Umair Haque discusses 'The Chaos Factor'

A polar bear on an ever shrinking piece of ice
symbolizes Umair Haque's chaos factor.

We’ve grown up in a world like a warm blanket. Safe and secure, peaceful and placid. Every now and then, something might jerk us awake, like a nightmare. But on the whole, life was tranquil, calm, simple.

Only now the threads of that blanket are beginning to fray. What I’ll call the world’s chaos factor is spiking, and I don’t think it’s going back down. At least not in our lifetimes, and probably beyond.

Chaos factor. What do I mean? I’m not a big fan of pseudo-quantification. But it consists of the following elements. Global political order, stable broadly shared economic growth, and social cohesion. Translation: international agreements, real leaders, thriving middle classes, and life changing breakthroughs. No, not the iPhone 7. Antibiotics.

Read Umair Haque’s opinion on “The Chaos Factor.”