Philosophy of The Future: Global Problems of Contemporary Society

Global Problems of Modern Humanity

The 21st century has emerged as a pivotal moment in the history of humankind. Several interrelated trends in the development of civilization have set in motion a whirlwind of rapid changes, resulting in a situation where the condition of humanity on this planet differs significantly from what it was merely 200 years ago. Primarily, there has been a sharp increase in the population. The dynamics of the Earth's population, as retrospectively assessed by demographers—despite their varying absolute estimates and methodologies—reveal a consistent depiction of relative figures. During the height of the Roman Empire and the life of Jesus of Nazareth, the global population was approximately 300 million. By the late European Middle Ages (the 13th century), this number had risen to around 400 million to half a billion. The world’s population crossed the one billion mark at the beginning of the 19th century, coinciding with the onset of rapid industrialization in Western Europe and the shift to intensive agricultural practices. The two billion mark was reached by the end of the first quarter of the 20th century, and by the 1960s, the population had surpassed 3 billion; at the beginning of the last quarter of the century, it had already exceeded 4 billion. Just ten years later, an additional billion was added, culminating at the end of the century with a global population of 6 billion. Currently, the number of people approaches 7.5 billion, and by 2025, it is projected to exceed 8 billion. Thus, in the span of a century, the Earth’s population has increased by 6 billion individuals, nearly equaling the total number of people that had ever lived prior to this in all of human history.

Concurrently, human settlement density has also risen dramatically; with each passing decade, more individuals migrate from rural areas to cities, and from smaller towns to vast metropolises, some of which are populated by over ten million residents. The largest urban agglomeration in the world today, Tokyo, boasts a population of about 37.7 million (equivalent to the entire population of Poland!). The next two massive agglomerations—Mexico City and New York—house more residents than Ukraine.

Moreover, the volume and speed of communication—encompassing message exchanges, the movement of goods, and the transit of individuals—are escalating at an astonishing rate. To illustrate, a mere 70 years ago, a journey from the suburbs within a 30 km radius of Kyiv to the capital was a significant and relatively rare event; today, hundreds of thousands of people undertake such journeys daily. A distance of 50 km, once comparable in time expenditure to traversing all of Ukraine, can now be covered in a fraction of that time. The transmission of messages in colossal volumes has become nearly instantaneous; one can observe the beaches of Australia in real time through a webcam.

This rapid transformation is accompanied by an increasing impact of humanity as a geological force upon the environment: human activity engenders the displacement of substantial masses of material, transforming the living conditions by drastically contracting areas of untouched territory. In essence, this prevailing trend in human history, of which we are currently witnesses at its zenith, can be encapsulated in the formula of cultural expansion. The world inhabited by humanity is increasingly becoming a processed, artificial, and man-made environment. This raises a critical question: is the intellect of modern humans capable of managing such power? Is humanity not emerging as a kind of addict, losing awareness of danger under the influence of psychotropic substances, recklessly overestimating its capabilities, and stubbornly attempting to satisfy its inflated needs and dependencies, thus hastening its demise and degrading in the process? The framing of this issue, often encountered in literature, suggests that society is in conflict with "nature," causing harm to it, "destroying" it, and so forth. It is posited that humanity must love and care for nature, implying that humans have grown so powerful that they now dictate the fate of "nature."

To adequately comprehend humanity's position in the world, two essential points must be grasped. (1) Humans are inseparable from their living environment; they are not autonomous. The cultivated environment, the artificial habitat, mitigates certain threats and enhances comfort, yet it remains fundamentally unchanged from the natural world. It is the same "nature," merely transformed. Intervening in such a complex mechanism, one cannot always predict the myriad consequences that such interference may provoke. Humanity is interwoven into the fabric of natural reality, with no possibility of extricating itself from this web. (2) Nature constitutes the objective conditions of interactions and processes. Hence, there is nothing extraneous to nature in the real world, nor can there be. Nature cannot be destroyed; one may strive to counteract the force of gravity, but the laws of gravitational interaction cannot be negated. The ecologically unbalanced expansion of culture that we currently diagnose poses a threat of unpredictable destabilization to the global ecosystem. However, the slogan "back to a natural way of life" is absurd, for any way of life is equally "natural." Rather, we should discuss the adequacy of resource availability (i.e., assess the prospects of meeting consumption norms of certain goods for a specific number of people), the safety of existence in a broad sense—including risks associated with infectious diseases, famine, technological disasters, and natural calamities such as earthquakes, hurricanes, or asteroid impacts, among others. Furthermore, should we attempt to isolate the anthropogenic factor in the changing state of the Earth's global ecosystem, this can only be achieved if we are aware of other factors driving such transformations. For instance, what contributions to climate change arise from deforestation, the plowing of vast lands, and atmospheric pollution by greenhouse gases resulting from the combustion of coal, gas, and oil, as well as industrial and municipal waste?

Can we renounce the relevant industrial production, abandon intensive agriculture (which is dependent on industry), and still maintain our well-being? What technological processes can be replaced with alternatives that are less resource-intensive and exert a lesser burden on the environment?

Another facet of cultural expansion is technological progress, marked by a sharp increase in the share of innovative activities and technical creativity, as well as research and development work in the production of societal goods. Furthermore, the technological order of society is closely linked to social institutions and drives transformations in mental culture, customs, and lifestyles, as well as in moral attitudes and value systems overall. This connection can also be denoted by the term "socio-technological paradigm."

Modern production is characterized by a high degree of integration and the involvement of vast masses of people in manufacturing processes. It is challenging to specify the total number of individuals needed to produce a single smartphone, laptop, or tablet. Someone extracts oil or gas, silicon, tantalum, or copper; others smelt steel and develop microchips. Each of these processes requires machinery, facilities, electricity, and, in turn, those facilities require machinery, buildings, construction materials, and most importantly, people—many people. Indirectly, your device has passed through the hands of hundreds of thousands before reaching yours.

Furthermore, thousands of minds have pondered all the technical intricacies that enable you to read this. The production and distribution of these goods have transcended the confines of individual states, leaving no communities capable of independently organizing the entire production cycle of high-tech products. Simultaneously, it remains difficult to quantify how many people are necessary to sustain the production of all the goods consumed by modern humanity. Moreover, the consumption of these goods, like participation in their integrated production, is extremely uneven. Nonetheless, the civilizational progress that commenced in Europe 300 years ago now encompasses the entire world: the technological advancements of civilization reach even the most remote corners of the planet and those communities that lived entirely different lives just a century ago.

The expansion of a globalized culture leads not only to the loss of biological diversity and pristine ecosystems but also to the erosion of cultural diversity. According to UNESCO, there are currently more than 6,000 languages spoken worldwide; however, 96% of them are utilized by merely 4% of the Earth’s population. Four billion people communicate in only 17 languages in their daily lives, while the speakers of many languages have dwindled to a literal handful.

However, this diversity is supplanted by numerous subcultural social formations that also transcend ethnic and national-political communities. Today, the world religions—Christianity, Buddhism, and Islam—are the initial harbingers of this cosmopolitan cultural trend, illustrating how the primary community further differentiates. In this process of community interaction, significant conflictual tension arises. Notably, its intensity is increasingly detached from the struggle for survival and territorial disputes. Instead, personal ambitions and mentally mediated identities take center stage, with information wars, which were once merely adjuncts to armed conflict, now becoming the dominant aspect of relational strife. Armed conflicts have become mere "arguments" in the information war, serving as a means of demonstration and a peculiar bloody performance. Examining the motives behind the wars waged over the past century, we find none that were dictated by dire necessity, where survival depended solely on eliminating another to save oneself. In all these conflicts, there has consistently existed a relatively simple peaceful resolution to the contradictions, often beneficial to all parties involved. Yet, people, both in the past and present, continue to exhibit an irrational thirst for dominance for its own sake.

The flip side of this coin is the characteristic tendency of human lifestyle, which involves substituting material intermediaries for satisfying needs that one could fulfill directly. Objects transform into symbols of social status, and hyper-consumption becomes a representation of belonging to the ranks of successful, influential individuals. A consumer mindset is spreading, focusing on the acquisition of things as a procedural value, with "shopping" eclipsing the utilitarian value of the items themselves. Moreover, technological capabilities significantly outstrip the actual needs and abilities of individuals. For instance, the potential of a modern desktop computer far exceeds the skills required to operate it and the genuine demands of millions of its user-owners. Instead, traditional games or conversations are supplanted by such devices. Surprisingly, for most people, computer "gadgets" have become more of a means to disseminate personal photos and chatter, a replacement for solitaire games and song evenings, rather than tools for calculating optimal solutions.

The manmade reality transforms into a new natural environment, to which humanity appears ill-prepared and poorly adapted. Thinkers like Aurelio Peccei, as early as the late 1960s, posed the fundamental question of the need for a sober assessment of human qualities and the evolution of humanity itself. Culture serves as a factor in the co-evolutionary dynamics of humankind: individuals not only adapt the world to themselves by transforming objects of the natural reality into tools but also must adapt to the conditions they have created in each new generation. Can humanity effectively control its creations for its own benefit? Are we capable of preemptively identifying the threats posed by the uncontrollable expansion of culture? The contemporary worldview has reshaped the image of humanity from the pinnacle of creation and Earth as the center of the universe to that of a fragile vessel adrift in the cosmic ocean, whose life thrives due to a unique confluence of circumstances. We exist, at least as we perceive it today, as a cosmic anomaly, the loss of which would be irreparable for us and merely a triviality for "nature." Nature will certainly outlast us, but will we cut short our history through our own folly? Is humanity truly so wise?

The issues regarding the state of the planetary ecosystem, the prospects of humanity as a biological species and as a civilized community, geopolitical conflicts, international cooperation, global economics, demographic processes, and socio-cultural dynamics on a global scale are termed global (i.e., planetary). Understanding the global problems of contemporary humanity has become one of the defining trends in philosophical thought in the latter half of the 20th century and the early 21st century. This topic possesses a distinctly interdisciplinary nature, with the problems being closely interconnected within a singular problematic complex. Conditionally, several key questions can be distinguished.

Global ecological issues pertain to the preservation of the human environment in a state that allows for the effective reproduction of humanity’s resource base and the maintenance of environmental parameters within the adaptive capacity of human communities. The primary risks here are, on one hand (and chiefly), related to the limitation of the buffer capacities of ecosystems due to their degradation from human economic activity (deforestation, cultivation, pollution, loss of biodiversity, etc.). The foremost consequence is desertification and the loss of the resource potential of territories. Additionally, shifts in the balance of ecosystems provoke further evolutionary changes that threaten the emergence of new pathogens, pests, and so forth. Moreover, anthropogenic pressure on the environment may induce shifts in global ecosystem parameters—the atmospheric gas composition, the water cycle, alterations in hydrological and temperature regimes, and consequently climate change, leading to the flooding of some areas and desertification of others. It is crucial to understand that humanity now, as in the past, faces the danger of uncontrollable processes that are not directly linked to human influence. Geotectonic processes, the fall of celestial bodies, the shifting of the Earth in its orbit, and the corresponding climatic consequences remain the main factors of danger. The ecological crisis that is so frequently discussed today is, in essence, the moment of destabilization of the ecosystem, within which human communities are included, with an uncertain future ahead. Under certain circumstances, this may lead to irreversible destruction, i.e., catastrophe.

Social-demographic and socio-economic problems of a global level relate to population growth, migration flows, the resource base for economic activity, and the global market. The main problematic area here concerns the distribution of the world product and the inequality of economic opportunities, ensuring quality of life, material well-being, and creating an optimal regime for international interaction in the global economic system, where maximum effects from production cooperation and specialization in interdependent technological chains can be achieved. It is evident that these issues are closely tied to fundamental questions of social and economic philosophy—wealth and poverty, social inequality and legal guarantees of equal opportunities, social hierarchies, criteria for quality of life, the justified level of material resource consumption, the dynamics of social institutions, and so forth. Currently, the global order is such that in the most developed countries, birth rates do not ensure the reproduction of the current population size; nevertheless, these countries consume the lion's share of the world product. The high consumer standards here are largely (though certainly not exhaustively) connected to their ability to obtain resources and labor from less developed countries at relatively depressed costs. However, the income differentiation (the gap between the conditionally poor and the rich) is relatively small: both the "poor" and the "rich" can afford a comfortable life without destitution. The difference between the two lies rather in the influence and accessibility of luxury items, which are symbols of status.

Conversely, in poorer countries, population growth sometimes assumes catastrophic proportions: employment opportunities are limited, incomes are low, which automatically creates a powerful factor for the criminalization and lumpenization of these strata, diminishing the potential for economic development—due to the lack of viable demand for high-tech products with high added value, while external borrowing does not alleviate the impoverishment of the people. Their human capital is low; they effectively become "excess" individuals. Where such a country possesses natural resources that can be sold to developed countries, access to these resources is usurped by local criminalized structures that merge with state power, and all these riches end up in the hands of a small circle of individuals who are served by armed formations. Social inequality sharply increases, creating a chasm between the incomes of the poorest and the richest. However, the low social and human capital at the societal bottom does not allow for organized resistance to this differentiation. A financially viable organized group of resource usurpers effectively undermines civil society in such countries.

Thus, in the contemporary world, two social hierarchical structures have emerged: the hierarchy of nations and the social hierarchy within nations. Closer to the lower rungs of the hierarchy of nations, societies are formed with stratified populations characterized by unequal opportunities, where the destitution of some teeters on the brink of survival, while others indulge in ostentatious excess. This environment of social inequality and mutual alienation, marked by the dominance of narrow clannish interests, selfish corporate agendas with low social responsibility, and the interests of familial, regional, and sectarian affiliations, cultivates a fragmented conglomerate society of units that are often at odds with one another. Occasionally, this manifests in protracted civil conflicts, but more commonly, it results in a persistent criminal turmoil among warring gangs or the rise of tyrannical political regimes, whose ultimate collapse engenders fresh, bloody conflict within society. Ukraine finds itself somewhere in the middle of this spectrum, closer to the lower end, belonging to the nations on the periphery of civilization—those excluded from the circle of the chosen but not yet plunged into the abyss, teetering on the edge of the precipice.

As a global consequence, this situation leads to destabilization through the emergence of a broad social base of criminalized communities, where risky and destructive means of redistributing the pie of resources to their advantage become profitable. Additionally, a substantial layer of social parasitism emerges, consisting of various dependents who benefit from a range of aid, evading participation in productive labor. On one side are those who seek to live solely off the interest from funds (the minority), while on the other are those who parasitize on the laboring majority, often becoming an electorate that ensures the political dominance of large financial capital owners.

Geopolitical issues are a direct continuation of the tendencies towards the domination of political elites and their social bases, predicated on the unjust distribution of resources and the poor quality of human capital. Wars have always accompanied humanity; however, today, warfare with modern weaponry poses an extreme danger to all. Thus, the central issue emerges as the prevention of the proliferation of effective weapon systems beyond a narrow circle of their owners and the maintenance of a balance of power, whereby neither side can triumph over the other, thus ensuring their own inviolability. Aggression invariably arises as a reaction to the weakness of the opponent, who is most advantageously destroyed precisely when vulnerable (as Ukraine, having proven excessively weak, is acutely aware). However, a constant arms race beyond reasonable limits is exhausting for the parties involved and provokes them into various asymmetric actions. Hence, the issue of the geopolitical balance of power and the counteraction to military threats is intertwined with the lack of sufficient trust among participants in the global arena and the absence of reliable guarantees for the fair and peaceful resolution of conflicts, creating a system of international relations that would eliminate these risks. Attempts to establish such institutions (the League of Nations, the United Nations) have evidently not met with sufficient success, as they fail to answer the question of what to do when conflict arises between the most militarily powerful forces. Indeed, to subdue them would essentially require waging a world war. Regrettably, altering human beings at the level of moral attitudes towards peace is futile, as a peace-loving pacifist automatically risks becoming a victim of those who disregard such moral norms.

As a certain compromise result, the world descends into a cycle of distorted forms of conflict, where terror becomes the primary means of engagement. The essence of a terrorist's actions lies not in directly inflicting harm upon the adversary but rather in intimidation and blackmail. To this end, demonstrations of capability are needed that showcase the terrorists’ influence over targets and individuals likely to attract significant public attention. Explosions in public places and the assassination of symbolic figures or merely random innocent individuals present the most suitable options. Terror thus becomes a component of information warfare in democratic societies, as it influences public opinion, the manipulation of which is crucial for those in power to gain or maintain authority.

The sociocultural aspect of global problems. The aforementioned circle of world issues inevitably raises the question of who the subjects of these processes are. After all, a problem is always a problem for someone, and its objective content is reduced to the emergence of obstacles in the pursuit of some significant goal. The problematic nature here lies in the difficulties of removing or overcoming this obstacle, which may remain unclear in how it can be accomplished. Consequently, the presence of a problem indirectly poses a threat, as there can be no absolute assurance that it will be timely resolved.

Humanity, evidently, is not a subject, nor is it an integrated whole that governs its own behavior and sets goals for itself. The individual and their way of life serve, in this sense, as the object whose future concerns us and which establishes the value system by which the problem is considered. It is evident that the envisioned image of a desired future, humanity’s place in the world, and anticipated prospects—elements of the community's mental culture—set the problematic context: what we aspire to, what we can change and cannot change, what needs to be done, and who is responsible for it. Differences in these target orientations not only render various meanings of life distinct but also give rise to conflicts of value systems, conflicting interpretations of events, and ultimately, conflicts among communities as carriers of different cultures.

Thus, humanity presents itself as an arena for the actions of various subjects—organized groups, parties, movements, clubs, churches, governments, non-governmental organizations, and even individuals, each of whom perceives their ultimate goals for humanity as significant and possesses their own resources to influence social processes.

The decisions of these subjects are determined both by the value systems they adhere to and by the information about the world’s objects upon which they rely, the sources of data they trust, and the conceptual models they employ. Their actions function as a reflection of their ideological orientations and creeds. Hence, a characteristic effort of contemporary philosophical thought is to argue for unifying, universally significant, and human values, in the light of which should be recognized motivating goals for humanity that pertain not only to the immediate but also to the distant future.

Fundamental to this system of values is the acknowledgment of several basic principles:

• The principle of the intrinsic value of individual life—no one should be demanded to sacrifice their life for the benefit of another, and any other demands may be relinquished if their realization poses a threat to the preservation of life;
• The principle of responsibility to future generations towards contemporaries—since death terminates individual existence, the preservation of life as such is only possible through reproduction in subsequent generations; thus, it is unacceptable to sacrifice future generations for the sake of present-day benefits;
• The principle of the value of diversity—when many different elements coexist, it is preferable to a state of unification. This principle imposes limitations on constraints of freedom: everything that does not impede someone from living in a manner that does not hinder others should not be normatively regulated;
• The principle of personal accountability for one’s actions: no one should bear the responsibility for the actions of another (this important principle devalues any religious, class, or lineage codes of honor that appeal to collective responsibility);
• The harm inflicted on the environment is equivalent to harm inflicted on the individual;
• Those who already live have precedence over those yet to be born; this principle assigns value to the preservation of existing forms of life precisely because they already exist.

Such principles establish a certain system of compromises for bearers of different cultures by mitigating the excessive expansion of one value system at the expense of others, favoring a configuration of diverse communities that can coexist without interfering in each other's lives while simultaneously recognizing the shared environment as a universal value. People can live as they wish in their voluntary interactions with one another, as long as they do not impede others from living likewise. To avoid hindering others, they must safeguard the shared environment so that it does not diminish the viability of future generations. Simultaneously, individuals do not have the right to reproduce unchecked to the extent that it poses a threat to the environment and the well-being of those who already live and their right to reproduce in their descendants. Excessive populations should be mitigated not by killing the living but by preventing the birth of the unborn.

An important aspect of value in this context is the rational sufficiency of material goods and the recognition of the priority of ecosystem stability over economic growth. It is unwise to scuttle the vessel upon which one sails merely to satisfy an immediate need that can be foregone without jeopardizing life. The enemies of humanity are greed and arrogance, which compel individuals to compete with one another in the quantity and value of acquired possessions. The ancient wisdom that sufficiency is enough for the prudent remains ever relevant.

The resolution of such issues is initiated by active communities, each of which declares its value positions (such as those described above or others), striving to consolidate public support around articulated goals, to draw the attention of decision-makers to these aims, and, through the pressure of the expert community or direct struggles for the establishment of specific norms, to compel them to take actions whose outcomes are anticipated as expected and desirable.

However, the key link in this process of decision-making and formulation is the quality of forecasting models and the ability to generate adequate actions in a proactive response mode. It is unsurprising that, in the absence of highly reliable forecasts, their plausibility for some exists more as a matter of fervent internal conviction than as sufficient evidence. Hence arises the characteristic zeal, even obsession, of proactive societal groups, their tendency towards exaggeration and emotionally charged public engagement, excessive radicalism, and the naivety of idealism. Typically, this fervor is not supported by truly effective and balanced decisions. A more sober assessment emerges over time; yet, will that time suffice?

The formation of public opinion, often relied upon by the initiators of such movements, has its counterpoint. For example, environmental issues have spawned numerous speculations and manipulations that play upon naive expectations and heightened anxieties of the poorly informed consumers, leading to pseudo-solutions. The notion of "eco-friendliness" has proliferated, of course, for an additional fee! Meanwhile, "love for nature" devolves into the mere relocation of waste from one place to another and a neurotic concern for the rights of dogs and cats. Under the banners of environmental preservation, one often finds ordinary business "settlements" concealed. Ultimately, people grow weary of incessant alarm signals, become disillusioned with calls for radical change—change that must, of course, begin with oneself—and cease to respond to all this chatter. Fear motivates only specific actions here and now; otherwise, it breeds a sense of insurmountable uncertainty and oppression. Therefore, solutions to the problems humanity faces can only arise from seductive proposals, each presenting a concrete model of more advantageous and secure consumption and lifestyle.

Thus, the future is objectively uncertain in all its eventfulness; such is the nature of the world. Certain chains of events exhibit the character of typical, regularly reproduced sequences, based on which specific events can be accurately predicted in a localized dimension. The foundation of forecasting lies in the modeling of processes, and the verification of relevant models is based on reconstructing known historical analogs within those models. The forecasting of the future generates a specific class of problems pertaining to the state of the planetary ecosystem, the prospects of humanity as a biological species and a civilized community, geopolitical conflicts and international cooperation, the world economy, demographic processes, and sociocultural dynamics on a global scale, which are termed global.

The subjects of these global problems are proactive organized communities that declare specific systems of values and rely on a vision of the future.