21 Lessons for the 21st Century summary

Although most experts agree that robotics and machine learning will change nearly all lines of work in the twenty-first century, we can’t predict what this change will look like. Will billions of people find themselves economically irrelevant within the next twenty years, or will automation result in wider prosperity and great new jobs for all?

Many optimists point to the industrial revolution in the nineteenth century, a time when the fear that new machine technology would create mass unemployment was widespread. They point out that since the start of that industrial revolution, new technology has created a new job for each one it made obsolete.

The world has never looked so small. The twenty-first century has ushered in changes unimaginable to our forebears. For instance, globalization has made it possible to meet people from all over the world. Unfortunately, it has also opened up new opportunities for conflict.

Indeed, as more of the world’s people cross borders in the hunt for better jobs and more security, our urge to expel, confront or assimilate strangers is putting our political ideologies and national identities to the severest of tests.

No one is better at playing mind games than twenty-first century terrorists. Since the 9/11 attacks, in 2001, roughly 50 people are killed by terrorists in the European Union every year. In America, about ten people are killed.

Now consider that during that time, 80,000 people in Europe and 40,000 Americans have died in traffic accidents. Clearly, our roads pose a far greater hazard to our lives than terrorists, so why are most Westerners more scared of terrorism than driving?

For centuries, liberal societies have placed a huge amount of trust in the ability of individuals to think and act rationally. In fact, our modern societies are founded on the belief that each human adult is a rational, independent agent. For instance, democracy is based on the notion that voters will know what is best. Our system of free-market capitalism is premised on the idea that customers are never wrong. And our liberal system of education instructs pupils to engage in independent thinking.

But in the twenty-first century, placing so much faith in our ability to act rationally is a grave mistake. Why? Because modern humans, as individuals, know appallingly little about how the world actually works.

A child born the year of writing will be in his or her thirties in 2050 and will hopefully still be alive in 2100. But what sort of education would help this child prosper well into the next century?

For children of the twenty-first century to flourish and become capable adults, we need to radically rethink our schooling system. In other words, the schools that got us here won’t get us there.