Are You A Citizen 4.0?

• The next step of mankind is guided by a global government, populated by Citizen 4.0
• Our time is marked by volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. Short VUCA
• People feel like everything is getting worse. Facts are showing the opposite
• Citizen 4.0 are globally interconnected and use technology to improve and prosper

In our fast changing, interconnected world, a new inhabitant arises. The Citizen 4.0.

This article will give an impression, what a Citizen 4.0 is and why we need one.

A New Global Order

The exponential growth of mankind presents us with major challenges such as the Hothouse Earth scenario. No man, no company and no state can solve problems of that size alone.

Therefore thinking and acting globally becomes mandatory.

We do not only need common goals and roadmaps as they already exist today. The problem today is a lack of efficiency when it comes to realization.

As a result, a global government is needed.

At the same time, we are experiencing a great change in the world that we have known for 73 years. The era of the liberal global order is coming to an end.

As the US declines, China rises.

If we are to survive the global geopolitical transition, we must first accept that the era of US hegemony is over. Instead, the world is shifting to a new multi-polar order with the US and China at its centre.

— Muggah and Tiberghien, WEF, January 2018

The shift is fueled by different governmental styles. Democracies lack speed, consistency and efficiency compared to authoritarian styles of government.

On the other hand, a liberal citizen would always reject life under an authoritarian government.

For good reasons.

Therefore, a new global order should ideally unite the advantages of both political systems.

To understand the drawbacks of the absence of a global government, we only need to look at the example of climate change. We’re losing this fight right now.

And yet we have so many more problems to solve, as the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals show.

Sustainable Development Goals For a Better World, United Nations 2016

VUCA Times

But before we tackle the future, we must understand where we stand now.

Currently we are living in VUCA times. Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity are our everyday companion.

Nationalists and populists are on the rise, Fake News surround us, Trump raging on Twitter and global super powers are shifting as China will soon surpass the US in economic terms – and is taking the lead on climate change and the digital economy.

There is a constant feel of danger and decline. Fears arise:

• Will the upcoming automation with machines and AI take my job away?
• Will my children be poorer than my parents?
• Is a big war upcoming?
• How can I survive in a world spinning faster and faster?
• Is the next big recession just around the corner?

Some things develop in the right directions, while others don’t. Certainly the strengthening of populism belongs to the latter.

Francis Fukuyama and Jan-Werner Müller view populism and the rise of parochial economic nationalism as among the gravest threats to future stability. The risk of a disorderly collapse of the system is more real than ever.

The above mentioned fears are tightly coupled with the rise of populism and nationalism.

One of the key factors for the success of populism is fake news.

We must put up with the question of why, 300 years after the Enlightenment and in times of omnipresent information, we allow these tendencies to happen.

The Rise Of Citizen 4.0

Populism needs to be fought by citizens that are bold and fight for progress – on all levels.

A global government that advances humanity will not create itself. Especially not with opposing trends like nationalism.

The new born Citizens 4.0 won’t need superpowers, to help create a better and global society.

The Citizen 4.0, derived from the fourth Industrial Revolution, will start small, sharing love and education in their own family. Citizens 4.0 use technology to improve themselves and fight dangers to society like fake news.

Transparency also plays a key role in another area. Politics must regain the confidence to win back the voters from populists. Here fore transparency is a good approach.

However the basis for future progress is based upon a Citizen 4.0 that received a good education and and an open world view. Shaped in school, the society and last but not least the family.

Therefore it all starts in the family. From there the transformation towards a better, global society is induced.

At this point, I’d like to refer to the famous quote of JFK.

And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.

— John F. Kennedy, inauguration address, January 1961.

Consequently the term country in this quote would be transferred to family and global society.

Start small, be positive, don’t let others mislead you easily.

See The Good And Speak About It

Tom Fletcher showed in his excellent book The Naked Diplomat how everything and everyone needs to transform.

Especially traditional and longstanding institutions and roles such as diplomacy respectively diplomats.

The book also shows how technology is always set to transform us. Just take the invention of the telephone as an example. The impact on diplomacy was tremendous.

Today we face even bigger transformations and need to find an answer to the challenges of the fourth Industrial revolution.

Our duty as Citizens 4.0 is to ensure, that this time no one will be left behind. An universal basic income could be a possible path.

In the end I want to finish with facts of hope. As this article of the World Economic Forum shows, we have never been living in better times than today.

The world has made spectacular progress in every single measure of human well-being. Here is a second shocker: Almost no one knows about it.

Header Image Source: pexels, pexels license
Article Image Source: wikimedia, United Nations Department of Public Information, CC-BY-NC

About Post Author

Fabian Schmidt

Fabian Schmidt is working as Head of Software Engineering in Manufacturing at SICK AG. He has an extensive IT background and has a faible for lean and agile organizations.

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