The State of the World in 2026

 

A eagle-eyed perspective

 

 

[ A warning for the faint-hearted: This is a tough read. Proceed at your own peril  😉 ]

 

 

listen ➡

 

 

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I know, I know

You don’t want to hear more doom & gloom …

 

You are too busy dealing with your own personal affairs… 

The mortgage, the kids, the job, the wife, the upcoming retirement …

The barrage of ever-shortening news cycles… 

The doomscrolling of nonsense on Facebook and TikTok…

Fake news and AI-made Deepfake videos

 

No space in your head anymore for more wisecracking from Cris!!!

 

I know, I know

I also have my own little challenges in life 😎

 

And you are welcome to put your head in the sand. This is a free country, and it’s your prerogative to play the 3-monkey game with yourself. 🙉🙊🙈 Or do the spiritual-bypassing thing, so widespread nowadays in New Age circles.

 

I, for myself, like to have a bit of an overview, however incomplete or fragmented.

At least I have an idea of where i am at and where to the whole ship is sailing …  ⛵️

 

So, bear with me, have some patience with old Cris

I will try not to make it too long

Or painful, for that matter 😉

 

I must confess, it is just an unordered, haphazard list 🤓

 

 

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The State of the World in 2026

An eagle-eyed perspective

An attempt to see the bigger picture with unflinching eyes

 

 

 

listen ➡

– It is 2026 AD, and our solar system is still existing somewhere at the outer edges of the Milky Way Galaxy 👍🏻

 

 

– Earth is still rotating around its axes on its trajectory around the sun
The sun is still shining warmly on us (at least in Costa Rica, most of the year)

 

 

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– The richest man on Earth is a brilliant engineering mind but also an increasingly unhinged white man-child from South Africa named Elon Musk with an estimated net worth of 841.1 billion USD.

That’s $841,100,000,000 and change.
If I spent $1 million every single day, it would take me over 2,300 years to spend $841.1 billion.

Not bad, but we should remember, Elon M. has 14 children from 4 different women to feed, and he has no intention to stop with fathering a whole Elon-nation.

Did I mention that he seems to have no moral or ethical impulses at all, beyond a perpetual sneer on his face …

 

– Even beyond Elon Musk, the Wealth Inequality in 2026 is extreme in an almost perverse way.

The richest 10% of the world’s population are owning 75% of all wealth, while the bottom 50% holds only 2%.

The top 0.001% are holding three times more wealth than the bottom half of humanity.
This means, in relatable numbers, that roughly 60,000 individuals – the top 0.001% of the global population – possess three times more wealth than the bottom 50% of humanity (approximately 4 billion people).

The top 10% of our world earn more than the bottom 90% combined.

If that’s not perversely unfair, then I don’t know what “perverse” means.

 

– In 2026, the ultra-rich often pay lower rates of taxes than the rest of the population.
The top 10% of wealth holders account for 77% of global emissions. All the factories they own, all the private jets  🛫

 

 

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– Global military spending in 2025 reached approximately $2.5 trillion USD – that’s $2,500,000,000,000. – representing the highest level ever recorded in human history.

To put this in perspective: if we spent just 10% of that amount on climate adaptation, renewable energy, and global healthcare, we could probably solve half the world’s problems by next week.

 

Instead, we’re buying more sophisticated ways to blow each other up.

The United States alone accounts for roughly 40% of global military expenditure – around $900 billion annually. That’s more than the next 10 countries combined.

China comes in second at approximately $300 billion.
Russia, despite its economic struggles, still manages to funnel around $100 billion into its war machine.

Meanwhile, NATO countries are racing to meet their 2% of GDP spending targets, because apparently nothing promises “peace and prosperity” like an arms race.

 

– The United States is the world’s largest arms exporter, controlling approximately 43%–45% of the global market for major conventional weapons between 2020–2024, a share that grew to exceed the next seven largest exporters combined. In 2024 alone,

U.S. weapon exports were valued at $5.89B in specific trade, with overall defense transfers reaching hundreds of billions, driven by major deals with partners like Israel, Saudi Arabia, Japan, and European NATO allies.

 

 

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– The Climate Situation:

It seems that the world in 2026 has forgotten about global warming. Distracted?

2024 was officially the hottest year on record—surpassing 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels for the first time.

2025 wasn’t much better, and 2026 is shaping up to be a lovely continuation of the trend.

Global carbon emissions? Still rising. We hit approximately 37.4 billion tonnes of CO₂ in 2024, with only a modest plateau expected through 2026.

The Arctic sea ice continues its disappearing act – September 2024 saw the second-lowest extent of sea ice on record.

Meanwhile, Antarctic ice shelves are cracking like old pottery, and Greenland is shedding ice at a rate of approximately 280 billion tonnes per year.

Glaciers worldwide have lost roughly 6 trillion tonnes of ice since the 1990s.

 

Extreme weather events? Off the charts. Floods in Central Europe, catastrophic wildfires from Canada to Australia, hurricanes intensifying faster than meteorologists can update their models, heat domes killing thousands across South Asia and the Middle East.

And yet, fossil fuel subsidies globally still hover around $7 trillion.

Because why would we stop funding our own extinction? That would be inconvenient. 🤪

 

 

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– The once great United States of America is turning into a fascistic empire with a child-king as commander-in-chief.

And no impulse control whatsoever!

 

I am not kidding! ( Unfortunately, for a change. ) 

The United States, yes, the former “leader of the free world.”

In January 2025, Donald Trump was inaugurated for his second term after defeating Kamala Harris in November 2024.

The man who incited an insurrection, was convicted on 34 felony counts, and faces multiple other criminal proceedings is once again president.

Democracy, ladies and gentlemen. Bye, bye American Pie …

Trump’s second term has been characterized by:

Dismantling of environmental protections
Withdrawal from international climate agreements (again)
Mass deportations and immigration crackdowns
Attacks on press freedom and judicial independence
Appointments of loyalists to key positions regardless of qualifications
An “America First” isolationism that has alienated traditional allies
The Supreme Court, with its 6-3 conservative supermajority, continues to roll back rights—reproductive freedom, voting access, environmental regulations.

Meanwhile, political polarization has reached levels not seen since the Civil War. Roughly 40% of Americans believe political violence may be necessary to “save the country.”

The phrase “civil war” is no longer cocktail party conversation – it’s a genuine concern among scholars and security experts.

 

 

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– The Global Authoritarian Trend: Democracy is in decline worldwide.

According to Freedom House, 2024 marked the 18th consecutive year of democratic backsliding globally.

Authoritarian regimes and hybrid systems now govern the majority of the world’s population.

Hungary, Turkey, India, Brazil (the struggle continues), the Philippines, Poland (recovering but scarred) – the list of countries sliding toward autocracy grows longer.

Russia remains under Putin’s iron grip – opposition figures imprisoned, poisoned, or thrown out of a window (because classics never go out of style).

China under Xi Jinping has consolidated power to levels not seen since Mao—surveillance state perfected, Uyghur genocide ongoing, Hong Kong’s freedoms crushed, Taiwan under constant threat.

Myanmar, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Sudan—failed states and brutal regimes where human rights are a quaint memory.

 

Even in Europe, far-right parties are gaining ground—Italy, France, Germany, the Netherlands.

The global trend is clear: strongmen are in, democracy is passé, and human rights are negotiable.

 

 

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– Wars and Ongoing large scale Cruelties:

I am almost afraid to count them off!
They are so many.
And so barbaric.

 

🥲

Russia-Ukraine War: Still grinding on as of early 2026. Over 3 years of brutal warfare. Hundreds of thousands dead. Cities reduced to rubble. Millions displaced. The West’s attention span waning, Ukraine’s ammunition running low, Putin still dreaming of restoring the Soviet Empire.

Israel-Palestine: The Gaza War of 2023-2024 killed over 40,000 Palestinians (though the true number is likely much higher). Infrastructure destroyed. Humanitarian catastrophe. And yet, the cycle of violence continues – no peace, no justice, no end in sight.

Sudan: Civil war since April 2023. The Rapid Support Forces vs. the Sudanese Armed Forces. Over 12 million people displaced—the largest displacement crisis in the world. Famine looming. Ethnic cleansing in Darfur (again). The world barely notices.

Yemen: Still suffering from nearly a decade of war. Saudi Arabia and Iran’s proxy battlefield. 21.6 million people in need of humanitarian assistance. Cholera, malnutrition, misery.

Syria: Bashar al-Assad escaped to Russia to live there in isolated luxury. The war “ended” but the suffering continues. Half a million dead, 6 million refugees, a shattered country.

Myanmar: Military junta vs. resistance forces. Rohingya genocide continuing. Thousands killed, millions displaced.

Democratic Republic of Congo: Endless conflict in the eastern provinces. Over 100 armed groups fighting for control of mineral wealth. Mass rape as a weapon of war. Over 6 million dead since 1996—the deadliest conflict since WWII, and nobody talks about it.

And these are just the major wars. We haven’t even touched on:

Ethiopia’s Tigray conflict
The Sahel insurgencies (Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger)
Drug cartel violence in Mexico
Gang warfare in Haiti
Kashmir, Nagorno-Karabakh, Somalia, Libya…

The list is exhausting. And exhausted is how we all feel.

I certainly feel stripped of all hope!

 

 

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– Migration Crisis:

A direct result of wars, climate change, and economic collapse.

In 2024, the number of forcibly displaced people worldwide reached approximately 117 million—refugees, asylum seekers, internally displaced persons.

 

That’s roughly the entire population of Mexico on the move.

Europe is seeing waves of migrants from Africa and the Middle East – desperate people drowning in the Mediterranean, dying in the Sahara, trapped in camps in Greece, Italy, Libya.

The United States southern border? A political football and humanitarian nightmare. Thousands dying in the desert, children separated from families, immigration courts backlogged for years.

 

Climate refugees are just beginning—Bangladesh, Pacific Island nations, coastal regions worldwide. By 2050, estimates suggest 200 million to 1 billion climate refugees could be displaced.

And how do wealthy nations respond? With walls, barbed wire, detention centers, and xenophobic rhetoric.

Because nothing says “Christian values” like letting people drown at sea.

 

 

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– The AI Takeover:

Perhaps not Skynet just yet, but we’re getting there.
In late 2022, ChatGPT launched and broke the internet.

By 2026, AI has infiltrated nearly every aspect of life:

Generative AI creating art, music, writing, video
AI-powered surveillance states (China leading the way)
Autonomous weapons systems (because what could go wrong?)
Deepfakes eroding trust in media and elections
AI-driven misinformation at scale
Job displacement across industries—truck drivers, writers, customer service, even programmers
The AI companies—OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Anthropic, Meta, and others—are locked in a race with little regard for safety guardrails.

AI alignment research? Underfunded.
Regulatory frameworks? Laughably behind.
Existential risk for humanity?

Eh, we’ll worry about that later.

 

Meanwhile, Elon Musk is trying to plug computers directly into human brains with Neuralink.

Sam Altman is pursuing AGI like it’s his messianic destiny.

And we’re all just… going along with it, posting AI-generated memes and asking chatbots to write our emails.

Because if there’s one thing humanity excels at, it’s building powerful technologies we don’t fully understand and hoping for the best.

 

 

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–  The Misinformation Hellscape:

Truth is dead. Long live make-believe.

Social media platforms have become wastelands of conspiracy theories, bot armies, and algorithmic rage.

Facebook (sorry, “Meta”) continues to profit from division and disinformation.

X (formerly Twitter) under Musk’s ownership has become a right-wing echo chamber and misinformation free-for-all.

And the newly installed deepfake app can strip any woman’s photo naked an put her in quasi pornographic poses. Children too!

 

TikTok is either rotting teenagers’ brains or creating the next generation of activists, depending on your perspective.

Trust in traditional media? At all-time lows.

Belief in science? Declining.

The line between reality and fiction? Increasingly blurred.

QAnon still has millions of believers.
Flat-Earthers exist in 2026.
Anti-vaxxers contributed to measles outbreaks across Europe and the US.

We have access to more information than any civilization in history, and yet we’ve never been more confused, divided, and susceptible to manipulation.

 

 

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– Mental Health Crisis:

Unsurprisingly, people are not doing well.

Rates of anxiety, depression, and suicide—especially among young people—continue to climb.

Loneliness is epidemic. Social connection is declining.

The WHO estimates that 1 in 8 people globally live with a mental health condition.

Youth suicide rates in the US increased by 62% between 2007 and 2021.

Social media, economic precarity, climate anxiety, political polarization, pandemic aftermath – pick your poison.

And mental health services? Underfunded, inaccessible, stigmatized.

But sure, let’s keep scrolling.

 

 

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– Biodiversity Collapse:

While we’re busy destroying ourselves, we’re taking the rest of the planet down with us.

 

We are in the midst of the Sixth Mass Extinction.

 

Since 1970, wildlife populations have declined by an average of 69%.

Insect populations? Plummeting—with potentially catastrophic effects on pollination and food chains.

Coral reefs? Dying en masse from ocean warming and acidification. The Great Barrier Reef has experienced five mass bleaching events since 2016.

Rainforests? Still being cleared at alarming rates – the Amazon, the Congo, Southeast Asia.

Over 1 million species are at risk of extinction.

But hey, at least we have TikTok videos of cute animals to remember them by.

 

 

[ i want to officially apologize for my unforgivable tendency to slip into sarcasm and dark British humor. Seriously, Cris!!! ]  

 

 

 

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– Outer Space: The Final Dumpster – Our Orbital Junkyard

Ah yes, because poisoning the oceans and choking the atmosphere wasn’t enough—let’s trash orbit too!

As of early 2026, there are approximately 14,000+ active satellites circling Earth.

 

Sounds like a lot?

Just wait.

In 2019, there were only about 2,000 active satellites.

We’ve increased the number sevenfold in less than a decade.

And we’re just getting started.

 

– Starlink: Elon Musk’s Orbital Empire

SpaceX’s Starlink constellation currently has over 6,000 satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO).

The plan? 42,000 satellites eventually.

 

Yes, you read that correctly: forty-two thousand.

And Elon wants to do it in the next decade or so.

These satellites orbit at altitudes between 340-1,200 km, filling the sky with a lattice of metal moving at 27,000 km/h.

Astronomers are thrilled, as you can imagine.

Ground-based telescopes now have to dodge satellite trails in their images—beautiful deep-space photos photobombed by Elon’s internet grid.

Radio astronomy? Increasingly compromised by satellite interference.

 

The night sky—humanity’s oldest canvas for wonder, mythology, and navigation—is becoming a cluttered billboard for Silicon Valley capitalism.

 

But hey, at least you can get 100 Mbps internet on a yacht in the middle of the Pacific!

Priorities.

😝

 

– The Competition: Because One Megalomaniac Wasn’t Enough

Amazon’s Project Kuiper: planning to launch 3,236 satellites

China’s various constellations (Guowang, G60 Starlink): aiming for 13,000+ satellites

OneWeb (now owned by the UK government and India’s Bharti): 648 satellites planned

The European Union’s IRIS²: hundreds more

Satellite internet, Earth observation, military surveillance, communications—everyone wants a piece of the orbital real estate.

Total projected satellites by 2030? Estimates range from 60,000 to 100,000+.

That’s a hundredfold increase in just over a decade.

 

– Elon’s Latest Vision: AI Datacenters in Space

Because ever expanding Earth-based datacenters consuming 1-2% of global electricity weren’t ambitious enough, Elon has floated the idea of putting AI compute infrastructure in orbit.

Giant satellite swarms acting as distributed AI processing nodes.

Why?

Cooling (space is cold, sort of), energy (solar panels with 24/7 sun), and latency (closer to LEO satellite networks).

Never mind the minor details like:

Launching hundreds of thousands of tons of hardware into orbit
The energy cost of those launches
Maintenance and repair (good luck)
Radiation damage to electronics
Space debris risk
The existential absurdity of putting AGI datacenters in orbit when we can’t even align AI on the ground
But sure, let’s build Skynet in space.

What could possibly go wrong?

 

 

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– Space Junk: The Kessler Syndrome Awaits

Here’s the scary part nobody talks about: all these satellites eventually become space debris.

Current orbital debris count:

36,500+ objects larger than 10 cm (trackable)
1 million+ objects between 1-10 cm (not trackable, still deadly)
130 million+ objects smaller than 1 cm (paint flecks, metal fragments)
These objects travel at speeds up to 28,000 km/h.

At those velocities, a paint chip can punch through a spacecraft hull.

A 1 cm screw can hit with the force of a hand grenade.

And here’s the nightmare scenario: Kessler Syndrome.

Proposed by NASA scientist Donald Kessler in 1978, it describes a cascade effect:

One satellite collides with debris
Creates thousands of new debris fragments
Those fragments hit other satellites
Which create more fragments
Exponential growth of debris
Certain orbital zones become unusable
Satellites can’t operate without getting shredded
Space access becomes severely restricted or impossible

We are not there yet.

But with 100,000 satellites planned?

We’re rolling the dice.

In 2021, a Chinese anti-satellite test created over 3,500 trackable debris pieces.

In 2022, Russia destroyed one of its own satellites in a test, creating 1,500+ debris fragments that endangered the International Space Station.

SpaceX has already had to perform 25,000+ collision avoidance maneuvers for Starlink satellites.

The European Space Agency estimates that without active debris removal, some orbital zones will become unusable within 200 years.

But with the current launch trajectory? Maybe sooner.

 

– Environmental Cost of Launches

Let’s not forget the carbon footprint of getting all this stuff into orbit.

A single Falcon 9 launch burns approximately 440 tons of rocket fuel, releasing:

CO₂
Water vapor (in the upper atmosphere, where it’s a potent greenhouse gas)
Black carbon (soot)
Nitrogen oxides
Chlorine compounds (from solid rocket boosters, damaging the ozone layer)
SpaceX alone conducted 96 launches in 2023.

With plans for hundreds of launches per year to build out satellite mega-constellations, the atmospheric impact is non-trivial.

And Starship – Elon’s “super-penis-shaped mega rocket” – is designed for daily launches at scale.

Because who needs a stable atmosphere when you can eventually evacuate to Mars?

 

 

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– Re-entry Pollution: The Sky is Literally Falling

When satellites de-orbit (end of life, collision, malfunction), they burn up in the atmosphere.

This creates metal oxides (aluminum, titanium, etc.) that:

Persist in the upper atmosphere
Potentially damage the ozone layer
Alter atmospheric chemistry in ways we don’t fully understand
With tens of thousands of satellites planned for 5-10 year operational lifespans, we’re talking about a continuous rain of vaporized metal entering the atmosphere.

Scientists are only beginning to study the long-term effects.

Spoiler: it’s probably not great.

 

 

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– Who Regulates This Madness?

Theoretically, international space law – the Outer Space Treaty of 1967.

In practice? It’s a free-for-all.

There’s no orbital zoning, no enforceable debris mitigation, no penalties for creating hazards.

The Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee (IADC) issues guidelines, but they’re voluntary.

The UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) discusses norms, but has no enforcement power.

National space agencies (NASA, ESA, etc.) set their own standards, but private companies like SpaceX operate with minimal oversight.

So Elon can launch 42,000 satellites and there’s essentially no one to stop him.

Because of course we let billionaires dictate the future of orbital space.

That’s worked out so well with everything else.

😕

 

– The Bigger Picture: Space is a common good of all humanity

Space—like the oceans, the atmosphere, the electromagnetic spectrum—is a global commons.

It belongs to no one. It belongs to everyone.

Or at least, it used to.

Now it’s being enclosed, privatized, and monopolized by a handful of corporations and states.

Starlink alone will control a significant fraction of Low Earth Orbit real estate.

This gives SpaceX (and by extension, Elon) enormous power:

Control over global internet access
Strategic military advantage (Starlink is used by Ukraine’s military, for instance)
Leverage over governments and competitors
Precedent-setting for future orbital commercialization
And the rest of us?

We get to watch our night sky fill with streaks of light, hope our satellites don’t get smashed, and trust that billionaires will act responsibly.

My guess: They won’t.

 

 

 

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– Population Growth:

The exponential human explosion that nobody wants to talk about.

Global population in 2026: approximately 8.1 billion humans crawling across this pale blue dot.

 

 

We added roughly 1 billion people in just the last 12 years.

By 2050? Projected 9.7 billion.

By 2100? Could hit 10.4 billion.

 

Africa is driving most of this growth—Nigeria alone is projected to have 400 million people by 2050, making it the third most populous country on Earth.

Meanwhile, the global fertility rate is declining—from 5 children per woman in 1950 to about 2.3 in 2025.

Which sounds promising until you realize that:

Most wealthy nations are below replacement level (2.1)
And the countries still having large families are often the ones least equipped to handle population pressure—water scarcity, food insecurity, climate vulnerability
So we have this bizarre situation where some countries are panicking about too many people and others are panicking about not enough people.

The irony is delicious, if you have a dark sense of humor.

Which, clearly, I do.

 

 

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– Aging Demographics: The Great Graying of Humanity.

The global population is getting older, fast.

In 1950, only 5% of the world was over 65.
By 2025, it’s roughly 10%.
By 2050? Projected 16%—that’s 1.6 billion elderly people.

Japan leads the charge with 29% of its population over 65. Italy and Germany aren’t far behind.

China’s one-child policy created a demographic time bomb—by 2050, roughly 25% of China will be elderly, and there won’t be enough workers to support them.

South Korea has the world’s lowest fertility rate at 0.72 children per woman. That’s a population collapse in slow motion.

The economic implications are staggering:

Shrinking workforces
Exploding healthcare and pension costs
Collapsing tax bases
A ratio of workers-to-retirees that makes Social Security look like a Ponzi scheme (which, let’s be honest, it kind of is)
Meanwhile, immigration—the obvious solution—is being demonized and blocked across wealthy nations.

The Government of Spain recently showed us that the wise solution is just in front of our noses: They opened a way for immigrants to become legal citizens.

But, Spain is a rare exception to the hard and fast rule: Why really solve problems in a systemic and humane way, when you can just be xenophobic instead?

 

 

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– Health and Sickness of the Population:

We’re living longer, but sicker.
Life expectancy globally has risen to around 73 years (though it varies wildly—83 in Japan, 54 in the Central African Republic).

But here’s the kicker: we’re not living healthier years. We’re living medicated years.

Chronic diseases now account for 71% of all deaths globally:

Cardiovascular disease
Cancer
Diabetes (now affecting 537 million adults worldwide)
Chronic respiratory diseases
Mental health disorders
Obesity has nearly tripled since 1975. As of 2024, over 1 billion people worldwide are obese—that’s 13% of the global adult population.

In the United States, roughly 42% of adults are obese.

Childhood obesity? Also skyrocketing.

The average American is on 4 prescription medications.
For those over 65? 14 medications.

We’ve medicalized existence itself—pills for sleeping, pills for waking, pills for focusing, pills for relaxing, pills to counteract the side effects of other pills.

Big Pharma is worth over $1.6 trillion globally. Not because we’re getting healthier, but because we’re getting sicker in profitable ways.

Meanwhile:

2 billion people lack access to essential medicines
Half the world can’t access basic healthcare

Maternal mortality in the US is worse than in most developed countries – and getting worse
And let’s not forget the quiet rise of antibiotic resistance – which could kill 10 million people annually by 2050 if we don’t get our act together.

I guess that we probably won’t.

 

 

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– Gender Inequality:

Still alive and well in 2026.

Women globally earn approximately 77 cents for every dollar men earn (and that’s the global average – it’s worse in many regions).

At the current rate of progress, the World Economic Forum estimates it will take 134 years to close the global gender gap.

So mark your calendars for 2160, ladies!

 

Women hold only 26% of parliamentary seats worldwide.

Only 10% of world leaders are women.

 

Women perform 75% of unpaid care work globally—childcare, eldercare, housework. This amounts to 12.5 billion hours of unpaid work per day.

 

If we valued this labor at minimum wage, it would be worth $10.8 trillion annually—three times the size of the global tech industry.

But sure, women are “bad at math.”

In education, girls outperform boys in most countries, yet still face:

Limited access to higher education fields
Wage penalties for motherhood
Glass ceilings, glass cliffs, and glass everything
Sexual harassment normalized in most workplaces
And let’s not forget the rollback of reproductive rights—particularly in the United States post-Dobbs decision in 2022.

Women in Texas have more restrictions on their bodily autonomy than corporations have on their campaign contributions.

Let that sink in.

 

Globally, 736 million women—nearly one in three—have experienced physical or sexual violence.

 

Child marriage? Still happening to 12 million girls per year.

Female genital mutilation? Still practiced in 30+ countries, affecting 4 million girls annually.

But sure, feminism is “an old hat for boomers”

 

 

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– The Appearance of the Third Gender (and Beyond):

Finally, some actual progress. Sort of.

Gender diversity is being recognized—legally, medically, socially—in ways that would have been unimaginable even 20 years ago.

 

As of 2026, over 25 countries legally recognize non-binary or third-gender identities:

India (hijra recognition since 2014)
Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal (similar recognition)
Germany, Austria, Netherlands (third gender options on documents)
Canada, Australia, New Zealand
Several US states
The number of people identifying as transgender or non-binary is growing, particularly among younger generations:

Gen Z (born 1997-2012): approximately 5% identify as LGBTQ+
Millennials: roughly 2-3%
Gen X and Boomers: under 1%
Is this because there are “more” LGBTQ+ people, or because it’s finally safer to come out?

 

Medical transition technologies have advanced—hormone therapies, surgeries, puberty blockers.

Many healthcare systems now cover gender-affirming care (though access remains wildly unequal).

Cultural representation has exploded—trans actors, musicians, writers, activists.

 

And yet.

And yet.

The backlash is fierce.

Over 500 anti-trans bills were introduced in US state legislatures in 2023-2024 alone.

Topics include:

Banning gender-affirming care for minors
Restricting bathroom access
Prohibiting trans athletes in sports
Censoring discussion of gender identity in schools
The UK has backslid dramatically—gender clinics shut down, waiting lists years long, hostile media environment.

Violence against trans people—particularly trans women of color—remains epidemic.

At least 320 trans people were murdered globally in 2023 (and those are just the reported cases).

So yes, visibility has increased.
Yes, legal recognition is growing.
Yes, younger generations are more accepting.

But we’re also seeing a coordinated, well-funded, international campaign to erase trans existence.

It’s progress and backlash, simultaneously.

 

 

 

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– Interest in Spirituality and Self-Development:

The Great Awakening, or the Great Spiritual Bypassing?

Organized religion is declining across most of the developed world:

In the US, “nones” (religiously unaffiliated) now make up 30% of the population—the largest single category
In Europe, church attendance is in freefall—single-digit percentages in Scandinavia, France, UK
Even in historically Catholic countries like Ireland and Spain, religious adherence is plummeting

But spirituality? Booming!

 

The “wellness industry” is worth approximately $1.8 trillion globally as of 2024:

Meditation apps (Headspace, Calm) valued in the billions
Yoga estimated at $100 billion industry
Crystals, sage, oracle cards, sound baths, reiki, breathwork, ayahuasca retreats, tantric workshops…
Everyone’s a shaman now. Or at least has a shaman on speed-dial.

The self-help book industry? Worth $13.2 billion annually.

Therapy? More normalized than ever (though still inaccessible for most).

Life coaches, manifestation workshops, human design charts, astrology apps – business is booming.

 

And this is where it gets interesting (or nauseating, depending on your perspective):

On one hand, people are genuinely seeking:

Meaning in a meaningless world
Connection in an isolated society
Healing from trauma
Tools for mental health
Alternatives to materialist paradigms

This is valid. This is important.

On the other hand:

Spiritual Bypassing has become an epidemic.

“Good vibes only.”
“Just raise your vibration.”
“You manifested your own trauma.”
“Everything happens for a reason.”

Translation: Don’t actually address systemic injustice, just do some breathwork and buy my $2,000 retreat.

The wellness industry has been colonized by capitalism:

Yoga taught by white influencers divorced from its Hindu roots
Ayahuasca commodified and sold to wealthy Westerners while Indigenous communities are criminalized
Mindfulness weaponized by corporations to make employees more productive instead of addressing exploitative labor conditions
“Manifesting abundance” as a substitute for confronting economic inequality
Goop is worth $250 million.
Gwyneth Paltrow sells jade eggs for your vagina.
Breatharians claim you don’t need food if you’re spiritual enough (spoiler: you do, that’s called starving).

Conspiracy theories have merged with spirituality—QAnon + New Age = QAnonsense:

“5G causes COVID”
“Vaccines block your third eye”
“The cabal drinks adrenochrome”
So we have this bizarre soup where:

Genuine seekers are finding real healing
Capitalists are monetizing trauma
Charlatans are selling snake oil
And everyone’s microdosing psilocybin at Burning Man

Meanwhile, organized religion – for all its (many, many) flaws – at least sometimes asked people to care for the collective, not just their own “aligned frequency.”

 

The irony is that in rejecting religious dogma, many have embraced a new kind of navel-gazing spiritual individualism.

 

“You create your own reality” sounds empowering until you realize it means:

Poverty is a mindset problem
Illness is a manifestation of negative energy
Injustice is just bad karma
And systemic change is unnecessary because “we just need to heal ourselves first”
Which is exactly what power structures want you to believe.

 

So yes, i am glad to see that people are more interested in spirituality and self-development than ever.

But whether this leads to genuine awakening or just more sophisticated forms of narcissism?

 

We will see what we will see when we’ll see it.

Says my cat Jojo.

 

 

 

 

listen ➡

So where does that leave us, dear reader?

 

Our beautiful world careening toward… what exactly?

Ecological collapse?
Societal breakdown?
Authoritarian dystopia?
AI-mediated unreality?
All of the above?

 

Post-apocalyptic wasteland à la Mad Max?

 

 

Or perhaps – perhaps – some stubborn spark of human resilience, creativity, and solidarity will flicker into something more.

 

I don’t know.

I’m just an observer with a blog, an ironic tone-of-voice, and a probably-unhealthy level of attention to humanity’s ongoing absurdist tragedy.

 

But at least we’re paying attention.

But if you are still with me, reading on, it means at least we’re naming the things by their name.

Because the first step to changing course is seeing clearly where the ship is headed.

 

What to do?

 

Besides being eagle-eyed fearless witness?