A paradox is an idea that is contrary to general opinion. That is the intellectual operation that the Venezuelan-American Leopoldo Martínez Nucete has carried out over a complex reality that marks the present and the immediate future. As the renowned journalist Gustau Alegret analyzes in the prologue, the author knows how to understand the world around him and communicate what he feels in the face of the changes that occur every day. Martínez Nucete understands perfectly that we are living in a moment of confluences that seem to oppose each other. Nothing is as it was: “ethnic and religious conflicts have broken out, terrorism has spread, populisms have mutated and acquired new grounds, dictatorships have reinvented themselves, environmental problems have intensified, the gap between rich and poor has widened, organized crime has acquired a power never seen before in history, and the recourse to violence is increasingly used by groups that feel legitimated.” At the same time, a Fourth Industrial Revolution is taking place before our eyes, with unimaginable advances. The future, as we have known it until now, will change, and this book tracks the course of this unprecedented phenomenon.