Weeks ago, I published a global perception questionnaire.
I didn't want to study what people think.
I wanted to understand what they sense.
The method: intentionally raw
No filters. No politics. No segmentation. Just a few blunt, open-ended questions:
- Give me 3 exact words to describe the atmosphere.
- What is the greatest danger right now?
- What is the greatest opportunity?
- On a scale of 0-10, how much do you trust institutions?
- How prepared do you feel to face what’s coming?
+200 people responded.
From over 40 countries.
Who responded?
Interestingly, this wasn't "the public". It was the mobile cognitive class of the 21st century.
Entrepreneurs. Officers. Writers. Strategists. Analysts. Thinkers. Decision-makers. Operating across various sectors: finance, security and defense, diplomacy, technology, media, intelligence, health.
So it's important to emphasize that this is NOT a representative sample. Yet, it's a strategically relevant one... You'll soon understand why.
The limits of my approach (by design)
My approach carries natural biases:
- Self-selection: only those who feel something brewing chose to answer.
- Algorithimic bias: this was published under my name, on my platforms. Over the years, I have attracted a very specific type of audience: educated, globally mobile, strategically minded, intellectually demanding. They are part of the emerging cognitive elite. This means the data doesn't reflect "the world" - it reflects how an elite perceive it.
- Language: all questions were in English.
- Projection bias: most people answer about the world as they want to see it.
- Conceptual framing: for instance "danger" means very different things across cultures.
But in the Grey Zone, perception is reality. And what the results reveal (and what they hide) is worth watching... 👇