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Europe was accused of having lost its moral compass and the independence riots of 2047 were seen as further evidence of secular decay. China’s rise to international prominence, and what it called “active diplomacy,” led many to fear that another global conflict was on the horizon. Economic expansion threatened the global environment. Biodiversity shrank at unprecedented rates, and the last opponents of the Accelerated Climate Change Model were converted to the cause by the dust storms of 2041. In short, the world faced many challenges, and by the end of the fifth decade of the current century,
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The more the media peddled fear, the more the people lost the ability to believe in one another. For every new ill that befell them, the media created an explanation, and the explanation always had a face and a name. The people came to fear even their closest neighbors. At the level of the individual, the community, and the nation, people sought signs of others’ ill intentions; and everywhere they looked, they found them, for this is what looking does. This was the true challenge the people of this time faced. The challenge of trusting one another. And they fell short of this challenge. This
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The U.S. blocked the initiative, believing it was part of a greater plan to establish a new international order, and China in turn believed the U.S. was deliberately accelerating climate change in order to crush the Chinese economy.
It finds other Ideas already in residence, and picks fights or forms alliances. The alliances build new structures, to defend themselves against intruders. And then, whenever the opportunity arises, the Idea sends out its shock troops in search of new brains to infect. The successful Idea travels from mind to mind, claiming new territory, mutating as it goes. It’s a jungle out there, Adam. Many Ideas are lost. Only the strongest survive.
“You take pride in your Ideas, as if they are products, but they are parasites.
