6G and Onward to Next G

CHAPTER 11Conclusion and Outlook

“When wireless is perfectly applied, the whole Earth will be converted into a huge brain.”

“My brain is only a receiver, in the Universe, there is a core from which we obtain knowledge, strength, and inspiration. I have not penetrated into the secrets of this core, but I know that it exists.”

NIKOLA TESLA(1856–1943)

11.1 Today's Life in “Parallel Universes”

In the current human‐centered Anthropocene era, today's societies worldwide are undergoing rapid change, both technologically and environmentally. As a result of growing uncertainty, they are facing a new reality that is characterized by an ever‐increasing number of so‐called volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) situations. The global Covid‐19 crisis has been acting like a mirror that makes us see the vulnerabilities and shortcomings of ourselves as individuals and our societies. Throughout human history, crises have created bifurcations where civilizations either regress (e.g. tribalism) or, alternatively, progress by raising their level of complexity through the integration of internal contradictions. In doing so, crises act as a catalyst for innovation in that dichotomies are transcended and societies are rewired. Each profound crisis is thereby bequeathing a story, a narrative, a code that points far into the future, giving rise to the “new normal,” or more precisely, the “new new normal” – the upcoming T‐junction, a historic inflection point – as the “new normal” ...