reading the future: ai, deregulation, and the nature of truth

Last month, the Department of Energy quietly identified 16 federal sites for AI data center development, aiming to fast-track permitting for nuclear power generation to fuel the AI revolution. That same week, Microsoft adopted Google's Agent2Agent protocol, enabling AI systems to communicate seamlessly across platforms without user awareness. Meanwhile, the White House Office of Management and Budget issued new directives fundamentally shifting federal AI policy toward "removing barriers" and eliminating "unnecessary bureaucratic restrictions" on AI deployment throughout government agencies. None of these developments dominated headlines. All represent profound shifts in how our institutions operate.

These quiet revolutions are happening everywhere around us, creating a disorienting present and an uncertain future. In searching for clarity, I've found myself returning to three books that, together, offer a framework for understanding this moment: Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, Nexus by Yuval Noah Harari, and The End of the World is Just the Beginning by Peter Zeihan.

These aren't simply interesting reads. They're essential interpretive tools for anyone trying to navigate our rapidly evolving landscape of technology, governance, and global realignment.

words shape reality

What we read fundamentally shapes how we perceive reality. This isn't metaphorical; rather, it's neurological. Our brains physically reconstruct themselves around the narratives we consume, building neural pathways that become the architecture through which we interpret everything we encounter. The ancient humans who gathered around fires to hear stories or who painted narratives on cave walls weren't merely being entertained; they were collectively constructing shared realities that determined how they understood their world.

Today, this process continues with every article, book, and conversation we absorb. When we read about abundance versus scarcity, about information networks as control systems, about geopolitical realignment, we're not simply gathering information. We're installing cognitive frameworks that will determine which aspects of reality become visible to us and which remain unseen. The financial advisor who reads nothing about technological transformation will literally perceive different opportunities than one who does. The policymaker who hasn't engaged with deglobalization theories will be neurologically incapable of recognizing certain patterns unfolding before them.

I share these books not just because they're intellectually stimulating, but because engaging with them is an act of reality construction. They reshape the mental architecture through which we interpret everything from organizational decisions to technological implementations to global events. What we choose to read today determines what future we'll be capable of perceiving, and therefore creating, tomorrow.

3 lenses for the moment

Abundance: The Case for Building More

Klein and Thompson diagnose one of America's core problems: we've forgotten how to build. Amid housing crises, infrastructure decay, and climate challenges, we've constructed regulatory and cultural systems that excel at preventing rather than enabling. The authors argue that a "politics of plenty" requires moving beyond reflexive constraints to create genuine abundance.

What strikes me most about their argument is the timing. As federal agencies reduce oversight and corporations implement transformative technologies with minimal guidance, Klein and Thompson's framework becomes both more relevant and more challenging. They ask us to distinguish between regulations that protect essential values and those that merely create artificial scarcity.

When they write that "to have the future we want, we need to build and invent more of what we need," they're not advocating mindless deregulation. They're calling for intentional, values-driven creation. The distinction matters tremendously in our current environment.

Nexus: Decoding Information Networks

Harari steps back to examine how information has shaped human societies from our earliest mythologies to our current digital systems. He reveals how information networks - religious, political, economic, technological - have always structured human cooperation and power dynamics.

What makes this perspective vital now is how it contextualizes AI's unprecedented capabilities. When algorithms quietly replace human judgment in insurance, lending, hiring, or resource allocation, they represent a fundamental shift in our information networks.

I found myself underlining Harari's observation that "information is always dual-use: it can enlighten and empower, but it can also manipulate and control." This tension runs through every AI implementation decision happening around us.

The End of the World is Just the Beginning: Navigating Deglobalization

Zeihan's geopolitical analysis completes the picture by examining how the American-led global order is fragmenting, creating a more chaotic, regionalized world. He details how this will reshape everything from manufacturing to agriculture to energy systems.

What's particularly revealing is reading this alongside rapid technological transformation. As Zeihan writes, "The world is not ending, but the world we have all grown up with, grown accustomed to, and even understand—that world is ending."

In my work across sectors, I've seen how organizations simultaneously grapple with supply chain nationalization and AI implementation—two transformative forces that both complement and contradict each other in fascinating ways.

convergence

When read together, these books reveal several critical patterns shaping our present and future:

1. System Transformation Across Domains

All three authors describe fundamental transitions—regulatory, informational, and geopolitical—creating both extraordinary opportunity and profound vulnerability. The systems we've built over decades are being reconstituted around us, often without deliberate design.

2. Power Redistribution Without Clear Destination

Each book examines how traditional power centers—government agencies, information gatekeepers, geopolitical hegemonies—are being challenged. But none offers reassurance about where that power will ultimately reside or whether it will be democratized or concentrated in new forms.

3. The Governance Gap

Perhaps most urgently, all three highlight a growing disconnect between our governance mechanisms and our technological and societal realities. When Klein and Thompson criticize environmental review processes that take a decade, when Harari examines algorithmic decision-making beyond human comprehension, when Zeihan describes fragmenting international institutions—they're all pointing to the same fundamental challenge.

4. Necessity of New Frameworks

None of these authors believes we can simply restore previous conditions. Each argues, from different angles, that adaptation requires fundamentally new mental models rather than refinements of existing ones.

futuring

While these books unflinchingly confront profound challenges, they also illuminate pathways to a future that could be remarkably better than our present—not despite these transitions but because of them.

Imagine communities where housing abundance has eliminated homelessness and reduced economic inequality, where clean energy systems provide inexpensive power while healing our climate, where reformed immigration policies create mutual prosperity. This isn't utopian thinking—it's the logical conclusion of abundance principles properly applied.

Picture information networks that amplify human capability while preserving agency and privacy, where AI eliminates drudgery while enhancing creativity, where algorithms serve collective flourishing rather than narrow interests. This isn't technological determinism—it's the possible outcome of thoughtfully designed information systems.

Envision a world where deglobalization creates more resilient communities with thriving local production, where geographic constraints inspire innovation rather than limitation, where diverse regional approaches create laboratories for human advancement. This isn't naive optimism—it's a potential future hiding within current disruptions.

These possibilities aren't guaranteed, but they are genuinely available to us. The very disruptions these authors describe create unprecedented openings for reimagining core systems and relationships. The question isn't whether transformation is coming—it's whether we'll shape it intentionally toward human flourishing.

reading together

Sunlights in Cafeteria
Edward Hopper, 1958

I recently came across a study showing that Americans spend an average of 7 hours daily with digital media but only 34 minutes in meaningful conversation. This statistic stopped me cold. We live in the most connected era in human history, yet paradoxically, we process our most consequential ideas in isolation. We absorb world-changing concepts through glowing rectangles, alone in rooms or surrounded by strangers wearing headphones, each constructing private realities with increasingly little overlap.

This isolation isn't our historical norm. For most of human existence, reading itself was a communal act. Medieval manuscripts were read aloud in monasteries and courts. Early American communities would gather for public readings of newspapers and books. Japanese reading groups called "bunko" have existed for centuries. These weren't quaint customs but essential social technologies for processing complex information and constructing shared meaning.

The fragmentation of our meaning-making has profound consequences. When we encounter ideas as transformative as those in these books—ideas about abundance creation, information power, and global restructuring—and process them in isolation, we develop partial, fragmented understandings. The healthcare executive reads "Abundance" and sees implications for medical regulation. The software developer reads "Nexus" and considers algorithmic governance. The supply chain manager reads Zeihan and contemplates regionalized production. But the interconnections between these domains—where the most important insights lie—remain unexplored.

This isolation doesn't just limit our understanding—it constrains our capacity for collective action. Throughout history, communities that successfully navigated major transitions—from the Athenian response to Persian threats to New England towns adapting to industrialization—did so through intensive, shared meaning-making processes. They didn't just understand change collectively; they responded to it collectively.

co-creating the future

These books have helped me see patterns where I previously saw only chaos. They've given me language to describe transitions that seemed inarticulable. Most importantly, they've helped me identify where genuine agency remains possible amid these sweeping changes.

In my work across organizations, I've observed a striking pattern: those who only understand our challenges develop fear and paralysis; those who only imagine better futures create beautiful but unrealizable visions. It's the integration of clear-eyed situational awareness with positive future visions that enables transformative action.

This integration rarely happens in isolation. When we read and process these ideas alone, we tend toward either cynicism or naive optimism. It's through dialogue—through the collision and integration of diverse perspectives—that balanced, actionable wisdom emerges.

I believe we stand at a rare moment of possibility. The very disruptions these books describe—technological, regulatory, geopolitical—are simultaneously unraveling outdated systems and creating space for new ones. With sufficient collective understanding and vision, we can direct these forces toward extraordinary outcomes:

• Information systems that enhance rather than undermine human agency

• Regulatory frameworks that enable flourishing while preventing harm

• Economic approaches that create broadly shared abundance

• Community structures that foster connection amid technological change

• Governance mechanisms equal to our most pressing challenges

These aren't simply abstract possibilities. They're futures we can collectively manifest—but only if we first develop shared understanding of our present moment and then co-create visions of where we want to go.

building community across boundaries

Books this consequential deserve more than solitary reading. They demand dialogue, particularly across diverse professional domains and perspectives. The financial analyst, the healthcare provider, the technologist, the policy expert will each see different implications in these works.

That's why I've organized a book club, Reading the Future, to explore these texts together, beginning with "Abundance." Not because any one book has all the answers, but because collectively grappling with these ideas might help us navigate a world transforming around us faster than headlines can capture.

This isn't just about better understanding. It's about rebuilding our capacity for shared reality construction at a time when our reality itself is being fundamentally reshaped. The practice of reading together is, in essence, constructing meaning in community rather than isolation. Reading together isn't a quaint throwback but an essential adaptation to our fragmented information landscape.

The technological, regulatory, geopolitical transformations taking place aren't just happening to us. They're happening through us, through the thousands of individual and organizational decisions made daily in response to shifting conditions. How we understand these shifts collectively will determine whether we navigate them intentionally or are simply carried along by their currents.

By reading together, we're not just building shared understanding of our present reality. We're creating the community capable of envisioning and manifesting a better future, a future where abundance principles shape our material world, where information systems enhance human capability, where geographic constraints inspire innovation rather than limitation.

If we hope to shape rather than merely survive these transitions, we need more than individual brilliance or isolated understanding. We need collective wisdom and shared vision. And that begins with the seemingly simple but increasingly rare act of reading, thinking, and creating meaning—together.