It was in 1982 that Tears for Fears released their hit song Mad World. The world certainly did seem pretty ‘mad’ then (a bit of a subjective claim: rather, it was ‘mad’ for some and not for others, might be a better way of putting it). Nevertheless, it does seem to have become progressively madder since.
Hardly a day goes by when we don’t learn of orchestrated injustices, conflicts and human suffering around the world. As Led Zeppelin has it in the song Stairway to Heaven, “it makes me wonder…” Indeed, it does make me wonder. Wonder about whether we learn, or are prepared to learn anything from our collective past to improve our collective future?
Collective cooperation
What does collective cooperation look like and what can it achieve? The 2023 Netflix documentary, Unknown: Cosmic Time Machine’ recounts the story of the successful deployment of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) in 2021. René Doyon, Canadian astrophysicist and principal investigator of NIRISS, one of the four scientific instruments on the JWST lead puts it: “This is what happens when the world decides to build something together that’s bigger than any one country.”
The project required incredible perseverance and dedication from the multinational, multidisciplinary team involved in the development. Despite a great many challenges, the project encapsulates what can be achieved through cooperation. As Amber Straughn, NASA astrophysicist says: “It’s such a good example of what we humans can do when we work together for something good. There’s so much pain in the world right now…it’s a really tough time…a little bit of light in a dark time.”
“If we can do that, imagine all the other problems we can solve.”
Dr Thomas Zurbuchen PhD, Associate Administrator for the Science Mission Directorate NASA 2016-2022.
Why choose confrontation?
Sadly, the impact of these inspirational words appears to have been forgotten. They should be borne in mind every day, by everyone with the slightest power to influence outcomes in the local and global arena, where decisions that affect the future of people and the planet are made.
Yet, many world leaders seemingly do not choose cooperation with each other over confrontation, preferring instead to pull humanity with them in directions which are not necessarily in the best long-term interests of either their nations or the wider world. This shapes how people around the world interact with one another.
in January 2024 the World Economic Forum launched a global barometer of cooperation, “to serve as a tool for leaders to better understand the contours of cooperation broadly and along five pillars – trade and capital flows, innovation and technology, climate and natural capital, health and wellness, and peace and security”.
Arguably, it was long overdue, given the rising concern about how rapidly nations have swung from cooperation to myopic nationalism, and perhaps it would have been more truthful to have emphasised the ‘lack of cooperation’. World leaders should not derive any sense of satisfaction from the report; if anything, they need even more incentive to cooperate.
The Executive Summary to the latest report from January 2025 is headlined: “Amid increasing global disorder, leaders must find new ways to cooperate.” The world needs leaders who are prepared to cooperate with each other and move it away from its current trajectory.
Cooperation makes a good country
In 2017, Wikipedia’s ‘Good Country Index’ (V1.2) ranked the United States 25th across a range of metrics. By 2023 the US had slipped to 50th. This may say something about the power of cooperation over confrontation. The former offers hope for the future; the latter, increasing levels of risk.
In Kennett Werner’s article Self-defeating published in The World Ahead 2026 edition of The Economist, he says: “At American universities 70% of full time graduate students in fields related to artificial intelligence are foreigners. Brainy immigrants who come to study science or engineering – as more than half of them do – often stay to launch a business. A quarter of American startups worth more than $1bn had a foreign-born founder who arrived as a student. Perhaps the best known is Elon Musk….. Innovation and entrepreneurship will suffer as a result of Mr Trump’s funding cuts and immigration restrictions.”
In the UK, Brexit has had a similar effect on students. Does the public understand the cost of this lost opportunity and lost benefit to the UK economy, in addition to the known costs associated with Brexit itself? What about the costs associated with the removal of the Erasmus educational exchange scheme and the half-baked attempt to restore it as Erasmus+?
The threat of AI
In the context of rising nationalism and diminishing international cooperation, Artificial Intelligence (AI) seems to bring with it more threats than opportunities, as nations strive to outcompete each other in developing, for example, ever more sophisticated ‘defence’ capabilities. There is nothing in maintaining this approach that is likely to bring about sustainable improvement for the greater good of either humanity or the planet – just profit for the minority able to capitalise on it, supported by governments that choose to emphasise the need for defence in order to be able to stand up to real and potential confrontation.
It would appear to be a case of having to learn to deal with the evolving dystopian dynamic. In other words, learn quickly to respond to the fire – fight, survive and overcome. Victory will be ours. In the words of Mark Carney, Prime Minister of Canada: “States that embrace variable geometry, weaving new networks and constructing pragmatic alliances will be best placed to thrive in this new age.” (The Economist ibid).
What if, in 2026, the JWST identified clear signs of what we currently understand to be intelligent life that was more ‘intelligent’ than ourselves? Would the human species finally realise the futility of confrontation over cooperation? Who knows, perhaps we are already being observed by such an intelligent life form. Do they perceive us as a threat? I don’t think so, because the planet and its occupants will be seen as having already committed themselves to a path of self-destruction.
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