94. Unless We Adapt We Go Extinct – Bronwyn Williams

In this second Mind the Shift conversation with futurist and trend analyst Bronwyn Williams, we zoom in on population, Africa, money and what it is to be a human.

(Unfortunately, we had a bit of bad luck with the audiovisual tech during our call, apologies for that.)

Bronwyn communicates intelligently and with a high level of energy, which makes her flow of thoughts and information dense. You are well advised to listen more than once to what she has to say.

When people talk about the future, we are often distracted by shiny new things and concepts. There are so many signals. Asking three basic questions can help us slow down and focus, says Bronwyn: What? So what? What now?

”When we question the signals consciously, we can stop being so reactive to this constant stimulus and make conscious choices, which makes us more future fit.”

The future is a paradoxical fantasy: it is a place we can never arrive at, but at the same time we are always arriving at it.

”The present is all that matters, but the actions we take are moving us in a certain direction”, says Bronwyn.

”Change is a constant in the universe. You are going to go extinct unless you adapt to changes.”

Bronwyn Williams has strong opinions about the still very common doom and gloom narrative around population growth:

”Who are those surplus people? It’s a rather nasty utilitarian, almost eugenicist, angle to say there's too many people. We have to call that behavior out.”

”What they are saying is that there are too many of some other sort of people they don’t like. It’s nationalistic, almost fascist. There is plenty of space.”

”Who do we think are going to solve the problems of the future? Those of us that are already here? Not likely, right? Every new person who is born is a sort of lottery ticket”, she says.

Even Africa is actually still sparsely populated, not least compared to Western Europe.

Will Africa enjoy a demographic dividend, like Asia did? Possibly. But there is a chance that Africa will end up with a large youthful population that is unable to work, in other words unable to take advantage of the demographic shift.

One main reason for this predicament is the unfairness of the global economy, according to Bronwyn Williams.

Asia came of age at the tail end of industrialization, whereas Africa is coming of age in the digitized era, when it is extremely difficult to amass capital.

”Africa is playing a game with rules within which it cannot win”, says Bronwyn.

So, the rules need to change. Africa needs to focus more on possibilities within the continent.

Is crypto currency a way out? Not really, Bronwyn thinks.

”Money is just an illusion. It is the symptom but not the cause of the problem. The problem is that we have power imbalances.”

Bronwyn Williams thinks we are in a way reaching the limits of democracy:

”Democracy tends towards the mediocre, it tends towards the lowest common denominator. That’s why we see the rise of left and right populism.”

”The future is about finding a balance between total decentralization and anarchy on the one hand and a totally surveilled and top-down society on the other. Neither of those are long-run sustainable on their own.”

”We need checks and balances on all forms of power, also on the international level. It needs to be a ground-up movement rather than a top-down movement.”

Personal website

Research platform

The Future Starts Now (anthology)