#78 - Author, Historian, and Ex-Intelligence Officer Terry Thiele
We are witnessing a blast of the technological and societal changes that are accelerating us into a future our imaginations cannot grasp. For 7,000 generations, since anatomically “modern” humans emerged 200,000 years ago, children could look to their parents and grandparents for life lessons in how to confront the chaos. No more. Their yesterday experiences will be of little, if any, help to today’s children in surviving tomorrow’s chaos. Our children have no maps, no talismans, to guide them. Which leaves them with only their instincts to confront the chaos. Those instincts were crafted to enable us to survive in a world that we left millennia ago. That long forgotten world hardwired us to overreact violently when we are frightened. Chaos is frightening. And chaos is about to engulf us. Do we have the innate capacity to survive what is about to happen to us? Hos book The Fourth Age explores that question.
Instinctively, we fear the unknown—chaos—and are hardwired to overreact violently when we are frightened. And chaos is about to engulf us. Welcome to our Fourth Age.
Terry Thiele has been a Cold Warrior intelligence officer and a corporate lawyer. He now consults and teaches strategic planning. His new book is the culmination of forty years helping government officials, corporate officers, and graduate students think about the future. Terry received his B.A. magna cum laude from Princeton, and his J.D. from NYU; he is a graduate of the National War College. Carol and he lives near Wilmington, N.C.
What is our "Fourth Age"?
For millennia, we hunted. After the ice, we farmed. For the last ten generations, we built. Today we are teetering on the brink of societal and technological changes unlike anything ever before experienced. The degree and the rate of change are both accelerating us at light speed into a future our imaginations cannot grasp.
Find more from Terry at TheFourthAge.com