it may be possible to formulate a general paradigm of human behavior for the humanities and the social sciences, in doing so seeking to produce more reliable knowledge of ourselves and our history as inhabitants of planet Earth.
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Derechos de autor 2025 Revista de Estudios Globales. Análisis Histórico y Cambio Social
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