Are you sitting comfortably?

This might be controversial, but here goes.

The dismantling of USAID, the collapse of AI’s embryonic global governance efforts, and the political battles still to come should serve as a warning: there are no comfort zones anymore.

Institutions built for the 20th century are struggling to adapt to the realities of the 21st. If we don’t rethink them, we may lose them entirely.

Take public spending. The exposure of U.S. aid budgets—stripped of context and weaponized for political effect—is a masterclass in communication. It’s also an abhorrent twisting of the facts. 

(If you’ve not clocked it, my video series on mastering modern information environments is underway on Linked In. The introduction is here, a riff on Bluesky is here and a quick look at disinformation is here.)

The NHS wouldn’t survive this kind of scrutiny. 

Uncomfortable truths demand urgent action. The world is shifting beneath our feet, and declining national wealth and power only add to the challenge.

We cannot assume that moral clarity or facts will trump public opinion.

The sanguine tendency of establishment power may prove no match for the alacrity of a democratically mandated insurgent political agenda. 

All of which demonstrates why those of us who want to defend the values of democracy need to be more willing to challenge the status quo. 

Look at the contrast:

🚀 Elon Musk is sending rockets to Mars. Our government can’t build a train from London to Manchester.

📡 Musk is providing internet to remote villages in Africa. Meanwhile, we can’t even guarantee a reliable bus service in the Lake District.

I worked in International Development for a decade and came to believe the case for ‘aid’ was no longer persuasive. 

In fact I wrote a paper about how countries could galvanise the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) process by committing to end aid in 2030. This would have involved continuing to spend on humanitarian response work and moving to an approach of Global Public Investment - shared spending on shared problems facing every person on our shared planet. 

This reframing and rebalancing offers a route forward for international cooperation that can carry us into the rest of the 21st century on a much more equal basis with other countries and focus on modern threats that resonate with the public. Everyone knew (knows?) that aid’s days are numbered but nobody expected Elon Musk to sound the death knell. 

The lesson? If we don’t use the agency we have now, we may lose it altogether.

If your comfort zone is starting to feel uncomfortable, take that as a sign: now is the time to act.

And as a reminder that times have changed, here’s an inspirational quote from a Republican U.S. President: