We’re currently experiencing a strange, collective hysteria. An entire industry of consultants, futurists, and LinkedIn prophets has made it their mission to constantly tell us we’re deficient. The human being, according to the tenor, is an obsolete model, faulty software desperately in need of an update. If we don’t immediately start “reinventing ourselves,” “unlearning” our everyday knowledge, and optimizing our “skill stacks,” we’ll be swept away by the wave of history.

(…) Perhaps today it should be “Made from Germany”—with the intent to create something trustworthy, valuable for the world. Something that ensures not just our own but also global quality of life and economic vitality. In this way, Germany could again be perceived as the world’s most stable country, a point of orientation. That would likely lead to both economic and political influence. (…)

Full interview with Deutschlandfunk Kultur & Me on Radio linked inside.

We also need new guiding principles to manage these possibilities responsibly. Building on the new understanding of sustainability, these are the SDGs of the digital age:

Could coffee be the answer to our productivity crisis? In a way, yes.