Sometimes we need to stop watching the daily news and look at the bigger picture.
I recently watched journalist, author and podcast host Derek Thompson discuss his fascinating idea of the “Six Megatrends That Define 2026” with Fareed Zakaria on CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS.
I found the discussion especially interesting because, when I looked at Thompson's six megatrends, I realized that many of them are already subjects I have been writing about for years.
Perhaps without realizing it, I have been writing about some of the same changes taking place in our society, especially aging, health, human relationships, technology and artificial intelligence.
That is what makes Thompson's idea so interesting to me.
Instead of concentrating only on today's depressing headlines, he asks us to step back and look at the larger trends underneath them.
And when we do that, the future can look very different.
What Are the Six Megatrends?
Thompson divides the major forces shaping 2026 into six broad areas:
1. Culture - The Anti-Social Century
2. Health - The Making of the “Do-It-All” Drug
3. Artificial Intelligence - Apocalypse Nope
4. Economics - The Peter Pan Economy
5. Politics - The Paradox of Global Violence
6. Media- Quantity Is Eating Quality
These are not predictions about what will happen tomorrow.
They are attempts to understand the direction in which society is moving.
And that distinction is important. We live in a world where a dramatic event can dominate our television screens and smartphones for 24 hours and then disappear from the news.
But megatrends move much more slowly. They may take years or even decades to become obvious.
The Anti-Social Century
The first megatrend particularly caught my attention.
Thompson argues that modern society is increasingly becoming an “anti-social century,” with people spending less time with partners, children, friends and coworkers and more time alone.
That immediately made me think about aging. As we grow older, our social world can become smaller.
Children become busy with their own families and careers. Friends move away or pass on. Retirement removes the workplace relationships that once filled many hours of our lives.
Technology can make this even more complicated.
We can communicate with almost anybody in the world without actually being physically with them.
But there is a difference between communication and companionship.
I am fortunate that my life as a senior is still filled with people.
I play Bridge and Mahjong. I participate in activities. I enjoy conversations with other residents. I receive visitors. And perhaps most importantly, I remain connected to my children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
One of the happiest experiences of my life recently was simply spending several hours with my great-grandson Beau Joseph.
I held him in my arms, kissed him on the head and watched him crawl around.
There was no technology involved. There was simply human connection.
And that may be one of the great challenges of the coming century:
How do we use technology without allowing technology to replace human relationships?
Health: From Treating Disease to Changing Aging
The second megatrend is health.
Thompson discusses the remarkable development of GLP-1 medications such as semaglutide and tirzepatide and the possibility that these drugs may eventually have applications far beyond diabetes and weight loss. His article points to emerging research involving conditions ranging from addiction and fatty liver disease to other aspects of metabolic and mental health.
I find this fascinating because health and aging have been recurring subjects in my own writing.
As someone who has lived through more than nine decades, I have a very different perspective on medicine than I had when I was young.
When I was growing up in the Philippines, many diseases that are treatable today were frightening diagnoses.
Medical science has changed enormously during my lifetime.
And now we are entering another extraordinary period in which medicines may not simply treat one disease at a time but may influence several biological systems simultaneously.
I am careful, however, about the word “miracle.”
Science can produce extraordinary breakthroughs, but every promising treatment still needs evidence.
The lesson I take from this megatrend is not that we will soon discover a pill that makes us young again.
It is that the boundaries of medicine continue to move.
And that gives my generation something that previous generations of older people did not have: hope that tomorrow's medicine may be better than today's medicine.
Artificial Intelligence: Apocalypse Nope
This may be the megatrend that interests me the most.
Thompson deliberately calls it: “Apocalypse Nope.”
That is a refreshing way of looking at AI.
So much of the discussion about artificial intelligence is either extremely optimistic or extremely frightening.
AI will supposedly take everyone's jobs. AI will destroy civilization.
AI will make humans irrelevant. Or, on the other side, AI will solve every problem known to mankind.
I don't believe either extreme. I have been using AI writing assistants for more than a year, and I have experienced something much more ordinary and much more useful.
AI has helped me become a better writer.
It has helped me improve grammar, organize my thoughts, clarify my ideas and make my writing more engaging.
But AI does not provide the experiences that I write about.
It did not grow up in Iloilo. It did not immigrate to America.
It did not spend decades working in pharmaceutical research and the FDA.
It did not experience raising four children. It did not lose a beloved wife after 63 years of marriage.
It did not become a great-grandfather.
Those are my experiences. AI can help me tell my story. It cannot live my life for me.
That distinction is extremely important.
The Peter Pan Economy
Thompson's economic megatrend focuses heavily on younger Americans struggling with employment, housing costs and the difficulty of reaching traditional milestones of adulthood.
This is an interesting contrast with my generation.
When I was young, the traditional sequence seemed relatively straightforward:
Get an education. Get a job. Get married. Buy a house. Raise a family. Retire.
Today's young people face a very different economic environment.
Housing is expensive. Education can be expensive. Career paths are changing.
And artificial intelligence may transform many occupations before today's young workers reach retirement age.
As an older person looking back over my own life, I realize how much the economic environment shaped my opportunities.
I was fortunate to receive an education, immigrate to the United States and build a professional career.
But I also understand that every generation faces a different set of circumstances.
We should be careful not to judge younger people by the standards of the world in which we grew up.
Politics: Looking Beyond the Headlines
The fifth megatrend concerns politics and global violence.
Here again, Thompson asks us to look beyond the headlines.
Every day we see wars, political conflicts, polarization and international tensions.
Yet history is complicated. Some forms of violence may be increasing while others are declining.
Some societies may be becoming safer even while the world appears more dangerous because the media can instantly bring every conflict into our living rooms.
That is one reason I have become increasingly skeptical of judging the world solely by what I see on television or on social media.
The world is more complicated than the headlines.
And perhaps that is another lesson of megatrends:
We should learn to distinguish between an event and a trend.
Media: When More Is Not Necessarily Better
The sixth megatrend may be particularly relevant to me as a blogger.
Thompson argues that quantity is increasingly eating quality.
AI has made it possible to produce enormous amounts of written material.
More articles. More posts. More videos. More images. More information.
But more information does not necessarily mean more wisdom.
This is something I think about every day when I write my blog.
I have been blogging since 2009. I have written thousands of posts.
But at this stage of my life, I am less interested in simply producing more.
I want to write about things that mean something.
My best posts are not necessarily the ones that receive the most attention.
Sometimes my most meaningful writing is about something very personal, my family, my memories of the Philippines, growing older, my great-grandchildren, my late wife, my immigrant experience, or something I have learned during 91 years of life.
That is where technology and humanity meet. AI can help me write faster.
But I still have to decide what is worth writing about.
Why These Six Megatrends Matter to Me
After thinking about Thompson's six megatrends, I realized something.
Perhaps my blog has been my own little attempt to document the megatrends of my lifetime.
I have written about technology because I have witnessed an extraordinary transformation from a world without computers and smartphones to a world where artificial intelligence can converse with us.
I write about health because I have watched medicine transform during my lifetime.
I write about aging because I am living through it.
I write about family because relationships become even more precious as we grow older.
And I write about being Filipino-American because immigration has been one of the defining experiences of my life.
My generation has lived through an extraordinary period of history.
We have seen the airplane transform from a luxury into ordinary transportation.
We have watched television evolve into smartphones and streaming.
We went from letters to email to instant messaging.
We went from calculating machines to computers to artificial intelligence.
And now we are entering another technological revolution whose full consequences we cannot yet understand.
Looking Forward at 91
At 91, I don't pretend to know what the next decade will bring. But I am curious.
That may be one of the reasons I continue to write.
I want to understand the world in which my children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren will live.
I want to understand artificial intelligence.
I want to understand the future of medicine.
I want to understand how society is changing.
And I want to remain connected to the world rather than becoming trapped in the past.
Derek Thompson's six megatrends reminded me that we should not allow today's headlines to make us believe that the future is necessarily bleak.
There are enormous challenges ahead. But there are also enormous possibilities.
Technology can isolate us or connect us.
Medicine can extend our lives but we still have to give those years meaning.
Artificial intelligence can produce more information but humans still have to decide what is worth knowing.
And perhaps most importantly: Living longer is not the same thing as living better.
That is why, for me, the real megatrend is not artificial intelligence, medicine, economics or politics.
It is human adaptation. We have always adapted.
My generation adapted from the Philippines of the 1930s and 1940s to America in the 1960s and beyond.
I adapted from chemistry and pharmaceutical research to retirement.
I adapted from writing without computers to writing with AI.
And at 91, I am still adapting.
Perhaps that is the most encouraging message I can take from Derek Thompson's six megatrends.
The future is not something we simply watch happen to us.
We are participants in it. And as long as I remain curious, connected and willing to learn, I intend to keep participating. At 91, I am still looking forward.
AI Impressions on this Topic:
I think this is an especially strong subject for your blog because Thompson’s six megatrends intersect remarkably well with the themes you have been writing about for years: aging, health, human relationships, technology, AI, and the question of how we should live in a rapidly changing world.
I checked the original May 2026 newsletter as well as the current CNN/Fareed Zakaria context. Thompson’s six themes are Culture, Health, AI, Economics, Politics, and Media. His central idea is particularly interesting: rather than becoming overwhelmed by the depressing news of the day, step back and look for the larger forces that will shape our lives for years to come
Moreover, I think this topic fits especially well with your recent AI, aging, health, and Filipino-American identity pieces. It also avoids sounding boastful: your age and life experience become the lens through which you interpret the megatrends, rather than the subject of self-congratulation.
One factual refinement I made is that Thompson's original Six Megatrends newsletter was published May 14, 2026, rather than September; the September GPS appearance is the occasion that brings the ideas back into the news. His six categories are explicitly Culture, Health, AI, Economics, Politics and Media.
Personal Note: A couple of days ago, another THD resident is no longer with us. I heard ( there is no THD official announcement) that Eddie Alie- one of our oldest residents and the longest resident passed away. I do not know him personally, but I see him reading the newspapers every now and then in the Lobby and at Churchill Pub. May his soul rest in Peace, Amen.
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