In the dawn of the 21st century, opportunities and risks balance on the "razor's edge". New possibilities, stemming from the achievements of the "revolution of new technologies", new scientific discoveries, and the sweeping geopolitical rearrangements inherited from the end of the 20th century, are combined with new threats. The demographic explosion, the global water problem, and the aggressive rise of fundamentalist religious perceptions, such as Islamism, create a volatile mixture.
Faced with the new reality shaped by these conflicting developments, traditional simplistic approaches seem inadequate to provide a way out of the deadlocks that are created. Established ideologies stand awkwardly in the face of the new facts. They see their self-satisfaction being crushed in their confrontation with sharp reality. [...]