Civilisation is a Ponzi scheme but it doesn’t have to stop, even as we face increasingly scarce resources, environmental degradation, market bubbles and an Artificial Intelligence that grows energy-hungrier every day. The complex history of the Middle East shows how we got here ut it can also show us how turn those challenges into opportunities. We can enlist those energy-hungry thinking machines. We will combine their data-crunching power with the power of human intuition and our ability to think outside the box. George J. Nasr shows how this team-up can transform challenges into opportunity by drawing on the turbulent past of the Middle East and its future hopes. We can transcend scarcity-driven ‘Black Wars’ for resources like oil and water, and towards a technology-led ‘Blue Peace’ of shared prosperity, and pave our way to the stars.