Meier has an interesting historical analogy.

Question: How will this age be remembered?Armitage:    Probably transitional.  We're in the . . . we're in the stage . . .  And I'm thinking back in the latter part of the 19th century, you had a united Germany come onto the stage, and that was part of the world.  And in the 20th century, we had the United States come onto the stage, and that was extraordinarily important to the world.  And now you've got a China rising followed closely by India.  So I think there's a huge transition, and this will be seen as a transition age.  The rapidity of technology and information flow, etc., leads me to that conclusion.