Daily Inspiration Quote by David Korten

Hedged conviction is the tell here: Korten wants to sound cautious without surrendering the urgency that fuels activism. “If I would need to make a prediction” performs restraint, a little verbal seatbelt that signals he’s not a prophet, not a crank, not selling certainty. But the sentence doesn’t end in doubt; it lands on “still believe,” a phrase that frames his position as steady under pressure. The “still” is doing political work: it implies he’s been challenged, new data has arrived, critics have spoken, and yet his confidence remains intact.

Invoking “Kaplan’s scenario” is also a strategic move. Korten borrows another thinker’s model to shift the claim from personal opinion to an already-structured narrative. It’s an appeal to authority, but softer than name-dropping “experts say.” A “scenario” isn’t a forecast; it’s a roadmap of cause and effect. Calling it “very plausible” splits the difference between alarm and credibility, letting Korten keep the stakes high while staying inside the boundaries of responsible speech.

The subtext is coalition-building. Activists often need to mobilize people who are allergic to absolutism, especially in debates about systemic risk (economic fragility, ecological limits, democratic backsliding). This line is built to reassure skeptics: we’re not claiming inevitability, we’re claiming the model fits the world we’re watching. It’s careful language with an activist’s goal: make uncertainty actionable without pretending it isn’t there.