At IEC 2025, Said Dawlabani stood once again at the crossroads of history and evolution. Known for his work with Spiral Dynamics integral and as author of Second Sapiens (for which I was honoured to write the foreword) and Memenomics, Dawlabani invited us to see today’s upheavals as part of a profound life cycle shift. He named it the Great Obsolescence: the unraveling of three mega-systems — the post-WWII order, the digital economy, and Earth’s climate stability — colliding in a chaos crucible.

With characteristic clarity, Said Dawlabani mapped how the decline of institutions and the disruption of digital platforms have left us vulnerable to manipulation, oligarchic control, and war. From Project 2025 in the United States to shifting alliances in the Middle East, he showed how (Spiral Dynamics i) Red and Orange values dominate when blue governance thins, hollowing democracy into what he called a “zombie state.” Yet, even here, he reminded us that endings are thresholds: decay makes way for something new.

This is where Dawlabani’s vision resonates deeply with AQtivating Soul Power. Both perspectives agree that the turbulence of our times is not merely collapse, but also invitation. Spiral Dynamics integral names the movement into second-tier consciousness, where Turquoise capacities of global governance and Gaian science become essential. Soul Power recognizes the same evolutionary moment as a call to awaken the Heart of humanity — to shift from fear and domination into compassion, coherence, and regeneration.

Together, these lenses reveal the paradox of our age: exponential crises demand exponential responses. Dawlabani sees the need for speed and scale in planetary governance; AQtivating Soul Power insists that such governance can only endure if rooted in Soul, where wisdom, compassion, and wholeness guide collective choices.

The Great Obsolescence Meets AQtivating Soul Power: War, Politics, and Ecology

Aligning with Dawlabani regarding the metacrises that cities face – where institutions are challenged to be effective when they are being run with business models that are not regenerative and thus breakdown wholeness, Integral City seeks technology that is in service to life – that can deepen heart connections and repair separation.

Autocracy, domination and war disconnect cities from Soul Power – and amplify fear while destroying compassion and unity. Dawlabani diagnoses the structural manipulation in the USA politics (e.g. Project 2025 and growing threat of oligarchic control), while through his own Middle Eastern heritage and life connections sees the all too familiar Shia crescent in Iran, Israel’s collapse to the right while wars everywhere are re-setting systems (not the least because of new technologies using AI and drones that have changed the face and increased the precision ferocity of war).

With politics and war trashing city Soul Power, the climate itself seems also to be taking revenge. Dawlabani cites the science of natural degradation – that Rockström’s “Planetary Boundaries” all too clearly reveal – with the crossing of 6 out of the 9 planetary boundaries now a reality.

While Integral City uses the insights garnered from the Integral City Intelligences powered by AI – seeing their connections to the Soul Power (of Beauty Truth and Goodness) – the awakening of natural (nature-infused) intelligences invites the resacralization of human relationships with Gaia. We ask if our planetary crises are overpowering even the exponential capacity of love-based change?

Dawlabani calls forth the second-tier capacities of Spiral Dynamics integral – sketching out Turquoise governance – which would enable global coordination, alignment with ever-expanding speed and scale (instead of being overpowered by it) and connecting the natural intelligence that Integral City points to in  the collective coherence of Soul Powered communities.

Death of Institutions, Birth of Wholeness: Dawlabani’s Second Sapiens and the Soul’s Call

As Dawlabani warned, linear change is no longer an option. The planetary boundaries are breached, institutions are faltering, and technology races ahead of wisdom. Yet this very chaos crucible can be the womb of transformation. When Spiral Dynamics integral’ Turquoise vision meets the awakened Heart of Soul Power, we glimpse a path where exponential change does align with exponential love.

Is it not only the end of obsolete systems — but perhaps the birth of Second Sapiens – the soul-infused humanity we have been waiting to become?