Even in retrospect, it was impossible to pinpoint exactly when governments and big business had begun to lose their authority. Perhaps it was during the response to successive Covid pandemics in 2020– 30, when millions of people died due to government incompetence, the greed of large pharmaceutical companies not distributing vaccines to lower-income countries and the irresponsibility of social media giants not clamping down on fake news about vaccines? Or perhaps it was later when faced with war in Eastern Europe; the need to act on climate change; the disastrous introduction of fully autonomous vehicles; episode after episode of people's personal data being compromised; the continuous corruption scandals; or actually any number of other crises during the resultant two-decades-long economic depression? But whatever the reason, in some countries by 2040 it was clear that the cumulative erosion of power had by imperceptibly small steps led to a situation where real influence no longer resided with nation-states, city governments or multi-national corporate companies. Instead, it was often very local communities who wielded power – some responsibly, some less so.

In those places, this change saw the effective abandonment of the connected world, with the internet, cross-border travel and international supply chains all becoming much less significant. Meanwhile, the only real public sector legacy was hugely expanded roadway systems – the result of massive national infrastructure investment progammes intended to re-energize economies across the developed world. Unfortunately, this only succeeded in wiping out rural environments, worsening traffic congestion and air quality, killing off public transport and decimating urban centres.