The Age of Foundational Erosions

When history looks back at our moment, it may not be remembered as the age of breakthrough alone. It may be remembered as the age of erosion. Not the sudden collapse of civilizations, but the slow, grinding weakening of the foundations that have long held societies, economies, and environments together.

We are accustomed to talking about progress in terms of innovation and disruption. Yet, while skyscrapers rise and algorithms evolve, the bedrock beneath us is wearing away. And unlike sudden crises, erosions are harder to see, harder to stop, and often more dangerous because they can hollow out structures long before collapse becomes visible.

Societal Erosion: The Fraying of Trust

Society is not built on laws alone, but on shared trust. In recent decades, we’ve seen the slow erosion of that trust — in governments, in institutions, in media, and often in each other. Polarization feeds cynicism; misinformation corrodes public discourse.

The digital commons, once imagined as a global town square, too often functions as an echo chamber, amplifying division. Social cohesion, which takes generations to build, can dissolve within a few election cycles. The danger is not only disagreement but the loss of common ground on which disagreement can even take place.

Environmental Erosion: Living on Borrowed Ground

Our planet’s foundation is literally eroding. Rising seas eat away at coastlines. Wildfires erase forests that once seemed eternal. Biodiversity - the quiet web that sustains us - thins daily, with species disappearing before we’ve even named them.

Erosion is not a storm; it is the shoreline disappearing one wave at a time. What we lose is not just landscapes but the sense of stability the natural world once provided. Civilization has always been tethered to the environment, and as that tether frays, so too does our collective confidence in the future.

Economic Erosion: The Disappearing Middle

Economies, too, rely on foundations: predictable markets, shared prosperity, mobility across generations. Yet the middle class in many societies is thinning, wealth gaps widen, and volatility replaces stability.

The promise of “work hard, and the system will reward you” rings hollow in a gig economy where loyalty is temporary, protections are scarce, and automation threatens roles faster than reskilling can replace them. The erosion here is trust in the economic contract itself — that progress will be shared, not hoarded.

Cognitive Erosion: The Limits of Comprehension

Perhaps the most profound erosion is cognitive. For centuries, progress meant understanding more - science, data, discovery. Today, progress increasingly means outsourcing comprehension itself. AI generates answers we cannot always explain, strategies we cannot fully audit, and knowledge that evolves faster than human sense-making.

This erosion is subtler than disinformation. It is the quiet realization that we may be living in systems whose workings outpace not only our attention but our ability to grasp them. The human mind, once the firmest foundation, begins to feel like shifting ground.

Cultural Erosion: The Disappearance of Continuity

Traditions, rituals, and shared narratives act as anchors for civilizations. Yet in a world of perpetual novelty, continuity erodes. The shelf life of culture shortens; memory itself feels disposable. What was “timeless” yesterday is forgotten tomorrow.

Culture once mediated change by helping us locate ourselves in a longer story. With its erosion, change feels rootless - a succession of disruptions with little connective tissue. Without cultural continuity, each generation risks starting from scratch, unmoored from lessons of the past.

The Nature of Erosion

Collapse is visible; erosion is invisible until it is not. It hollows from within, leaving structures outwardly intact but fatally weakened. And that is why erosion is so perilous in our time - because it unfolds slowly, unevenly, and in ways easy to ignore until the breaking point.

The Case for Vigilance and Imagination

Erosion does not mean inevitability. It means vigilance is required, and imagination is demanded. The societal, environmental, economic, cognitive, and cultural foundations are not fixed; they are maintained - or neglected - by human choices.

As Shoshana Zuboff writes in The Age of Surveillance Capitalism:

“There is no end of history; each generation must assert its will and imagination as new threats require us to retry the case in every age.”

This is our case to retry. Not to prevent change, but to ensure that the foundations beneath change remain strong enough to support the human story yet to be written.