“two tribes […] What one tribe wants is the precise opposite of what the others want.”

I think you are wrong on this point. As we still live in the pre-CRISPR era both “tribes” are still people as we know them. At the core — all people have similar needs. The main difference is context and the reaction to it.

Life in a rural area is significantly different than that in a highly urban environment. Both on a social level as on a physical one. Ergo the “differences”. Survival requires that some of us have had to adapt to these changes more and faster than others. Ian McHarg calls it creative fitting. We live in different worlds.

“differences are too great now for politics to bridge. […] Democracy can’t solve our problems anymore, […]”

And that is where we agree. The one “seize fits all” system is failing us hopelessly. What we desperately need is a far smarter human to human interface system.

Our societies are not dying but are merely in a phase of transition. Like at the turn of the 19th century when we went from an agricultural-based society (“traditional”) to an industrial-based one (“modernism”). And now, we are probably transforming to a social-ecological system based one. Which is very interesting because it has the potential to bridge the metabolic rift the rural-industrial transition created.

So the future looks extremely hopeful. We only have to update our operating system :).