Editing Post-Cold War (section)

==Society==
{{topquote|The great paradox of the 21st century is that, in this age of powerful technology, the biggest problems we face internationally are problems of the human soul.|Ralph Peters}}
[[File:WaaghStreet1.jpg|thumb|right|200px|The internet brought alien communities into contact with each other...]]
While technology has generally advanced in fits and bursts along the lines predicted by most sci-fi works (major exceptions being AI, mass genetic engineering, widespread cybernetics and space colonisation), society has become somewhat of a mix between prior trends and predictions made by said sci-fi. 

The predictions that the world will become more united and liberal in addition to the waning of nations in favor of corporations or some other modes of society were only partially realized.  Globalization has indeed made the planet more interconnected but the onus of international relations still rests on the state. Corporate entities have become more powerful and wealthy but they still cooperate with governments (if not slowly merging with them due to intertwining of corporate and political interests) while in places like China and Russia the corpos are merely another arm of the government altogether.

The trend towards social liberalism has held partially true with the increase in LGBTQ+ acceptance and diminishment of racism in some places. Political liberalization has however entered something of a slump with the traditional left in EU and USA being relatively dormant though grassroots left is seeing something of a revival in the 2020s. On the other hand Russia and China have moved more towards autocracy and their increasing strength has presented an uncomfortable alternative to the supposedly singularly viable liberal-democratic order, especially with Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Europe has also seen a resurgence of populist, if not hard-right political parties like the french Front Nationale or German Alternative Fur Deutschland with some countries like Hungary and Poland taking on an increasingly right-y colors. In short - politics be skub as usual.

Politically, it seemed that while the triumphant capitalist-liberal-democratic order was considered the ˝end of history˝, it left many people unfulfilled.  Worse, it started showing flaws that were overlooked during the ideological fight against the USSR (hence the Russian joke how 'almost everything we were told about communism was a lie, and almost everything we were told about capitalism was true'). To not get too deep into the [[Skub|political theory]] of the whole thing, suffice it to say that the guy who predicted the triumph of this system (Francis Fukuyama) also noted that the people may get so bored of it that they may intentionally choose to 'restart the wheel of history'.
[[File:WaaghStreet2.jpg|thumb|right|200px|... And the results were hilarious.]]

Speaking of matters of the soul, religion - in an ironic twist, given it's ''the'' institute based around matters of the soul - was put in the crosshairs with a sharp spike in Western secularism and anti-theistic/anti-religious sentiment.  Though this hostility had been brewing in niches of academia and media long before, now was when it was thrust onto the mainstream.  This was mainly due to acts of religious extremism (most often Islamic ones such as the 9/11), failures of various religious leaders and ideological campaigns magnifying empiricism and subjectivism.  A new wave of religious apologetics emerged in response to this with some arguments from both sides better received than others ([[religion|more on the issue here]]).  This shift in societal attitude towards religion either coincided with or influenced various other socio-political issues listed above and below. 

On a more interpersonal scale, the rise of Internet in general and social media in particular has transformed society to a great degree. The ability to connect with people world over and find hundreds or thousands of people with similar interests has lead to formation of digital communities that can be not only as powerful as the ones irl but sometimes even supersede them to a great degree, for good and ill. This has also made how one behaves online as important if not more so than offline - if you take a dump on a city street at most a few dozen people will see it and forget it in a year without a reminder, if you take a proverbial dump online it has potential to be seen by tens of thousands of people and potentially stay there forever, <s>just look at Chris-chan for example.</s> {{BLAM}} {{BLAM|This heresy shall not be tolerated here!}}

On a final note, the COVID-19 pandemic that hit in the late 2019 also had an unintentional effect of forcing vast segments of society to adopt online business and communication models. What this means is that instead of working in a typical cubicle-monkey office one could work from anywhere there was internet - a beach, cafe or a public toilet. While things seem to have calmed down in the latter half of 2022, the ˝work-from-home˝ model is now all but standard for many service jobs, a leap that redefines how a job is perceived before and after the New 10s.