The global economy is suffering. Crypto is among the causes.

Two remarkably distinct yet closely related bits of news greeted us this morning. Four Ukrainian districts in the Baltics will come under Russian control, President Vladimir Putin announced, underscoring the intensity of the ongoing battle there. Florida, a place that is usually at risk for hurricanes, was also devastated severely by storm Ian.Both occurrences serve as contrasting examples of the need to reshape the foundation of human civilization into something more enduring, universal, unique, and adaptable. This necessitates the development of financial networks resistant to the actions of tyrannical regimes and the results of catastrophic disasters.

© image: inside bitcoins

These problems might have been less obvious when the Bitcoin project was first launched in 2009. There was still a chance that Russia could liberalise in a way similar to the West, and it is generally expected that market economies and democratic politics will prevail on a global scale. And even though events like Hurricane Katrina in 2005 provided several warnings about the consequences of climate change, many people remained in denial. A lot of people, especially Americans, still thought they were living in the capitalist utopia outlined in Thomas Friedman’s “Flat” world or Francis Fukuyama’s “End of History,” which is a much simpler version of it.

Friedman wasn’t entirely off the mark, of course. The world has “flattened” in the sense that we can now communicate across enormous distances far more successfully than we did even twenty years ago. However, in many cases, that merely gives a clearer perspective of disasters that are already underway.Globalized communication, for instance, has allowed us to more clearly see the disparity between the kleptocratic leadership of Russia and its population, who are equally split and different as the citizens of any other country on Earth. Many Russians loathe Putin and everything he represents, but they risk being forgotten by the world owing to circumstances that are essentially beyond their control.

Globalization suffers grave damage.

Regardless of how Putin’s attack turns out, business owners in Russia will likely have far less access, especially to international logistics networks for shipping, payments, and transportation. Even though the openness of these systems has greatly grown over the past 50 years, nation-state level choke points continue to exist. For instance, at least seven Russian organisations have been prohibited by the global banking network SWIFT.

Similar disruptive effects are caused by climate change-driven increases in the frequency of major natural catastrophes. Florida is a horrible place, but it’s not quite as bad as Pakistan, where floods this month has killed 1,500 people. Any place vulnerable to these developments may easily have even the most basic infrastructure decimated in one single swoop. It is anticipated that rising political polarisation would accompany climate change in driving large numbers of migrants out of such vulnerable areas.Two symptoms of the “deglobalization” movement that is becoming more widely acknowledged are unstable political and ecological situations.

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