2017 - the year we climb out of our bubble

After a crazy year of the impossible becoming real and exposing a great divide, it's time to climb out of our bubble and shake hands with the neighbour.

Google and facebook haven't helped. In fact they made it worse, crafting our online world into a mirror so our finger taps can be turned into profits. We're trapped spinning around in the echo chamber of our own voices, in the place where we confirm what we already know. Where we feel safe in the knowledge that everyone else agrees with us.
 
That is until Brexit happens. Until Trump happens. And we're shocked that half the world doesn't think like we do.
 
That’s when we woke up.  And we realised that somewhere along the path to our Guardian-reading, organic-cotton-shopping,  quinoa-salad-recipe-hunting prosperity we stopped hearing certain voices.

And those voices are louder now, and they're angry. They’ve been sitting on the curb watching the capitalism caboose haul away their jobs to the cheapest labour source. They've seen robots take over their industries and faceless governments turn their lives into data. They've watched their power disappear into the crowds of the mosaic-skinned people, with diversity, equality and rapid change stomping on their traditional values. 
  
So thanks for the warning 2016. Thanks for shining the light on the stuff that's not working, we nearly forgot that we are the 99% and we’re on this trip together.
 
Bring on 2017, the year where we pull up the ladder and climb out of the great big bubble we're stuck in. It’s the year where we take one step towards the divide, seek out people who aren't like us and ask, what’s it like to be you? It's the year we have genuine dialogue with each other so we can start building a new economy and a new democracy - one that works for all of us.