Today, or last night, the world changed. Russia invaded Ukraine. Not an incursion, not a skirmish, but a full invasion, an attempt by a large nation-state to dominate a smaller one through violence, on the flimsiest of pretexts. That there has been other wars in recent decades is true, but the blatant hostility of this one is unprecedented. (There is a fair question: how much is this more of an issue because this is a European country? And how much would it be more of an issue if it was, say, Finland and not Ukraine)?
This isn't going away for a while. This is not a blip in the news cycle. Like the Covid-19 pandemic, this is something that is going to change life around the world, for the entire coming decade.
What is most ridiculous about this is that at this point, humanity has the tools to deal with its problems. And yet we are seeing a repeat of a hundred years ago: war and pandemic, only this time the war and the pandemic could have been prevented easily. I grew up thinking I would live to see a Star Trek future, smooth clean lines and polite rational decision making, and somehow I've slipped a century in the past. What has happened in the last two years will color things for decades to come.
The only advice I have for people is to keep thinking, discussing, and writing. The fact that these activities have been subverted in big ways and small ways for the past few years, the fact that disinformation and group-signalling have replaced discourse, are a big reason why we got here. Every effort made to instill meaning, sense and value in the world will pay off, probably in unforeseen ways.