There is Something in the Air

Just when I was ready to interrogate the work of a contemporary prophet, I found myself agreeing with him.

The founder of the Human Design system, Ra Uru Hu, is an unlikely source of resonance here at Underthrow. I know nothing about Human Design. But I would like to offer a tour of Ra Uru Hu’s predictions as synthesized by

Zed James

at

Gestures of Synthesis

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According to James, Ra Uru Hu prophesied that 2027 will mark a pivotal shift between cycles, where the current cycle started in 1615. This transition will dismantle many collectivized societal structures, fostering a new era of individuality and the emergence of a new type of human with enhanced consciousness. This changing of cycles will reshape politics, economics, culture, and spirituality, according to Ra Uru Hu.

While I am generally skeptical of BFPs (big future predictions), much less any that seem grounded in astrology or woo, I found myself nodding along with nearly all of Ra Uru Hu’s prognostications. I will respond interstitially to Zed James’s passages in block quotes in a format that has become familiar to our readers. Because James’s article is so exhaustive, we will focus on the socio-economic conditions of the next cycle.

Dissolution of Collective Structures

The Cross of Planning era was characterized by the formation of robust institutions that supported communal life – from governments and economies to social contracts. Under its influence, humanity built structured communities, collective agreements, and social safety nets that we came to take for granted.

What’s interesting here, though perhaps understated, is that many collective institutions were formed not so much as literal social contracts that one would sign to join others, but as impersonal taxation and redistribution schemes. These systems treated people not so much as thinking/feeling human beings requiring bespoke assistance but as liabilities to be managed by a bureaucratic elite. Bureaucratization ended up gutting community and communitarian bonds. So, it’s no wonder these structures were taken for granted.

Ra Uru Hu noted … “bargains” underpinning civilization – a mutual promise of loyalty and support between the governed and governing that allowed large societies to function peacefully.

Who knows if Ra Uru Hu would agree that such “bargains” were almost always based on threats of violence in a system we call The Great Protection Racket. But the relationship between rulers and the ruled has almost always been based on mafia logic—namely: I’ll protect you from big guys like me if you give me 10 percent of your grain each harvest. The common good almost always justifies violent power. Let us not get lost in my cynical interpretations of history, though.

According to Ra Uru Hu, this framework is “slowly coming to an end” as collective loyalties lose their binding power.

We are already seeing cracks: public trust in government is eroding, infrastructure and welfare systems are strained, and international alliances are fraying.

Notwithstanding a groundswell of populist *Nation First* sentiment worldwide, intra-national institutions are also being greeted with skepticism, and people are waking up to the idea that the welfare-warfare state is going the way of Rome. Whether and to what extent this is the end of a big cosmic cycle, or major inputs to cliodynamics, or complexity analysis, I cannot say.

But Ra Uru Hu’s foresight is compelling.

Rise of Decentralization and Self-Reliance

In the post-2027 world, governance and economics may become more decentralized as the old central authorities wane. The new Sleeping Phoenix cycle emphasizes individual sovereignty, self-reliance, and personal responsibility (cosmic-insights.com). This suggests that people will place less faith in hierarchical leadership and external regulation, and instead make decisions based on inner authority and personal values.

Some would argue that emphasis on inner authority and personal values marks a rebirth of the human internal locus of control that once made pioneers instead of victims. Yet I dare say individual sovereignty will not take the form of libertarianism, libertinism, or up-by-the-bootstraps individualism. I think Ra Uru Hu would agree that the new sense of personal responsibility will weave agency with interdependency. So,

We may witness power shifting away from big centralized governments and institutions toward local or grassroots governance. In fact, analysts anticipate the breakdown of rigid top-down structures (government, organized religion, social safety nets) and the rise of community-driven networks and localized governance.

There are several reasons rigid, top-down structures are likely to topple. But among the most critical change vectors is the lateralization of human relationships enabled by peer technologies. Structures go from top-down to bottom-up, enabling new levels of organizational complexity. (See my book The Social Singularity for more on this.)

For example, technologies and ideas that enable decentralized cooperation – such as blockchain-based systems, peer-to-peer economies, and autonomous local councils – could become the new foundation of cooperation.

There is something in the air.

Global power dynamics might thereby become more fluid: large nation-states and multinational bodies could lose influence, while smaller communities, agile networks, or even influential individuals gain more say in how society is run.

Amen. While his ratio of predictive to normative differs from my own mix, at least in James’s account of Ra Uru Hu’s prophecy, I hope the Human Design founder is correct.

Shifting Economic Models

Now, here’s where I might squint a little:

Economically, the prophecy points to a decline of the classic capitalist growth model that defined the Cross of Planning era. The outgoing cycle’s theme was growth, productivity, and material security – an age of industrial expansion and ever-increasing GDP.

I have a mixed assessment of this prediction.

On the one hand, global demographic decline is inevitable simply because the most productive people worldwide aren’t having enough babies to replace themselves. Fewer babies mean fewer adult producers and consumers tomorrow. That ain’t prophecy. It’s math.

On the other hand, productivity and growth are still likely to increase. While I’m not a fan of GDP as a proxy measure of flourishing, I can say that services and innovations will still be measurable in growth numbers. We might not produce as many things to consume or discard, but we can and will do more things for each other and enjoy per capita productivity increases thanks to AI and automation. But I think Ra Uru Hu senses that we will, paradoxically, allocate more time to cultivating our virtues, talents, and spiritual selves.

We will, of course, have to get past the ticking time bomb of sovereign debt. Unavoidable austerity will discipline us whether we like it or not, making us more resilient and less dependent on an endless supply of stuff. So, grudgingly, I agree with Ra Uru Hu’s prediction yet again.

The coming era, by contrast, prioritizes what Human Design calls “individual abundance, strength and presence in the here and now,” rather than perpetual growth. We can expect more emphasis on personal enterprise, niche skills, and self-sufficiency. In Ra’s words, “the community and state support structures [will] continue to break down,” and those able to rely on their own awareness and decision-making will have an advantage.

I have referred to this personal efficacy as “radiative self-sovereignty,” which I map as concentric circles radiating out from the self to the family, then the community, region, and world—in that order. Unlike Ra Uru Hu, I do not think communities will be as attenuated as the state-support structures. I am perhaps more sanguine about the renaissance of voluntary community and mutual aid, whether localized or digitally distributed.

New economic patterns might emerge where value is created through individual creativity and authenticity – think of the creator economy or small-scale entrepreneurs – as opposed to massive corporate frameworks.

I share this vision to a great degree, not because I fail to appreciate economies of scale. Myriad converging technologies that empower users with bespoke tech will make for a very long tail in the economic distribution. The experience economy has arrived, too. And as energy becomes more abundant, we will spend more time figuring out ways to delight each other, using liquid micropayments to buy more time for individual growth and psychospiritual development.

Speaking of micropayments for producers: Consider becoming a paid subscriber.

Indeed, by the late stages of the Planning cycle we already see groundbreaking innovations like artificial intelligence and Bitcoin arising, which some Human Design analysts interpret as preparatory tools for the new cycle.

Why, yes. Yes, indeed.

These innovations enable people to operate more independently of traditional institutions (AI empowering individual productivity, cryptocurrency enabling decentralized finance). The “market” may shift to many self-driven agents trading skills and resources in ad-hoc networks rather than under monolithic corporate structures.

This would be a net-positive shift for many reasons. Still, major ones include niche sellers of products and services working autonomously and more directly in a profit-and-loss environment that moves the Coasian floor. (Coase’s firm emerges due to transaction costs, which peer-to-peer technologies reduce.) And autonomy is one of the three major factors of fulfilling work, along with mastery and purpose, all of which figure well into ad hoc labor networks. (See Pink’s Drive.)

Global Power Dynamics

As collective frameworks dissolve, global power could become more multipolar and diffuse. The end of a unifying planning frequency means many of the agreements that underpinned global cooperation will no longer be taken for granted. (…) International institutions (from the UN to trade pacts) may weaken, potentially leading to a period of power vacuums or realignments.

Such a weakening opens the possibility of resources and focus staying local and dispersed, rather than concentrated in propping up large, bureaucratic institutions that tend to be expensive and obstructive. Their objectives often conflict with those of local peoples struggling to self-organize into communities of their imagining.

Additionally, empowered individuals and private entities may start to rival states – for instance, tech innovators, city-states, or NGOs could wield significant influence if they adapt better to the new paradigm. In short, authority could shift “from the halls of power to the hands of the people,” as personal influence and agility trump old status. This does not necessarily imply chaos; rather, new forms of order and cooperation may emerge bottom-up.

Some of these emergent influences could simply be different forms of oligarchy, while others could be quasi-private jurisdictions such as Prospera. Established city-states such as Singapore will be well-positioned in the new milieu, while nimbler upstarts might provide governance services in a competitive global marketplace that makes the domination/subordination model of governance less effective as people vote increasingly with their boats.

Communities of the future might organize around shared purpose or values voluntarily, instead of being held together by law or duty. We can envision cooperative networks (local cooperatives, online communities, mutual aid groups) filling roles once filled by government programs.

This is the vision of The Social Singularity, as well as Balaji Srinivasan’s far more widely known how-to guide, The Network State.

Governance may thus transform into a much more horizontal affair, with an emphasis on personal responsibility and consensual association.

Lawd yes. Let us linger on “consensual association,” which we refer to variously as the Law of Consent or the “Consent of the Governed.” The idea here is that organizations, communities, and other forms of voluntary association will be liberated from tax code defaults and hierarchical corporate forms. And here we arrive at the vital turn: independent people as interdependent people.

New Models of Cooperation

Paradoxically, even as people become more self-directed, cooperation doesn’t vanish – it changes form. Freed from rigid hierarchies, cooperation could become ad-hoc, dynamic, and driven by genuine alignment rather than obligation. We may see temporary alliances or project-based communities that form to address specific needs (disaster relief, local food production, open-source projects) and disband when goals are met. Such models would be enabled by high connectivity and trust in the new ethos.

Indeed, as people opt into communities and are accountable to other members, we see everything from the renaissance of mutual aid to distributed organizations running on self-management protocols, such as holacracy, sociocracy, or DAOs.

Social media and digital marketplaces are prototyping a future where individuals connect and trade value without institutional gatekeepers. The challenge, of course, is ensuring reliability and dealing with misinformation – a double-edged sword of decentralization that has to be managed.

Brilliant. Such management has to be decentralized, too. Otherwise, we are just reintroducing middlemen—new institutional gatekeepers with the same old incentives to concentrate authority.

Here’s the tidy conclusion of this section.

[M]utual aid and community-driven initiatives might flourish as centralized welfare recedes. In essence, human beings may rediscover how to “tribe” in a new way – not through fixed tribes one is born into, but through fluid networks of self-selected peers. After 2027, cooperation is likely to be voluntary and purpose-driven, grounded in each individual’s authentic contribution, rather than enforced by contracts or enforced loyalties. This represents a profound shift in both politics and economics: power flows toward those who are agile, authentic, and able to self-organize with others when needed, and away from those relying solely on position or legacy.

My only quibble with this last lovely passage is the author’s belief that contract enforcement will receive less emphasis than reputation. I view it as both/and rather than either/or. Because distributed ledger technologies represent an “internet of agreements,” the mode and manner of contracting might evolve along with the mode and manner of contract enforcement. However, contracts and reputations must serve as functional bases in a consent-based social order.

Postscript

Having lived in Austin for fourteen years, I can say that many of those who talked up Human Design came from the “consciousness community,” which includes hippies, integral theorists, reiki healers, and Burners.

With this group, you have to take the good with the zany.

However, I can say that Zed James has built a powerful reputation for helping people through Eastern practices. The way James channels Ra Uru Hu suggests that the modern prophet is at least directionally correct in his assessment of the coming age.

One can hope, anyway.

The Integral Prophet