The world is undergoing profound changes, genuine riddles that will define the future of humanity. Some of these changes have been decades in the making, while others have just begun to emerge. The central question for any country today is how to navigate these changes, mitigate their costs and take advantage of their opportunities. In this issue we address five of Mexico’s major challenges.
1. The relationship with the United States which, before and after Trump, faces a geopolitical rearrangement of such magnitude that it promises a new international order;
2. The irruption of artificial intelligence that heralds an unpromising future for societies like ours, whose educational model does not bet on science, technology, engineering or mathematics;
3. A complex demographic crisis, with emphasis on birth rates, in the aftermath of a population bonus that was squandered;
4. Climate change in a country so diverse in climates and ecosystems;
5. The high social and economic costs of non-communicable diseases, in the context of a critically weakened health and social security system.
This is not an extensive list, but perhaps it is enough to make it clear that the future is already here and it takes us all by surprise, government, opponents and society. It is useless to polarize, divide, blame the past or promise paradises. We must recognize the future that is already among us and respond to it.
Trump and the new world order
Gerónimo Gutiérrez Fernández
Non-Communicable Diseases
Octavio Gómez Dantés and Edson Serván Mori
The Mexican Demographic Transition
Héctor Juan Villarreal Páez
Climate change costs
Roberto Durán Fernández
Facing Artificial Intelligence
Sienna Tompkins
