Plan to fill in more details and update this – v. 1.1 – June 2, 2020

2010 report by the Rockefeller Foundation and Global Business Network (GBN), a member of the Monitor Group: Scenarios for the Future of Technology and International Development (alternative link)

One of the scenario narratives contemplated for the future is called “Lock Step” and begins on page 18.

A world of tighter top-down government control and more authoritarian leadership, with limited innovation and growing citizen pushback

Page 18 describes a scenario which is very similar to what has happened in recent events–as portrayed by the media–except that the pandemic was envisioned for 2012 and killed “8 million in just seven months.”

The economic destruction has happened:

. . . had a deadly effect on economies: international mobility of both people and goods screeched to a halt, debilitating industries like tourism and breaking global supply chains. Even locally, normally bustling shops and office buildings sat empty for months, devoid of both employees and customers.

The report describes the US failing to contain air travel and compares it to China’s actions in this hypothetical scenario:

. . . The United States’s initial policy of “strongly discouraging” citizens from flying proved deadly in its leniency, accelerating the spread of the virus not just within the U.S. but across borders. . . . The Chinese government’s quick imposition and enforcement of mandatory quarantine for all citizens, as well as its instant and near-hermetic sealing off of all borders, saved millions of lives . . .

Note that the report praises China which is what happened in real life in 2020–with the WHO Director General praising China for dictatorial–unprecedented “mandatory quarantine for all citizens”–not just sick people–everyone–which is insane.

Page 19: Leaders around the world joined in:

. . . national leaders around the world flexed their authority and imposed airtight rules and restrictions, from the mandatory wearing of face masks to body-temperature checks at the entries to communal spaces like train stations and supermarkets. Even after the pandemic faded, this more authoritarian control and oversight of citizens and their activities stuck and even intensified. In order to protect themselves from the spread of increasingly global problems — from pandemics and transnational terrorism to environmental crises and rising poverty — leaders around the world took a firmer grip on power. At first, the notion of a more controlled world gained wide acceptance and approval. Citizens willingly gave up some of their sovereignty — and their privacy — to more paternalistic states in exchange for greater safety and stability. Citizens were more tolerant, and even eager, for top-down direction and oversight, and national leaders had more latitude to impose order in the ways they saw fit. In developed countries, this heightened oversight took many forms: biometric IDs for all citizens, for example, and tighter regulation of key industries . . . In many developed countries, enforced cooperation with a suite of new regulations and agreements slowly but steadily restored both order and, importantly, economic growth.

The report features pictures of surveillance cameras.

A certain level of nationalism is predicted along with the authoritarianism–and in recent years, we’ve seen some rising nationalism and sense of identity in response to crazy, globalist policies that are undermining identity.

I think it’s implied that the reader should associate the authoritarianism with nationalist leaders rather than with the actual source in globally agreed policies.

Various trade issues are described–and differences between nations (which I think global institutions have tried to resolve to their satisfaction since this report).

Page 21: We jump all the way to 2025 now from 2012:

By 2025, people seemed to be growing weary of so much top-down control and letting leaders and authorities make choices for them. Wherever national interests clashed with individual interests, there was conflict. Sporadic pushback became increasingly organized and coordinated, as disaffected youth and people who had seen their status and opportunities slip away — largely in developing countries — incited civil unrest. In 2026, protestors in Nigeria brought down the government, fed up with the entrenched cronyism and corruption. Even those who liked the greater stability and predictability of this world began to grow uncomfortable and constrained by so many tight rules and by the strictness of national boundaries. The feeling lingered that sooner or later, something would inevitably upset the neat order that the world’s governments had worked so hard to establish.

The globalists who wrote this report want to get rid of national borders, so they emphasize them being very strictly controlled in this scenario despite the pandemic having ended–and they associate tight control over borders with a restriction on freedoms. I believe that turning the borders into a sieve is part of the long-term agenda to undermine nation states.

. . .(more information on Lock Step) . . .

More details about the co-author, GBN:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Business_Network

Global Business Network (GBN) was a leading[citation needed] consulting firm that specialized in helping organizations to adapt and grow in an increasingly uncertain and volatile world. Using tools and expertise in scenario planning, experiential learning, together with networks of experts and futurists (dubbed “Remarkable People”, or RPs), GBN advised businesses, NGOs, and governments in addressing their most critical challenges and anticipating possible trends in the future.

I noticed some very special names that came up–see my post on The Net which refers to Stewart Brand (and possibly also the post on the Esalen Institute).

GBN was founded in Berkeley, California, in 1987 by a group of entrepreneurs including Peter Schwartz, Jay Ogilvy, Stewart Brand, Napier Collyns, and Lawrence Wilkinson. The company grew to include a core group of “practice members”, and over a hundred individual network members (or “RPs”) from a range of different fields, such as Wired editor Kevin Kelly, social media expert Clay Shirky, anthropologist Mary Catherine Bateson, economist Aidan Eyakuze, musician Brian Eno, biotechnologist Rob Carlson, and China scholar Orville Schell. . . .

. . . Before GBN, Peter Schwartz had been employed at SRI International as director of the Strategic Environment Center; following that, he took a position as head of scenario planning at Royal Dutch/Shell, from 1982 to 1986, where he continued the pioneering work of Pierre Wack, in the field of scenario planning.

(There are a lot of interesting organizations mentioned in these articles. For example, the Wikipedia article for Schwartz mentions his authorship of this document and refers to the Long Now Foundation.)

Other references to GBN:
https://enacademic.com/dic.nsf/enwiki/5356783
https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Global_Business_Network

To be continued