We’re living far longer. And we’re yet to process the implications. — This is a classic population pyramid. It shows the distribution of age groups across a human population.

A powerful emerging trend is set to reshape the rules of business and media. It might even change your life. — As you know, the most famous woman in the world celebrated her 40th birthday last week. Kim Kardashian chartered a private jet to take 30 friends and family to Tahiti, where she swam with whales, watched a movie on the beach, and ‘pretended things were normal for a while.’ The…

Life inside augmented modernity. Regulators vs Big Tech. Should we act to reverse economic growth? — Welcome to New World Same Humans, a new weekly newsletter by TrendWatching’s Global Head of Trends and Insights, David Mattin. This week a viral video got me thinking about how new technologies are set to collide with the highest forms of human experience. Plus the regulation of Big Tech. And…

Vaporflys, fairness and the liberal elite. Ethics 101. Iowa and the cult of innovation. — Welcome to New World Same Humans, a new weekly newsletter by TrendWatching’s Global Head of Trends and Insights, David Mattin. This week a pair of shoes got me thinking about the race to the top of our societies, who gets to win, and how we reward them. Also: thoughts on…

Notes on an epidemic. In search of the Zeroth Law. What Goop Lab tells us about modern life. — Welcome to New World Same Humans, a new weekly newsletter by TrendWatching’s Global Head of Trends and Insights, David Mattin. This week I thought about virus outbreaks, existential risk, energy exorcisms and modernity. Let’s do this. Notes on an Epidemic At the time of writing there are over 14,000 confirmed cases of the coronavirus…

Status and shame at Davos. The truth about trust. Facial recognition and human nature. — Welcome to New World Same Humans, a new weekly newsletter by TrendWatching’s Global Head of Trends and Insights, David Mattin. The great English scientist and visionary James Lovelock is 100 years old. Last summer he published a book, The Novacene. …

In the 21st-century, transparency is remaking the relationship between people and powerful organizations. — In a connected world, the relationship between powerful organizations and the societies in which they operate is being redrawn. We all understand that. But we’re still catching up to the full implications. Here is one such implication. A transparent world means a radical change in the nature of brands. That’s…

Brexit and other populist shocks are a sign that our conception of equality is broken. We need to remake it. — Nearly three years after the June 2016 referendum, Britain’s mission to wrench itself out of the EU is finally coming to a head. It’s been three years of political stasis and confusion. Meanwhile, every reputable forecast suggests the UK will be poorer once the mission is complete. The British government’s…

Should we turn to civil disobedience to avert looming ecological disaster? — People in the UK just experienced a weird, time-shifted summer — in the final two weeks of February. In west London the temperature peaked at 21.2C. That’s the hottest February day ever recorded in the UK, and the first time a temperature above 20C has been seen in winter. The…