Felix Marquardt, former global chatter, current author New nomads, Explains why trying to solve the world’s problems on the Swiss Magic Mountain in just a few days is a quick solution that does more harm than good.

A few weeks ago, the World Economic Forum (WEF) cancelled its August meeting in Singapore. The reasons for the third cancellation proposed by the organizers (the plan for an alternative special meeting in Lucerne in May was also cancelled earlier this year) focused on health issues and logistics.

The truth is more complicated and the pain is deeper. This pandemic exposed the contradictions of the World Economic Forum as a project and its ultimate lack of legitimacy and credibility in the post-Covid era.

As a recovering addict, my impression is that the organizers cannot accept this, because just like other people in the throes of positive addiction, they refuse to accept it.

I used to be a senior advisor to some global leaders and a cheerleader in Davos. I have also used many medicines. I drank and used drugs for the last time seven years ago.

At the peak of my drug abuse, I don’t think I can be an alcoholic or a drug addict. Addicts are people shooting on park benches or sucking glass tubes in broken houses. I travel the world in business class, live in a five-star palace, and serve as heads of state (including dictators), people running for office (including aspiring dictators), and CEOs of some of the world’s largest multinational companies jobs.

After several years of recovery, I have a different understanding: I thrived in Davos and other global power circles. Although I am an addict, it is largely because I am an addict. The rise in power, fame, and wealth brought me was no different from the rise in drug use.

So what does my experience say about the other people in the WEF circus?

The pandemic has triggered a global survival crisis among many of us, including the pillars established by Davos. It has always been about recognizing that we have always called “normal” a form of civilized suicide, but it is too late.

Many of us are accepting the fact that we do not know how to de-correlate greenhouse gas emissions in economic growth, and the term green growth is a contradiction between the present and the foreseeable future.In one world About 50% of greenhouse gas emissions are generated by 10% of the richest people -Those of us whose income in 2015 were not millions but US$ 38,000 or more-the climate crisis is fundamentally a crisis of inequality.

However, from the beginning, the World Economic Forum has been misinterpreting and has failed to engage in meaningful dialogue on the issue of growth. Since then, its shareholders have been eager to avoid paying hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars by its entities (subject to Swiss law, the financial situation of the World Economic Forum is frighteningly opaque).

If we are really addicted to carbon, growth and mining, then the technical utopian empty talk that has become the lingua franca of Davos becomes a burden.

The author Lewis Hyde once wrote that when a culture is dying, alcoholism will spread. A healthy and effective culture turns its children into adults. In contrast, addicts are defined by Jung’s description of eternal youth.

The prism of addiction helps explain the naive “solutionism” in our culture. Just as a convalescent addict who is recovering gets probation every day but is never “cured”, we are dealing with dilemmas rather than problems. Problems, such as equations that elementary school students are required to solve, have solutions. On the contrary, you can deal with difficulties in a more or less constructive and healthy way, but they cannot be resolved. You must live with them.

The current dominant “feel good” approach reflects the approach of a drug addict in recovery, but secretly hopes that they will be able to “manage” their substance use one day. The crowd in Davos seeks quick fixes, takeaways, action points, and deliverables, rather than focusing on the completely uncomfortable reality of our condition, for fear of falling into depression or paralyzed by inertia. The sooner you give up, the better. “The highest form of hope,” the French writer George Bernanos once wrote, “is to overcome despair.” But to overcome it, you first need to experience despair. You need to bottom out.

I believe that the establishment of the World Economic Forum is motivated by the best intentions. It’s time to move on.

Globally, more and more business and political leaders are busy figuring out ways to convince their audiences that their companies, institutions, political parties or governments have understood that “returning to normal” is not an option. For many of them, how they will prove that they have obtained the well-known memo is unclear. But there is a very simple way to prove that they did not. That will be back to Davos.

In a world where the most accurate predictor of the carbon footprint of an individual, family, company, or country is how much they spend, we have become a civilization led by wealthy and talkative people. What we deserve is to be led by wise elders (who may have taken the poverty oath). This is a kind of Jedi committee because they are willing to sacrifice themselves, promise to serve others, and most importantly, be selected and speak for them.

Some people will argue that such a committee will definitely appear illegal, and you need “skin in the game” to be credible and audible. However, we will be led and served by a rotating committee composed of veterans and trusted servants, rather than a mixture of the rich and the people now—whatever you want to say, stay in power at all costs.

There is also a feeling that Davos and other gatherings represent a quick solution. They lasted only a few days and produced methods that are one inch deep and one mile wide. The result is equivalent to the Ayahuasca enlightenment consumed by non-indigenous people without adequate preparation and follow-up: incredibly powerful, but no Lasting effect. Anyone who feels high and rekindled hope for attending a great conference, and then wants to know that that feeling disappeared a week later, to know what I was talking about.

What we need today is a method that is one mile deep and inches wide. Instead of holding a large-scale meeting on the top of the magic mountain every year, let us participate in the ongoing and regular virtual process with a relatively small number of people for many years, and hold face-to-face meetings on the plain from time to time. Let us bring together people from all over the world and society, who have vastly different worldviews, but are sincerely committed to the slow and arduous recovery process.