War on terror, climate change, the rise of the internet and financial meltdown.
This will be the decade when people clicked that globalisation really happened. When people's daily lives were affected by people with sub-prime mortgages in Louisiana*, opium-dealing warlords** in Afghanistan, Wahabi militants in Saudi Arabia*** and coal fuelled power stations in Shanghai****.
Random stuff, thousands of miles away, is connected to your daily life in a new way.
*This is why you can't get a mortgage/got fired
**This is why there are so many parades in Wootton Bassett
***This is why there is such well-funded anti-western terrorism
****This is the biggest new source of climate change
Well, what a fucking numbnut ! Are you a first year student Iffy ? Nothing is really new - it just takes different shapes, forms and guises. But, rest assured, on my death-bed I shall be reflecting on how the Wahabi militants became such an influence in my daily life.