If you ask anyone now, do we have the opportunity for worldpeace now, then the answer is going to be No. However, if we consider a time in the future when we have achieved a semblence of worldpeace, then surely there were stages which proceded it. Well, what are these stages?
If we look back to European history, it is a bloody affair. However, after the most recent bloodshed which tore through Europe in the middle of the 20th century, with the formation of the UN, there has been a situation of stability. Although there are hotspots, such as in Northern Ireland, Serbia, and Spain/Catalonia, there has been peace between the traditional adversaries of Germany and France and the UK. With the formation of the EU, we consider ourselves Europeans, and we may travel relatively safely throughout the continent. Can we suggest, that in a hundred years, any one of us may travel the world ins relative safety?
The alternative is not pleasant. Many intellectuals forsee a degeneration into a kind of Dark Age. With global warming, with the depletion of oil reserves, with unstable economics, political stalemates and religious frictions, and nuclear arsenals, there are too many possibilities which result in disaster. It would not take much to spark this rather volatile time we are living in. We need a proactive solution. We need to think of some solutions which can redirect the direction our societies are taking.
Short-view thinkers, who are commonly understood as more practically minded, require objectives closer to home. Long-view thinking is required to envisage the objectives close to 2020 (see 2020test ). If we consider the prerequisite objectives earlier and earlier until we approach the present day, this creates the appropriate resolution for short-view thinkers to utilise their skills (see virtual nowhere and gleick group ). Therefore it is abstract thinkers, working accurately within the 2020 time-scale, who may provide the most valuable thinking from 2005 to 2010. Real practical social power dynamics may only manifest later, but with the right preparation, this manifestation may occur exponentially (see actuator ladder ).