Futurism – My Mental Model

Educating the Next Generation

I’ve had a storied academic history. As a kid, I was always told about my ‘potential’. When shifting from elementary to high school, I applied to a ‘mini school’ for smart kids and was denied.. probably for not being smart enough. I went to the high school that the rest of my friends went to and by the next grade, had enrolled in their advanced program. My grades were generally below average and might have had something to do with my reluctance to study for anything. I was the type who went to class, paid attention, and participated… and that was usually enough to get by. By grade 12, I was down to 2 advanced courses, history and biology. The wager was that it would be easier to get into university with good grades from the standard classes than average grades from advanced classes. The bet paid off as I averaged mid 80s, and I was headed to university.

In my first year of university, I barely managed to stay off academic probation with a GPA of 1.8. The work wasn’t difficult, I just wasn’t that interested. There were certain courses that I did quite well in, like business or psychology, but then there were others like calculus that I failed twice after skipping most of the classes, doing none of the homework, and barely studying for the exams. I left university after my second year for a combination of reasons, including: a lack of funds, a lack of interest, a lack of focus, a bar fight, and a soured relationship with the university. When I got home that summer, I ended up making a fair bit of money.. enough to postpone any thoughts of finishing school. Fortunately or unfortunately, that job showed me that business is what I wanted to do, and I knew that getting a business degree was a good place to start. So I returned to school with a renewed interest after a couple years. With a renewed focus, I performed accordingly. I took business and psychology courses exclusively and was among the top of my class when we graduated. That included taking that calculus course on my own during a summer semester and finishing with a 90+.

During that time, I’ve learned a great deal. Including that being knowledgeable and performing well in academics are not the same thing. During my first two years, I set an unofficial record for fewest classes attended and still managed to finish with a GPA in the 2.5 range. It wasn’t because I was smart, I was because I knew how to study and how to test. For most classes, I could skip the lectures and course readings, and simply memorize the chapter summaries and vocabulary. It left gaps but with most tests being multiple choice, a bit of analysis and probability would usually get you in the 70s. Reflecting on it now, most of these courses relied heavily on memory. I learned to memorize things back in high school for biology but learned how to apply those skills elsewhere. Unfortunately, things that I memorized while cramming for an exam were almost always lost just as quick. Maybe not entirely, but the strategy wasn’t designed around long-term retention.

Perhaps there’s some rhyme and reason to things which are easy to remember and things which aren’t. If you learn a detail and know where it fits in your larger understanding of things and the variety of things it connects to, it’s easy to remember. If you’re just looking to memorize a list of details that’s isolated from your core understanding of the world, not so easy.

It would be interesting to see how much of the modern curriculum is based in memorization and I wonder if enough attention is paid to establishing the foundation for these facts to be absorbed more easily. Either way, I can’t help but think that memorization is going the way of long division. There was a point when I was a kid where elementary school teachers would tell me about how important it was to know how to do long arithmetic. Curious about why this was valuable when we had calculators, I had to ask. They would say something to the effect of, what happens when you don’t have a calculator? Thinking back on it now, I can’t say I’ve ever found myself in a situation where I needed to do math and didn’t have access to a calculator. I haven’t a clue how to do long division anymore and I’ve never once felt at a loss for it.

I think we’re evolving. For decades, if not centuries, if not millennia… people with remarkable memories were among the most capable individuals. They had the ability to draw from a larger database of knowledge than most of their peers, and as long as they filled it with useful things, they were remarkably useful. Once the written word and the printing press came along, it wasn’t just about your memory, but your ability to find good information worth memorizing. But here, in the information age, everything has changed.

Today, I walk around with a magical device in my pocket which provides me with a portal to 99.9% of all knowledge within the known universe. Within this portal exists search engines which help me locate the information I’m looking for. Within the results of those search engines exists all kinds of information, waiting to be understood and converted to knowledge. And these magical devices are available to just about anyone. This has revolutionized the way we gather and access what we need to know. And I don’t think we fully appreciate that just yet.

How much of a school’s curriculum is teaching kids what to think? How many of us were trained in the art of memorizing facts to be repeated at a later date, preferably when someone has asked asked a question to which that fact is an appropriate answer? Like while watching Jeopardy. That’s how to look smart isn’t it?. But what if we took the best (human) Jeopardy player of all time and matched them up against an average 15 year old with a laptop, internet connection, and a solid grasp of google? The 15 year old might be a bit slower but beyond that, I’d probably bet on the 15 year old. Without a doubt, the knowledge contained within Wikipedia, let alone the entirety of the internet would be considerably more vast and detailed than what any single mind could retain. Thinking about it differently, our collective digital brain represents just about all of human knowledge, far more than any one person could ever compete with.

Where a single mind can still compete quite effectively though, is with recalling that information quickly. Someone asks you your birthday, you can spit it back out almost immediately. If someone asks you when Thomas Jefferson’s birthday is, good chance you’ll need a few seconds on google. But in a practical world, when does one need to recall specific details of this nature in less than a few seconds? Is it possible that in this practical world, the skill of being able to find new information and understand it quickly becomes more valuable?

I’m watching the world tear itself apart right now and I can’t help but ask myself why and try to understand what I’m seeing. Something that I’ve observed, is that many people seem to be done learning. Old people can’t be bothered to learn how new technology works while young people can’t be bothered to learn history. Men won’t take the time to learn about the struggles that women go through while women won’t take the time to learn about the struggles that men go through. The religious crowd isn’t interested in learning new perspectives while the atheist crowd isn’t interested in learning about why people still seek religion. Hedge fund managers aren’t interested in learning about social impact and social justice warriors aren’t interested in learning about capitalism. Politicians aren’t interested in learning how to serve the people while the general population isn’t interested in learning how the government works. With access to more information than we’ve ever had, why have so many of us decided to stop learning?

I suspect that the search engine will go down as one of the most remarkable tools ever created by humans.. but it just wasn’t enough. If you do a google search for Thomas Jefferson’s birthday and get 5 different results on the first page, what then? Well hopefully you had memorized that date from American History class back in middle school. But if you hadn’t, that’s when you need to apply your skills of critical analysis, research, pattern recognition, and logic. You know… learning. But what if you don’t have those skills? I don’t remember any classes in school called logic or critical analysis. I don’t even remember anyone even offering detailed explanations on either.

I think that for a long time, academia has been about the memorization of facts which were deemed historic and relevant, in the hopes of creating a framework of future understanding. They were teaching us what they thought we should know. The problem with that though, is that the people who decided which facts were historic and relevant had their own biases and misunderstandings. Even worse, because of how they were presented, these frameworks became rigid. Within a rigid framework, it becomes more difficult to evolve and adapt to new environments. Also within these frameworks, people seem more likely to reinforce the walls than to question how their foundation was built.

What this all seems to boil down to for me is that many of us have either lost our sense of curiosity, or lack the tools to explore it. There’s no shortage of people who would like to tell us what to think or how to feel, but without an ability to explore it ourselves, how are we to know what’s real and what isn’t? If we fall into the habit of trusting people because we like what they’re saying, all we’ve done is fallen into an echo chamber.. a place where curiosity and learning is carefully restricted to reinforce an existing perspective. How do we get around all this? The answer seems to always be the same… education.

I think we need to revolutionize our approach to education and the first step will be supporting a child’s innate sense of curiosity with the tools to learn. Teach them everything we know that will help them discover the world for themselves and let them choose their own path. I don’t think it benefits anyone to have teachers reciting facts to groups of students, with the hope that they’re listening, will retain the information, and will then find it useful some day. What if teachers became facilitators which helped students develop the skills which in turn, helped them form their own understanding of the universe. Give them the compass of truth and reality, give them the tools of critical analysis, debate, logic, and research, and set them off on their own adventures. Prepare them to rise above the obstacles we couldn’t see beyond… and all that good stuff.

It’s not about teaching people what to think, it’s about teaching them how to learn.

A Digital Nation

I’m a problem solver by nature and the bigger the problem, the more interested I am in solving it. In looking to solve things like gun violence, the application of democracy, educational inefficiencies, or health care, I often end up back in the same place – the system for creating change is deeply flawed.

I don’t mind a flawed system, most are. What I do mind is a reluctance to face those flaws and solve them for the sake of progress. In the world of business, poorly run companies go bankrupt. In the world of politics, poorly run governments increase their national debt while raising tax on their citizens – and continue on. In the great recession, the big 3 auto-manufacturers were running their businesses poorly and were on the verge of bankruptcy because of it. Some argued that allowing them to fail would be catastrophic to the American economy and that losing those jobs were not an option. I would argue that failing businesses should be allowed to fail so that from their ashes, ingenuity and integrity may have the opportunity to build something better. Instead, 2 of those companies were bailed out and 10 years later, not much has changed. Had they been allowed to fail, I wonder if Tesla would be the only major new entry in the auto-industry in the last several decades.

Tesla wasn’t the first crack at the electric car either. We tried that back in the 90s but the system we exist in allows large business interests to influence government policy. Auto-manufacturers weren’t overly interested in the R&D necessary to tackle electric cars and the oil industry wasn’t interested in the competition – so they lobbied. A government which allows well-funded business interests to limit the innovation and competition in their industry is deeply flawed.

So how do you fix these problems? Run as a member of a major party and try to create change from within? I’ve experienced first hand how change from within can be an unrealistic approach, especially when you require the cooperation of those who would rather keep things the same. Run as an independent? Good luck getting any legislation passed in a 2 party system. Try and operate outside the government? They don’t take kindly to that. Start your own country? All viable land has already been claimed.

What to do.. what to do..

My pipe dream was to develop the technology necessary to build large, stable islands. Once you built an island large enough, you could claim it and start your own country. With a progressive game plan, you could easily lure great minds and great businesses. Together, you could set the example for the rest of the world on how things could be done.

I think Elon Musk’s plan is similar, but he prefers the buffer of 50 million miles of empty space. Given Russia’s announcement of their nuclear missile with indefinite range and all the other fun stuff going on, he might be on to something.

While these are fun contingency plans to think of, it’s overlooking something important. Life always finds a way. There’s a natural progression to what happens next and I think we’re starting to see it.

We’re moving from an analog reality to a digital reality.

I’ve watched a few animes over the years which touched on the subject of a futuristic society that was digitally based, and I couldn’t help but connect the dots. When I saw the first trailer for Ready Player One, I knew it wasn’t just me seeing where we were headed. With the film out last week and on my way to see it tonight, I wanted to put a journal entry together to document my thoughts before they’re further inspired by what looks to be a Spielberg masterpiece.

For anyone who still needs some context, a digital reality is the inevitable evolution of virtual reality. Virtual reality as it exists today is rather limited but the momentum is there and we seem to be approaching a new plateau. Within the R&D being done right now, there’s a focus on getting your brain to accept that the illusion is real. If that sounds like hocus pocus, you’d be right. For as long as magicians and illusionists have existed, there has been a craft designed around the manipulation of your senses. As complex as the the mind is, and as good as it is at processing the outside world, it can be fooled. Right now, the holy grail in virtual reality is getting your mind to forget that it’s within a virtual reality.

There’s an idea that we all hallucinate our own reality. Some are quick to dismiss the thought, thinking that what they’re experiencing is the same reality that everyone else is experiencing – but they would be wrong. Everyone’s mind is constantly collecting information from all of its senses and continually trying to make sense of all of its surroundings. If those senses are your input, your hallucination is the digital rendering. And this is the genius of true virtual reality, where all of your inputs have been taken over, and your mind hallucinates your new digital reality.

On the path to a true virtual reality, we have much ground to cover. Sound is perhaps easiest, sight is where the most progress is being made today, and touch is where new ground is being broken. There are a few people putting energy towards taste and smell but they don’t seem to be a priority right now (although I can’t help but think that smell may be one of the most immersive inputs). The piece of tech which I’m most interested in at the moment is the haptic suit, a full body suit which allows for a very real sense of touch. Within the next 10 years, I think it’s extremely likely that we’ll have sight, sound, and touch dialed in at a very high level. But perhaps this is where we’ll plateau. The biggest obstacle I see in VR is getting to the point where we have this brilliant digital universe to explore, only to be bumping into the couch and TV at home as we try.

As I’m trying to map out the future of virtual reality, I’m seeing an eventual division between analog and digital. Analog will be with the helmet, headphones, haptic suit, and everything else. Digital will be with what Elon and a few other think tanks are working on right now, a direct neural link. I don’t understand the science well enough to know what the timeline on something like this is but with the ramp up of AI, it’ll probably come quicker than we’re ready for. I suspect that this will be the technological jump that truly takes us into the digital age.

Today, so much of what we already do exists in the digital realm. Our work, our social lives, the way we learn, the way we play, the way we explore, the way we communicate… it’s now all digital first. What some of us may not realize or want to accept is that we’re already one foot in the digital world. We just have a low-bandwidth way of accessing it. What if it wasn’t through our thumbs on our phones or fingers on our keyboards that we accessed our digital world? What if we could interact with the digital world as quickly and accurately as we interact with the physical world? What would that look like? What would that lead to? Or maybe there’s another way of looking at this. If this is the direction we’re already headed in, what problem is this a solution to?

Well, what if the current level of inequality in the world persisted?

Well, life finds a way…

I’ve watched very closely as the disposable income of the lower and middle class has evaporated over the past decades. Half your income goes to tax, of what’s left, half goes to rent, of what’s left, you try to live a life you’re happy with. It’s failing. And when going outside begins to cost significantly more than staying in, dynamics start to change.

Personally, I’m feeling a very real resistance to leaving my house because of how much it costs. Rent is so high right now that to remain on budget, I moved to the edge of the city I’m in. Our city is paying the highest fuel costs in North America, which means anytime I want to go anywhere, I’m mindful of fuel and parking. High costs of real estate mean business owners need to increase their prices to stay open. That means the cost of eating out or shopping at local businesses becomes prohibitive. I used to eat out several nights a week with friends for the company and experience. Now we all stay in.

Stagnant wages in tandem with a drastic increase in the cost of living has left the younger generations without much to work with. So we rose to the occasion and introduced the world to the sharing economy and decentralization. Knowing this leaves me optimistic about our future. I suppose I’m pretty optimistic in general, but that’s not to say that I don’t see the other side.

Through the trailers of Ready Player One, it looks to take place about 20-30 years in the future where many of today’s biggest problems haven’t been solved – in all likelihood, they’ve gotten worse. In a world where the cost of living rises faster than income and a minimum wage doesn’t afford you a minimum lifestyle, in a world where government has forgotten its responsibility to the people and in a world where a handful of people horde the majority of the world’s wealth… where do the rest of us go?

According to Spielberg… into the Oasis.

I can’t help but think that I’m glimpsing that future now. As the digital approach has made things easier and more convenient, we’ve adopted them. From our finances to our social lives, we’re already most of the way there. What I think may determine how quickly we move towards being fully immersed in this digital reality is going to be a function of cost.

If it continues to cost more to be outside than to stay in, we’re going to come up with better reasons for staying in. Virtual commuting, virtual sporting events, virtual concerts, virtual dating… virtual sex… did I mention that porn was likely going to be one of the biggest drivers for advances in VR? I digress. If it costs $100 to go out and have the full analog experience, or $10 to have a virtual experience that’s most of the way there, which would you choose? And what if you didn’t have $100?

Personally, I’m kind of excited about event-based virtual reality. Big Jay Z concert on tonight? Don’t want to spend $200 or deal with the lines and crowds? No problem, just put on your VR headset with your VR headphones and you’ll be teleported to a front row seat where you can H to the Izzo along with everyone else. Now imagine being ring-side for a big UFC match… or pitch-side at a world cup finals where you didn’t have to pay for the flight, hotel, and rental car.. and where you go back to your normal life when you take the VR kit off. That sounds pretty darn neat to me.

While the cost of staying in versus going out is likely going to have a huge effect on the development curve of this technology, I don’t think it will change the destination. There’s something extremely unique about a digital reality that’s so much harder to create in the physical world, and that’s freedom. In Ready Player One’s digital reality, everyone creates an avatar for themselves to explore The Oasis. Want to try out another gender for the day? Go for it. Want to be the giant robot from Pacific Rim? why not. When the limitations of how you project yourself rest within your own imagination, I can’t help but think we’re going to encounter something very, very cool. And it’s not just about the freedom to be who you want, it’s also the freedom to do what you want.

Something especially interesting about a digital reality is that it literally comes with it’s own laws of physics. I have a recurring dream in which I have the ability to fly. Sometimes it’s even lucid, so in a very real way, I’ve been able to experience what it’s like to fly around the city like a superhero. Best thing ever. Unless that experience would be available to me anytime I wanted. Or maybe you’d rather fly around the galaxy and explore the other planets. Imagine being able to shrink down to the size of an atom and explore molecular structure. Or imagine having no physical form at all. Crazy right?

I was watching Elon at SXSW a little while ago and what stood out most to me was something he said about AI. At least in the early stages, it’ll be our responsibility to give direction to the AI – A prime directive. As Hollywood would suggest, telling the AI to keep us safe probably isn’t the right approach. We’re terrible at keeping ourselves safe and it’s a big part of how we’ve gotten this far. So what directive do we give the AI? According to Elon, it’s to maximize our freedom. I can’t help but think that he’s done the same deep dive that I have and understands how central the concept of freedom is to the human condition.

If freedom is core to who we are, and essential to our growth and evolution as a species, shouldn’t we pursue the direction which affords us the most freedom? Would that not be one which also frees us from the limitations of our physical selves? Worth pondering. But who’s to say that we’re not putting ourselves in the matrix by pursuing the future. In The Matrix, it was a war between man and machine which led to machine dominating man and plugging them into the Matrix as batteries. Maybe a more accurate future is one where we plug ourselves in and forget to leave.

Time Travel

Two quick thoughts:

Keeping in mind that time is a human construct that measures progression throughout the universe, ‘travelling back in time’ would literally be a regression of the universe, in reverse order, to a specified marker to a system which we made up.
Travelling into the future seems much more realistic. If your goal was to travel 100 years in the future, it would simply be a matter of figuratively (maybe literally) freezing yourself for 100 years. If there was a way to keep your body and mind in a form of stasis which allowed you to remain healthy for an extended period of time, this would effectively be time travel. Assuming that you don’t have to endure what feels like 100 years of sleep and that the transition is more instantaneous (perhaps a bold assumption), this would effectively be like taking a nap and waking up 100 years in the future. Sounds a lot nicer than most modern forms of travel.

There is however another way of looking at this. Infinite universes, infinite timelines, infinite possibilities. At that point though, I think we’re talking about inter-dimensional travel and not time travel.

A Completely Automated Business

Here’s a thought…

how far are we away from kids at Harvard coming up with a fully automated business for a class project?

I said it in that context for a couple:

I suspect fully automated businesses already exist in the fringe but I’m talking about something more widely applicable
By the time the kids at Harvard are doing it, it’ll be big news and government regulators will have to start shifting around this potential

Imagine a company called Widgets.com. Widgets.com is a market place for widgets where manufacturers of widgets can list their products. Buyers of Widgets can come to the site, pick the widget they want and place an order for delivery. When a customer places an order, the order is relayed through to the manufacturer and the manufacturer will ship the widget directly through to the buyer.

Widgets.com outsources it’s live chat and call center. And their web design. And their IT. And their Legal. And their Accounting. And their digital marketing.

Widgets.com would also have extensive data analytics that would help track key information for making strategic decisions. These data points would include customer feedback and reviews, website activity, error tracking, legal reporting, financial reporting, and social media stats. And anything else you wanted to include.

The Widgets.com algorithm would be capable of making executive decisions, but would aim to outsource nuanced details. For example, if pink widgets were trending on social media, a note would go out to the digital marketing team and manufacturers of pink widgets, while a request would go to the web designer to feature pink widgets. If the situation was more nuanced, say with a zero star review, the algorithm would track that info, forward it to a capable customer service rep and have them work to resolve the issue.

It’s actually a fun exercise because you can do this with just about any decision being made within a company. I’m pretty sure these are the steps to building this decision engine:

Identify the cues to look for when identifying a problem
Use additional cues to verify the problem
Review past solutions to the problem or similar problems
If a past solution has worked, use it again
1. If a past solution works again, make a note
2. If a past solution doesn’t work, go back to step 2
If a past solution didn’t work, look to variations of solutions to similar problems.

I know that’s a bit of an oversimplification but what I’m getting at is that with enough time and insight, a top CEO could effectively upload his decision engine into a neural net. Perhaps a decision engine wouldn’t make the best CEO for a complex company that operates in a rapidly changing environment with an actively engaged customer base… but maybe at that point, a human CEO isn’t cutting it either.

That’s where I see this going, especially because it’s already happening. Big data analytics is an early stage version of human/digital hybrid CEO. Right now, we’re mostly using data analytics to provide the human CEO with more information. If the human CEO sees that everything X happens, Y needs to happen, he can automate it. Once it’s automated, that’s the responsibility of the digital CEO. As more information starts to get tracked, more patterns will emerge, and more automation will occur. As that process progresses further and further, the human side is needed less and less.

I’m not sure how this will play out, but I do know that today’s pundits are suggesting that the CEO’s role will be among the last to be taken out by automation. That before the CEO role goes digital, manufacturing will be replaced by 3D printing, warehouse workers will be replaced by robots, delivery drivers will be replaced by automated trucks and drones, and even computer programmers will be replaced by computers who programmers have taught to program. Considering that the new Atlas looks like its about to try out for Cirque, who knows.

Reddit Might’ve Just Saved Net Neutrality

Reddit is one of my primary information feeds. Perhaps needless to say, I’m a fan. Over the last week or so, I’ve observed something rather significant.

First, the gaming community mobilized against EA and their release of Star Wars: Battlefront 2. EA’s new progression system meant that most of the game’s best content had to be earned. Doesn’t sound too bad at first, until you find out that to unlock all the game’s content, it would take over 4500 hours, or $2,100. To put that in perspective, if you were to play for 3 hours a day, 365 days a year, it would take you just over 4 years to unlock all the content. To put that in perspective, the next generation of consoles is expected out before then. And that $2100 that they’re hoping you’ll spend? That’s above and beyond the $80 price tag for the game itself. Short-sighted greediness for sure, but something was different this time.

Someone on Reddit had a rant, and EA replied with a classic, corporate speak, disingenuous answer. I won’t bother repeating the entire reply as the opening sentence says it all:

“The intent is to provide players with a sense of pride and accomplishment for unlocking different heroes.”

I’m tempted to pick it apart, but I’d just be pointing out the obvious. The response though, was something special. That reply, became the most down-voted comment in the history of Reddit, earning over 600,000 demerits within just a few days. Not only did this make the news across several major outlets and cause the execs at Disney to check in on EA, but EA also froze the in-game payment system until further notice. A win? Maybe, but the gaming community isn’t buying it (literally) as they suspect EA will just unfreeze the payment system once enough gamers have caved in. Well fortunately for the gamers, sales are down significantly compared to the game’s first installment and that’s starting to weigh on EA’s stock price. Effectively, the gaming community found a way to mobilize on Reddit to deny EA the opportunity to make a really dumb decision. All within a few days. All with a few clicks. Very interesting.

Among all the gaming hoopla, I saw a post that said something to the effect of, ‘If we cared half as much about Battlefront 2 as we did about net neutrality, we wouldn’t have to worry about net neutrality’. Well, Reddit responded. Earlier this week, for about 48 hours straight, Reddit’s entire front page was entirely dedicated to the mobilization for net neutrality. This wasn’t a banner, or an ad, or front page image, it was what seemed to be thousands of posts, across thousands of sub-reddits, all being up-voted by the masses. I was almost a little annoyed that for 2 days, I didn’t have normal access to one of my news feeds, but I couldn’t help but be in awe of what I was seeing.

I don’t know if the effort by Reddit or any of the other tech majors will be enough to stop this repeal. Senators don’t pay nearly as much attention to internet chatter as they do to phone calls to their office. Assuming an average call takes 10 minutes, an office could theoretically take 144 calls over a 24 hour period, or 1008 calls over the course of a week. There are 100 senators, meaning a little over 100,000 calls would completely occupy the senate’s phone lines for a week. If that happened, it would probably be the documented as one of the greatest public protests of all time.

At this point, I don’t have a clue how many up votes were cast across how many posts. If I had guess, somewhere between 2-5 million, suggesting that the support is somewhere between 20-50 times what it should probably take to get the government to reconsider their position.

There are a few problems here. First, why is it that in a democratic framework, where the people have not asked to repeal net neutrality, is the Chairman of the FCC introducing measures to repeal net neutrality? The second problem is that internet community, arguably the constituents of this decision, are protesting this decision more fiercely than anything they’ve ever done – and it might be ignored. Finally, and perhaps the worst problem is that we’re encouraged to think that calls into our senators’ offices are what will make the difference here but at this point, we know that’s bullshit. They listen when they have to, and they use public backlash as a measure of what they can get away with while still being able to get re-elected. In all likelihood, there are only two calls that would make a difference here: If Ajit Pai received a call from the president, or if received a call from the chairman of Verizon. Unfortunately for us, both have vested financial interests in restricting how the general population accesses information… so I don’t see it happening.

Doom and gloom, I know. But there’s a bright side. An awesome bright side. Government needs tech, desperately. I’ve been mulling over the idea of a app that would let governments better connect and engage with their people. The current lines of communication between politicians and their constituents minimize inbound traffic which increases the disconnect. Without a live connection to your people, it becomes a lot easier to pay attention to the lobbyist that just took you out for a nice steak dinner. The people need a platform that lets them engage in real time with the people making these kinds of decisions, one that’s easy to use, that people would want to use, and one which decision makers would be held accountable to. The way that EA and Disney reacted to the Star Wars: Battlefront 2 issue was the first time that any modern platform, let alone Reddit, ticked all those boxes. If we manage to stop the repeal of net neutrality, I might even say proof of concept.

While Reddit might be the first to demonstrate the effectiveness of a platform like this, Reddit wasn’t designed to bridge the gap between a government and its people. To do that, it might have to be a little less rough around the edges and frankly, that’s just not Reddit. But that’s ok, because I have a hard time thinking that I’m the only one that’s been inspired here. I suspect there are a lot of smart people out there who are seeing what I’m seeing. We need to revolutionize the way that a government listens to its people and I think the public is figuring that out in a hurry.

One of the greatest counter-productive efforts throughout history has been the ruling class putting a greater emphasis on maintaining their power than helping their people. A lot of us assumed that kind of behavior died off with the monarchies but somehow it’s more obvious today than ever. I think we have the internet to thank for that. The internet revolutionized how we access information which means the government is having a harder and harder time controlling the conversation. They’re still trying, and it’s confusing the hell out of a lot of people, but the truth keeps finding a way.

The best thing about this for me is that when I keep pulling at that thread and try to visual where this takes us, I start to see something pretty special. If we could create a public that’s actively engaged with the governance issues that they’re interested in, able to control the public discourse, and aware of what one another is thinking in real-time, we have a highly capable voter base that’s capable of decentralizing a government’s power. If we can connect that voter base to governing officials who are accountable to public discourse and the ongoing engagement of their constituents, we may just be able to put everyone back on the same team and point them in the same direction. Wouldn’t that be neat.

Analogies: Capitalism

a long time ago, someone designed a car. It was beautifully engineered and truly revolutionary. It was so well designed that it was pretty much built to last forever.

While the car was a something for the history books, the drivers were inconsistent. Some understood the mechanics and drove respectfully. Some showed less regard for the car and drove as it suited their agenda.

Along the way, drivers began allowing for more passengers. Some for altruistic reasons, some because they paid, and some for the sake of personal relationships.

The car was built well enough to handle a few extra passengers, but as passengers increased and time wore on, key parts of the car started to wear down. All the added weight was creating excessive pressure, leading to wear on parts that the car couldn’t function without.

Some of the older passengers are looking out the window saying the car looks just fine. They can tell that the ride is bumpier but it’s hard to notice in a cushy seat. They know that car was built to last and they know it’s gotten them this far.

Those who are more familiar see that the car is unsustainable. If we maintain this rate of passengers, the car will fail. If we want to reduce the amount of passengers, we can keep the car on the road.

Ironically, we’re so focused on the survival of old reliable, that we haven’t given any thought to the new models. Technology changes everything. As great as that car was, modern technology has changed how we get from point A to point B and it’s important to appreciate those changes. There are ideas which we didn’t have the technology to pull off before but could be more viable today.

It’s dangerous assuming there’s no room for improvement. Might be a good time to look at some options. Even better, why don’t we look at what we need from our car, learn from our peers, and build something new and inspiring from the ground up.

The Wonderful Flaw in Capitalism

So sleep hasn’t come easily to me since I was young, but perhaps it’s both a blessing and a curse. As I lay awake at night wishing I could fall asleep, my mind continues to problem solve. A few months ago, I was doing my best to understand the difference between the idea of democracy, and the application of it in American politics – and effectively understand where things went sideways when 20% of the American public was able to elect someone which most of the world despised. More recently, I’ve been focused on capitalism and more importantly, how it’s led to an unsustainable concentration of wealth. At about 2am a couple nights ago, I woke up Siri to take a note. That note reads:

“The fly in capitalism is the assumption that resources are scarce”

I had said flaw, but close enough, Siri. What I first tried to do was understand what capitalism is at its core. My best definition was the exchange of resources for the creation of value. Whether you’re producing a good, a service, or something in between, capitalism was there to reward you with resources to help you sustain yourself and with the goal of motivating you to create more value in the future. Theoretically, in capitalism, those who create the most value should be rewarded with the most resources. I don’t think that’s the case today.

As the application of capitalism evolved, it became a heavily complex system and as with all systems, they can be taken advantage of. For example, some businesses specifically target customers who don’t fully understand the transaction and end up paying for services they don’t need or products they can’t use – selling ice to an Eskimo. While some examples are blatant, I suspect most are shades of grey. Those shades of grey allow those with a greater understanding of the system to manipulate that transaction of value for resources – ultimately leaving them paying less or receiving more. In this environment, the most significant factor in deciding who receives the most resources isn’t the ability to create value, but rather the ability to understand and play the game.

When I look across the board of the wealthiest people in the world, I don’t see a direct correlation between the wealth they’ve accumulated and the value they’ve created. There are some, like Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, or Larry Paige who I think should be among the wealthiest individuals in the world, but for each of them, there are dozens of wealthy individuals who have made their fortunes by extracting resources rather than creating value – casino’s come to mind.

So when I understood that, I thought that we just needed to find a way to get back to the fundamentals of capitalism. We just needed to find a better way to ensure that there was a fair and equitable approach to the exchange of value for resources. But wait… if resources weren’t scarce, would capitalism still motivate us to create value?

I know this is all super high level so let’s make this more tangible. The sun currently projects more energy onto our planet than we’re capable of using – and we’re getting increasingly better at harnessing it. 99.9% of the resources ever used on this planet are still on this planet because as it turns out, matter can’t be destroyed. That means that resources aren’t scarce, we’re just temporarily inefficient at turning used resources into usable resources. That’s a technological issue that we’re getting increasingly better at solving – one which I expect to be largely solved within our lifetime.

So let’s be optimistic and think 100 years out. There are solar panels everywhere. Roads, roofs, cars, skyscrapers, and huge chunks of desserts are covered in enough solar panels to passive provide our planet with sufficient energy to both sustain and grow. Waste conversion technologies have advanced to the point where a landfill can be broken down into synthesized raw materials. Additive manufacturing is able to take synthesized raw materials and efficiently build just about anything that our minds can imagine. If that ecosystem sounds familiar, it’s because that’s pretty much how our planet worked before humans came along and started trying to reinvent the wheel. Mind you the earth did it at a much slower pace, but the fundamentals are the same.

Waste is a concept only known to humans. In every other aspect of the known universe, it’s simply another state in which energy or matter can exist. Once we can wrap our heads around that, it’s easier to understand that there is no scarcity in resources, simply an temporary inefficiency in turning used resources into usable resources. That is something that I’m confident technology can solve, and it has me looking rather optimistically towards the future.

In a future where resources aren’t scarce, what would motivate someone to create value for others? This is where the crusty capitalists might say that people are inherently lazy and it’s only through the motivation of scarcity that they’re willing to provide any level of value to others. It’s too easy to find counter-examples for that to be entirely true, but I don’t deny that the fear of not being able to sustain yourself can motivate people to do all kinds of things. What I also think though, is that love is a far more powerful motivator. In this case, it would be love for what one does. More often than not, the best computer programmers, the best musicians, the best entrepreneurs, and the best parents are those who absolutely love what they do. Between their hardware, firmware and software, they’re totally in line with their life’s work. They’re in their element. They love what they do, and as a result, their drive, passion, and work ethic to create value for others far surpasses what they might have done out of fear.

That is the future I see and the future that I’m confident we’re headed towards. We’re a few years out, and there will be plenty of stumbling blocks between now and then, but this is a logical eventuality which is simultaneously an enlightened perspective on how technology drives progress, and how progress drives ideology. The future is bright and oh so cool.