Oz Veloshian

So bringing those two things together, that's hard.

I suspect that it's at least as likely, maybe more likely that the next political revolutionary in the US will be more like FDR and less like Trump.

And I think that's great because obviously much of the system needs to change and it's not gonna change through its existing institutional frameworks.

So as we wrap up, you know, we both sort of came to frame the world in the 1990s at a time when the primary frame, you were saying the Soviet Union had fallen apart, the Berlin Wall had fallen, there was the formation of the EU after decades of effort.

Fukuyama has been made fun of for prematurely declaring the end of history, but it was a view of the world that felt very palpable at the time that much of what had ailed the 20th century, let alone human history, had been resolved in a much more favorable fashion than most people had dreamt of.

and that there was a really bright future on the other side of that, of technology, of prosperity.

And a lot of that, as we can look back at 30 years, 25 years, whatever the decades are, was clearly excessively starry-eyed about the world and didn't acknowledge all the problems that remained.

I just wonder if we have the privilege of having this kind of conversation 25 years from now, will we feel as well that we were too focused on all the things that were ailing us given that – I don't think so.

I think that geopolitics are cyclical.

And in the same way that economics are cyclical, they're boom and bust cycles.

And if you're in a bust cycle, you're too gloomy about everything.

I mean, you know, a lot of traders say like, you know, sort of at the worst moment, that's just when things are gonna get great, that's when you should buy.

But I mean, the point is that geopolitical cycles are long cycles.

I wrote about the GZERO world in 2012.

It was obvious that we were coming to a period where the balance of power was no longer aligned with the rules of the road, with the international architecture.

And as that plays out, you're going to need to reform your existing institutions, create new ones, and you're gonna see a lot more conflict and war.

And that's what we're going through right now.

So of course, it's gonna feel a lot more negative because you're going through the long geopolitical recession.

We will get through it.

There will be something afterwards.