36 key ideas in 2026

the-26-most-important-ideas-for-2026 is very thought-provoking!  My comments are not intended to be critical, but rather simply to expand thought a bit more.

1. Here are 10 “important ideas” he did not mention.  Perhaps my view is less limited to 2026 than is his and, of course, he couldn’t cover everything. .

Optimistic perspectives that are progressing but won’t make a big splash in 2026 need to receive funding:

1. Energy advances (fusion, such as Commonwealth and Helion; geothermal, such as Fervo; as well as solar, wind, etc.) can improve economies and life, while reducing cost, pollution and war.
2. Climate change technology advances will continue, including agricultural advances (such as The Land Institute), carbon sequestration (such as C-Questra), etc.  Why I Stopped Being A Climate Catastrophist is a good article.  Despite being a strong environmentalist for 60+ years, I have been a climate change moderate for several reasons.  One is that we really don’t know what will happen in the future.  Secondly, Bjorn Lomborg makes some good points, including that critics ignore that fewer people are dying from exposure to cold.  I do think we should try to reduce our impact on planet warming and climate change.  I support renewable energy as part of an “all of the above” strategy with a trend away from combustibles.  I’ve supported a carbon tax and incentives to buy fuel-efficient cars but not electric car manufacturing mandates.
3. Assuming we don’t kill the golden goose, there will continue to be major biotech advances such as individualized treatment (e.g., Singula Institute and ETH Zurich).

Things we should be able to turn-around if our citizens get together and insist on positive changes:

4. The loss of heroes and denigration of merit are huge problems.  We need secular and religious heroes to inspire people!  (Recognizing their flaws is fine as long as we honor their contributions.)
5. Our public education system needs serious improvement.  Most important: we consign students in inner cities to inadequate education but even in wealthier areas, education can be improved.
6. We have a desperate need to reward integrity in politicians, media, and institutions.  Our parties lie to us about each other to gain power through our anger.  We must demand that politicians and institutions bring us together, using heroes of various characteristics to demonstrate that we all have similar values.  Rather than stressing differences (identity politics), we should stress our similarities and show that diversity helps us achieve our common goals.  We must address our national debt, which is typically stated as $38 trillion, but is $95 trillion if you assume Social Security and Medicare will continue unchanged indefinitely.  The 2026 election will be important to see whether extremists or centrists win in each party’s primaries and in the November elections.
7. I fear the trend toward George Orwell’s 1984 with increasing government intrusion in our lives (as exists in China and is growing in other countries) and a world carved up between super-powers (which seems to be a Trump-effect).

Things that seem harder to control:

8. The continual explosion of more-and-more info and our fast-paced world increase mental disease because they strain the capability of the human brain.
9. It also is increasingly difficult to determine the truth.  This has been a great fear of mine since I watched “Forrest Gump”.  Tip: On Chrome, there are three vertical dots to the right of the URL (see below).  These dots lead to info about the credibility of the site.

10. A new “arms” race is building, not only among major countries but also minor countries and factions (such as terrorists).  Offensive weapons can be built very cheaply.  While this may stymie the Orwellian world, it is not positive.

2. Many of his issues can be compressed into a single point: while there is more to learn, our population is shortening its attention span and spending more time on escapist/leisure activities.  This threatens our future, including our long-term freedom vs. possible Chinese conquest.
3. He also identifies some overall trends that comprise multiple subsets that have very different consequences.

Here are the 26 issues he identified with a few comments:

1. The end of reading: CT: There are multiple issues mixed here
1. Reduced adult leisure reading doesn’t bother me.  It may not be productive use of our time.  Reading on-line is superior as you can delve quickly into side issues and share your sources/observations more easily.
2. Replacing child/teen leisure reading with videos might not be bad.  Reading helped us understand life and how our lives might turn out.  But “a picture is worth 1000 words”, and video with sound is better than a picture.
3. Biographies: the reduction in heroes is a big problem.  I don’t think reading biographies has been sufficiently replaced with video biographies.
4. Technical, informational reading is critical and requires attention span.

2. The triumph of streaming video:
1. CT: Replacing print with on-line is good (see 1a) but social media is dangerous because of silos and false info.
2. CT: It would be interesting to see a breakdown of the use of YouTube.  Its “how to” and educational videos are great!  It democratizes education, by making it available instantly, everywhere, with no marginal cost.

3. Goodbye, movie theaters?

4. TikTok might be melting your brain: “a systematic review of 71 studies with 98,000 participants … in 2025 … [found] heavy short-form video users showed moderate deficits in attention, inhibitory control, and memory.”

5. The whole US economy right now is one big bet on artificial intelligence: CT: robots could turn life upside down

6. Get ready for a wave of anti-AI populism

7. Generative AI is probably much better at (certain aspects of) our jobs than we’d like to admit: CT: on this issue, he unpacked related issues that have different impacts.

8. Young Americans are becoming more disconnected from the economy: CT: people at all ages are choosing to be unemployed.

9. The share of liberal non-religious high school seniors who say life “often feels meaningless” has doubled since the early 2000s: We should learn from his data that religious and conservative youth have better mental health.

10. The only currency is currency (Or: Have you noticed that the only remaining global virtue in the world is money?): CT: We don’t teach values as well as we did in the past.  This gets back to heroes, religion, and our education system.

11. The accelerated decline of fertility among rich countries is going to have some fascinating global implications:  CT: One of these issues is going to be related to water, which will become increasingly valuable.

12. Is alcohol over?

13. Americans aren’t drunk. They’re high.

14. Marijuana isn’t good medicine.

15. GLP-1 drugs are already remarkable, and today they’re probably less effective than they’ll ever be.

16. GLP-1 drugs will probably reshape the food and drink industry: CT: I agree.  The impact of GLP-1 drugs is going to be huge in terms of health, life expectancy, healthcare spending, junk food industry, gym industry, etc.

17. The future will be hot, high, and lonely.

18. And one more thing about drugs: The right’s vaccine politics are insane.

19. Young people are screwed because of housing. So … what’s the matter with housing?  CT: One positive is that both parties want to ease permitting bottlenecks.

20. Blocked from homeownership, low-income renters are gambling with their housing money

21. America’s “monks in the casino” are calling for help

22. Negativity bias rules everything around me: I’ve wanted to see a “Good News” TV channel for 40 years.  True, most people wouldn’t watch it, but it would get a following.  The world is way better off than in the past.  The green revolution (Norman Borlaug) was a huge success; diseases have been reduced by sanitation, vaccines, medicines, etc.; healthy food is shipped around the world, hence available all seasons; etc.  There is less poverty and the poverty is less intense.  We have more comforts and products, more affordable and they last longer.  But TV/video raises people’s expectations, causing more dissatisfaction than in the past despite things being so much better.

23. The Past Sucked, Part I: Be glad you don’t live in Italy in the mid-500s

24. The Past Sucked, Part II: The U.S. used to suffer from a very different housing crisis

25. Progress is as much about the institutions we build as it is about the truths we discover

26. Great art can save lives.