Data-driven analysis of the structural forces — demographic, technological, economic —
that will shape the next century.
China banned gallium and germanium exports in 2023 and most Western policymakers had never heard of either element. The energy transition depends on minerals most people cannot name, mined in places m…
The US spent more on interest payments than on defence in 2025 for the first time in history. Spain defaulted six times between 1557 and 1647. France's debt triggered the Revolution. The pattern is al…
Guilt societies are ruled by an internal judge; shame societies by the eye of the crowd. The difference shapes corruption, rule of law, and how civilisations understand each other — when they meet, th…
Robots are not stealing jobs. They are replacing the unborn. When the Shadow Workforce handles survival, eight billion people become an aristocracy. Athens used that freedom to invent philosophy. Rome…
The US spent more on interest payments than on defence in 2025 for the first time in history. Spain defaulted six times between 1557 and 1647. France's debt triggered the Revolution. The pattern is al…
China banned gallium and germanium exports in 2023 and most Western policymakers had never heard of either element. The energy transition depends on minerals most people cannot name, mined in places m…
Britain has undergone one of the most rapid peacetime demographic transformations in European history. It was not planned. It emerged from a sequence of policy decisions — and its long-term trajectory…
In a single generation, the West gave away the industrial monopoly it had held for two centuries. From the rust belts of the Midlands to the boomtowns of Guangdong, this is the story of the Great Offs…
Between them, European and East Asian civilisations built virtually everything that defines the modern world — the scientific method, industrial manufacturing, semiconductors, the internet, modern med…
For five thousand years, every successful civilisation tightly controlled who could enter, settle, and become a citizen. Then, in the space of a single generation, the West decided this was bigotry. T…
For five thousand years, if you could not write, you hired a scribe. If you could not code, you hired a developer. AI has just made everyone literate in the digital scribal arts — coding, design, film…
In 1932, Germany spent less than 1% of GDP on its military. By 1939, that figure was 23%. The transformation took just seven years. Today, Europe is embarking on the fastest rearmament since the Cold…
On February 4th 2026, a Washington Post reporter in a warzone in Ukraine learned by text message that she had been laid off. Nearly half the newsroom was gone in a single day. This is not just a story…
In February 2026, the United States signed a trade deal with Taiwan that included $250 billion in semiconductor investment pledges. Tariffs are back. Industrial policy is back. After forty years of be…
Elon Musk's DOGE initiative has identified $215 billion in US government savings and aims for $2 trillion. The EU's regulatory apparatus grows by thousands of pages each year. Every civilisation in hi…
SpaceX is building Starship production lines at scale. China plans a permanent lunar base by 2030. NASA's Artemis programme aims to return Americans to the Moon. India, Japan, and the UAE have all sen…
In February 2026, India ordered social media platforms to remove content within three hours of a government request. The EU's Digital Services Act empowers bureaucrats to police online speech across 2…
On a single street in a Western city, five families have one child and two have two. That is nine children where fifteen are needed. Some chose this. Some wanted children and ran out of time. The barr…
In a small town in southern Italy, a school closed last year. Not because of budget cuts. Because there were no children left. That empty classroom is the future of the developed world. No country in…
Microsoft's AI chief predicts virtually all white-collar tasks will be automated within 18 months. South Korea's fertility rate is 0.72. Japan sells more adult nappies than baby nappies. Tesla's Optim…
In the quest for immortality, humanity has long dreamed of extending the boundaries of life beyond the confines of our current existence. The tantalizing prospect of living to 150 years or more has ca…
We stand at a pivotal juncture in human history, facing two seemingly contradictory narratives about the future of work and society. On one side, we hear urgent calls for increased migration to addres…
Older pieces that hold up.
Western dominance was a 200-year anomaly. The world is reverting to the historical mean.
Source: Maddison Project, IMF · Read the full analysis →
Every article, narrated in full. Queue them up and listen on the go.
Energy, food, water, land — the physical foundations that every civilisation depends on.
Conservatives are rightly suspicious of environmentalists. By 1992, with Reagan, Thatcher and the end of the Cold War, socialism and left wing thinking appeared…
Capitalism is a wonderful system for providing pricing signals to businesses to produce more or less of a particular product. If demand for the new iPad mini is…
What do black slavery, creationism and climate change denial all have in common? In the US, at least, a biblical justification and a fascinating geographic over…
How nations rise, compete, and decline — from colonial empires to modern China.
North Africa does not appear to be a military and political threat to the European Union. Why should it? In the last few years most of its countries have been c…
Many Westerners fret about the relative decline of the West. For over 500 years, since the successful conquest of the Americas by Atlantic Ocean facing power, i…
The war in Ukraine, which began with Russia's invasion in February 2022, has brought the world to a dangerous crossroads. As the fighting continues, with devast…
Automation, trade, debt, and the future of work in an age of intelligent machines.
Why do so many Western politicians and economists promote a trading system that increases Western unemployment levels and results in a gigantic transfer of weal…
Many years ago HFN spent a wonderful day in the company of a beautiful Russian woman. She had a warm smile and long legs that never seemed to stop. She was also…
Rapid advancements in humanoid robotics and artificial intelligence are bringing us closer to a reality once confined to the realm of science fiction.
Democracy, religion, migration, identity — the human systems that bind us together.
Ever since our ancient ancestors walked out of Africa between 125,000 and 60,000 years ago humans have pushed themselves to explore and to emigrate to territori…
There are a lot of people to whom the quote "history is written by the winners" is attributed to. Winston Churchill frequently pops up in the context of a discu…
Winston Churchill famously quipped that “Democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others that have been tried.” With this statement he was e…