The Coming Confluence: Why Humanity's Greatest Era Lies Ahead
Well, hello there, old friend. It’s been a minute. I’ve been quite busy with life and work. So much positive momentum in my life right now!
I can’t think of a better time to publish this writing than today, on July 4th. Independence Day marked the starting point of the greatest experiment in human history. It marked the start of a new country with a fundamentally different opinion on how a country should be run and the unlimited potential its citizens could achieve.
Before its independence, the colonies in America were experiencing some of the most intense divergence this country has ever seen. On Independence Day, it marked a massive moment of confluence that set off to create the greatest founding of a country that has existed.
The founding fathers at the time could have been pessimistic. But they chose nearly blind optimism. Optimism that is still felt to this day.
Let’s go on an adventure Beyond the Yellow Woods!
The Hidden Pattern of Human Progress
There's a rhythm to history that most people miss—a breathing pattern as natural as the tides. Like a multidimensional rubber band, humanity stretches between periods of coming together and pulling apart, each cycle typically launching us higher than before.
Right now, I believe we're standing at one of those magical inflection points. And if you understand the pattern, you can't help but feel the electricity in the air.
Confluence and Divergence: The Engine of Evolution
Think of it this way:
Confluence: When rivers meet, when ideas merge, when humanity rediscovers what binds us together.
Divergence: When paths split, when experimentation flourishes, when we explore the edges of what's possible.
Neither is good nor bad—they're both essential parts of the dance. Like Yin and Yang, one cannot exist without the other. But here's the fascinating part: divergence is simply the inhale before confluence's powerful exhale. And I think we're about to exhale in a big way.
Reading the Signals
Yes, the world feels chaotic right now. Political polarization, cultural fragmentation, geopolitical tensions—it's all real. There’s no debate that there are a lot of headwinds throughout the world right now. But zoom out for a moment. What enabled all this divergence?
Unprecedented global prosperity.
Since the 1970s, we've lifted billions from poverty. We've connected the world. We've given humanity the breathing room to experiment, to disagree, to try different paths. This isn't a breakdown—it's what success looks like when you're between convergence cycles. The divergence is really just truth seeking on what we collectively care about.
You can feel these moments when they happen. When Elon Musk bought Twitter, the internet's vibe shifted instantly. The 9/11 attacks. The assassination attempt on Trump. During defining political moments, you can sense the collective immune response. These are the early tremors of the coming confluence.
The Beautiful Evolution of Mutual Dependence
I’ve had a mental shift recently that I think is super interesting to play out. The old "Mutually Assured Destruction" was about nuclear weapons. Deterrence through strength. I think this is still incredibly important and indeed plays a role. But, I believe we've evolved or are evolving into something far more elegant: Mutually Assured Dependence.
Think about it—China needs America, America needs China, Europe needs Asia, Asia needs Europe. We haven't just built trade relationships; we've woven our very survival into a global tapestry. Cut one major artery, and within weeks, supply chains collapse and scarcity follows. We saw this during the COVID insanity, and it pushed the majority of the world to bare essentials (today’s bare essentials, that is).
This isn't fragility—it's the most sophisticated peace-keeping mechanism ever created. In fact, I’d make the argument that it is actually resiliency. When you’re building a globally available software product, you deploy it in multiple regions and have high availability with fallback protocols if a region goes down. We have and continue to push our supply chains to follow the same concept.
We've made truly large-scale conflict not just unthinkable but economically impossible. The invisible hand has become the invisible peacekeeper. Now, that isn’t to say the invisible hand doesn’t rear its head every once in a while. But, through technological progress, the less prepared can be rapidly prepared. Case and point: Ukraine and Russia. Nearly every single mainstream analyst, such as Peter Zeihan, thought Ukraine would fall in weeks and surrender. What they didn’t account for is the technological leaps we’ve made in drones that completely leveled the playing field for front-line battles.
It’s not to say that a nuke couldn’t be deployed. However, if a country did, its blowback isn’t actually other countries launching nukes at it. The blowback is complete and total isolation from the global tapestry. It’s own form of sanctions. Right now, we have sanctions on Russia, but they’re “soft” sanctions in my mind. There are shadow deals and shortcuts that keep Russia alive because, whether you like it or not, we turn a blind eye to it so that there is a path to de-escalation. That’s the “mutually assured dependency” at play. If they launched a nuke, the governments of the world would completely isolate Russia - period - and anyone who aligns with them. In that scenario, Russia would fall in weeks to months as they are not self-sustaining. This is essentially true for every country in the world.
The Twin Catalysts of Transformation
Now here's where the story gets truly exhilarating. The technologies that keep people up at night—AI and robotics—aren't threats to human relevance. They're the rocket fuel for our next evolutionary leap. These two exponential technology trends flatten the historical moats for the whole world and create a forcing function to focus on building things and creating growth.
For the first time in history, we're seeing the simultaneous transformation of both labor AND knowledge work. The Industrial Revolution touched only one dimension. This time, we're revolutionizing both. When the Industrial Revolution happened, the countries that were positioned to take advantage of it rose to dominance.
But when machines handle the routine and AI manages the mundane, something amazing happens: humans are freed to reach higher. When the basics are automated, human creativity, connection, and imagination become our core currency.
This convergence of AI and robotics isn't about replacement—it's about elevation. It's forcing us to ask the most exciting question in human history: What's next?
From Shanghai to the Stars
And this brings us to the kind of challenges that will define our next chapter. Today, we marvel at the complexity of shipping a container from Shanghai to Los Angeles—coordinating ships, ports, trucks, and timing across 5,000 miles of ocean so that a good purchased on Amazon can arrive at your doorstep hours after you hit the buy button.
But imagine the supply chain logistics for a Mars colony. Just take a moment to ponder the insane complexity it will require.
Ocean ships can sail anytime. Mars missions have narrow launch windows measured in weeks every two years. A damaged container in LA means delayed deliveries. A damaged container on Mars means potential colony failure. The precision required, the redundancy needed, the coordination demanded—it's unlike anything we've ever attempted. It will force a new level of innovation on everything: engineering, food, fuel, housing, energy, communications. Everything. And when that happens, the innovations we generate get fed back into our local system here on Earth.
This is the scale of the challenge that awaits us. Not because we'll be forced to leave Earth, but because we're the kind of species that looks at sand and sees semiconductors and asks dumb questions like “Can we make sand talk?”. We don't stop at "good enough"—we never have.
These grand challenges—interplanetary logistics, climate adaptation/mastery, consciousness exploration—will require levels of human coordination that make today's global trade look like child's play. And that's exactly what the confluence of AI and robotics prepares us for.
The Optimist's Vision
I see a choice in what’s coming down the pipeline for us. You can focus on the chaos of divergence, the friction of change, and the uncertainty of transformation. That's the easy path—fear requires no imagination.
Or you can see the pattern:
We're less violent than our ancestors
We're more cooperative than ever before
We're solving increasingly complex problems, collectively
We're more connected across every dimension
Each cycle of divergence and confluence is shorter than the last. Each convergence is more powerful. Each leap forward is more transformative.
The Rivers Are About to Meet
We're approaching a confluence event that will make the post-WWII global order look quaint by comparison. Not through force, but through necessity. Not through dominance, but through interdependence. Not despite our technologies, but because of them.
The signals are everywhere if you know how to read them. The rubber band of divergence is stretched tight. The convergence isn't just coming—you can feel it building, like electricity before a thunderstorm.
This isn't blind optimism. The Strauss-Howe Generational Theory and the coming “Fourth Turning” are still a real possibility. It has happened before. But, from my standpoint, I think the most likely probable outcome is incredible peace and flourishing.
Understanding that prosperity enables experimentation, experimentation creates divergence, and divergence inevitably resolves into a new, higher form of confluence is the actual alpha byproduct of humans.
The Invitation
The most exciting part? We get to participate in this transformation. We get to be the generation that navigates humanity's greatest confluence event. We get to build the bridges between divergent paths and create something unprecedented.
The pessimists will always have their day—fear sells papers and drives clicks. But those who understand the rhythm of history know better. We're not heading toward breakdown; we're heading toward breakthrough. This isn’t measured in weeks or months but rather years and decades. It’s not an overnight movement that happens. It’s more analogous to tectonic plates shifting. Always moving with rapid and intense periods of friction release that create significant cascading effects.
I see the rivers are converging. The next great chapter of human coordination and achievement is about to begin. And it's going to be extraordinary.
Don’t be a pessimist.
Because optimism always wins.