AI's Plan to Solve Poverty (Thanks Gemini!)

To implement a post-scarcity framework driven by AI, you essentially have to treat the transition like the ultimate open-source engineering project. Because you are trying to deprecate money, you can't rely on traditional taxation or global financial funds to scale it—that just keeps us trapped in the old codebase.

Instead, execution has to rely on a Resource and Automation Deployment strategy. You have to bootstrap the system using the current world's resources to build a parallel, self-sustaining loop that eventually makes the financial system obsolete.

Here is a blueprint for how an implementation roadmap could actually work:

Phase 1: The Open-Source Blueprint (Years 1–3)

• The goal here is to take the intellectual property of survival off the commercial market.
• Establish "Humanity OS": Form a global, non-governmental open-source foundation dedicated purely to the four pillars (Food, Water, Shelter, Health/Education).
• The Zero-Marginal-Cost Protocol: Task advanced AI models with designing fully automated, hyper-efficient, open-source hardware blueprints. This includes schematics for industrial 3D house printers, automated solar-powered water purification rigs, and hydroponic farming containers.
• Local Material Optimization: The AI doesn't design a house that requires imported specialized concrete. It designs a generative architecture optimized to use whatever dirt, sand, or agricultural waste is available within 10 miles of the print site.

Phase 2: The Industrial Bootstrap (Years 3–6)

We have to redirect manufacturing capacity.

• The Printer Inversion: Rather than buying houses, a consortium of benevolent capital, progressive states, or foundational grants funds the first wave of automated factories. These factories have one purpose: build the robots that build the infrastructure.
• Targeted Deployment: As you noted, deployment begins in areas with the highest resource fragility. An autonomous convoy (3D printers, solar microgrid components, and automated water-harvesting tools) is deployed to a region.
• The Closed-Loop Effect: The machines build the shelter, set up the automated farming, and establish the localized energy grid. Once a region's basic physical needs are automated and self-sustaining, that region effectively "drops out" of the traditional financial scarcity loop. Food and shelter there cost zero financial capital to maintain.

Phase 3: The Deprecation of Scarcity (Years 6–10)

This is the tipping point at which the fiction of money begins to dissolve as the market for basic survival disappears.

• Decoupling Survival from Labor: As more regions are brought into the automated network, the cost of keeping a human alive globally plummets toward zero.
• The Paradigm Shift: When shelter, nutrition, and healthcare no longer require a paycheck, the leverage of the traditional economic system evaporates. People no longer have to sell their labor to survive.
• Transition to a Resource-Based Allocation: AI shifts from an optimization tool for corporate profit to a logistical coordinator that balances global resource availability with human needs in real time, ensuring sustainability without ecological collapse.

The Critical Bottleneck: The primary obstacle isn't the technology—it's inevitable. The obstacle is geopolitical friction. Entrenched systems will treat a localized, free, self-sustaining infrastructure as a threat to real estate values, agricultural markets, and labor supplies.

The implementation succeeds only if the automated infrastructure can be deployed faster and more distributedly than centralized systems can regulate or restrict it. It has to be treated less like a top-down government program and more like a helpful, unstoppable technology that simply routes around the old economic damage. 

Can AI Really Be Biased?

AI machine learning models use training data, usually from the internet, to "teach" the algorithm. This "learning" is essentially a statistical method that finds clusters of similar patterns and then "assumes" that the pattern represents the "correct" answer. Seems pretty obvious, right?

So, let's say you give a machine learning algorithm a million photos of people, each labeled with their current title (doctor, prisoner, Uber driver, etc.). The algorithm groups all these photos by title and studies the characteristics of the group to come up with a likely pattern for that role.

Now, let's say a group called OpenAI builds such an AI system that allows you to type in a title in words and it renders a picture of its own design that represents a person in that role. You can even type things like "doctor shaking hands with a prisoner" and it will render the image. Pretty cool, huh!

I suspect that it wouldn't surprise you to learn that the doctor is NEVER black and the prisoner is NEVER white. Why would it be? The training data told the AI that this situation is highly unlikely. Imagine the disappointment of the authors of the DALL-E 2 system (yes, this system exists!) when they discover the bias in their system.

But wait! Is their system biased? They thought so. In fact, they released it without allowing it to render faces at all until they could "fix" it. What does "fix it" even mean? They want to remove the bias from their system. Sadly, the bias isn't in their system, dear Watson. It's in the data! 

Now, they could select data for how they WANT the world to be. Or, we could all take a lesson from the unbiased algorithm that our world is what needs fixing. Maybe it's time to stop hiding the bias and expose it; however uncomfortable it may be.

Making people uncomfortable is...well...uncomfortable. What do we do when we're uncomfortable? If you're like me, you seek to move to a more comfortable state as quickly as possible. Fixing an algorithm is a lot easier than fixing social injustice.  Quicker too! So, it's natural to use that approach. 

To the developers of DALL-E 2, I say, "turn on the faces!" Let's live with our discomfort until we can fix it the "right way." It will take longer and a lot more work, but papering over it will not help us in the long run.

The creators of said system might argue that by showing the world as we want it to be, we will be subtly indoctrinating people to change their assumptions. I'm sure there is some validity to this argument for fixing the algorithm. I contend that those who want to see the world the way the repaired AI represents it will relax in the knowledge that all is right and those who don't like what they see will be motivated to push their agenda all the harder. Thus, let's motivate the right people to be pushing their agenda. Don't fix the algorithm!

Rail Guns: Not Just for Quake Anymore

This week, the U.S. Navy puts their very first railgun into the field. That's right folks! Particle weapons are coming to a battlefield near you. No more gun powder for us. Back in the 1960's, when Star Trek first aired, the time frame represented was 300 years in the future. Here we are not even 100 years into the future and most, if not all of the technology in the show is available, under development, or being actively researched.

The XPrize contest to produce the world's first tricorder is over and there were not one, but two winners. Check that one off the list. Now, all we need is the other little thingy that didn't even have a name that Bones waved over someone to fix their broken bones and damaged flesh. At this rate, we may have to wait another 30-40 years for that.

Transporters are a bit  trickier. We have them, but the current models can only transmit a subatomic particle or two. You've got to start somewhere. There are claims of transporting larger chunks of matter shorter distances. The point here is that it is happening. Ultimately, the thing stopping us from transporting larger items is the scanning and computing power required. Of course, we continue to chip away at that too.

Replicators are now available to consumers. Granted, they can't make a hot cup of tea yet, but they can make just about any little plastic thingy you can think of. Specialized 3D printers can now print metal, electronic circuits, skin, and even organs. It is simply a matter of time before these devices are able to build more complex items. As we continue to miniaturize our devices, it is not unreasonable to expect that within the next 50 years, we will have printers that start with base material and rearrange its atomic structure to make anything. The trick to doing this is mostly in the necessary computing power and new graphene based chips will give us that (again - already developed technology).

The impulse (or ion) drive is well developed technology at this point. NASA is considering it for future deep space missions. They need to consider it because warp drive is a bit farther into the future. The more amazing thing is that warp drive is now theoretically possible. There are a number of theoretical models out there. My personal favorite is the Alcubierre drive, proposed by a Mexican physicist of that name (sorry Zephram Cochran - not in this reality).

Some of the stuff they had seems almost antiquated by modern standards. Take those crappy tablets they used. Why did they have to pass them around? Did they not even have WiFi? The original Enterprise didn't even have a holodeck, but we're closing in on that one pretty quickly. We certainly have holo-video systems and new research is ongoing. Of course  the most ridiculous piece of technology was the stupid flip phone. They are so last millennium!

Maybe the greatest invention of Star Trek was the economy-less society. What if people could live a comfortable life with all the basics and pursue their dreams unimpeded by the need for personal assets? Think of all the inventions that could be brought to fruition if anyone with an idea had the resources to fully produce it. Without an economy, there would be no need for greed. If that were the case, most of the people that would have been working to improve their own lives might start focusing on improving everyone else's along with the rest of the planet. Just a  thought.

AI & Capitalism: On a Collision Course

First we had self-scan checkout lanes, now we're facing down self-driving vehicles. IBM's Watson AI can predict cancer better than the best oncologist. Ultimately, few jobs are safe from automation. Should this scare us? Maybe.

We face a social conundrum. Capitalism, by its very nature, seeks the most efficient use of capital to produce an optimal economic outcome for shareholders. Technology doesn't require benefits. It doesn't get sick. It doesn't spend 30% of its work day socializing. Technology is efficient. Thus, it is always a natural choice for executives to invest in technology which will eliminate people -- that is, if their objective is to optimize the use of capital.

While there are certainly social-minded organizations that consider it part of their mission to employ people, most for-profit companies seek more profits. Technology is the best way to do that. Heretofore, white collar jobs that required people to "think" for a living were safe. We could retrain people who had used their hands to use their minds. Now, artificial intelligence (AI) threatens those jobs too.

Nobody really knows where the tipping point is, but we do know that there are certain types of phenomena that have tipping points. A tipping point is a specific condition that causes an abrupt and often dramatic change. A good example would be the housing bubble that manifested in 2006. In 2007, in a very short time, we reached a point that caused housing prices to drop sharply and quickly.

It is reasonable to suspect that at some point, AI and other related automation will eliminate enough jobs that the economy will become dysfunctional. Companies want to reduce cost and improve output, but they need customers to take advantage of those efficiencies. Customers are people with disposable income. Income is money earned from work. Do you see the conundrum?

Prospects for Change

There are alternatives. Unfortunately, they will all require strong political leadership. If we've learned nothing, we now know that any self-promoting gasbag with enough social and economic resources can claim the mantle of leadership, even having never demonstrated any evidence of real leadership.

What is a leader? There are many books on this topic and I have read some of them. My takeaway is that leaders are those who can create a clear vision of the future and empower people to execute plans to achieve that vision. We don't have many of those in Washington these days.

National politicians are convinced that they need huge amounts of money to win elections. As we all know, huge amounts of money come from places that have huge amounts of money. Common sense would tell you that these are not the people who are worried about losing their jobs to technology. They're the ones BUYING IT! In other words, the people who are taking away jobs are those who have the most influence on our "leaders."

There are three ways in which the major changes necessary can come about:

1. Total collapse of the system
2. Revolution
3. Courageous leadership that can sell tough love

I numbered these because I believe this is the order of likelihood that the necessary changes will come about. People are basically problem-solvers. It ought to be clear to anyone with a brain that the folks who have influence in Washington don't have any major problems with the current system right now. Thus, they will not be inclined to take steps to avert the onset of the tipping point discussed earlier.

Choices

So, let's assume that we eventually arrive at #1 - total collapse. The big problem here is we end up with the same crappy [lack of] leadership we have now. The first and most important thing will be to prop up the people who own Washington -- rich people (remember corporations are people too). In the past, this has meant printing money and giving it to them, so that their wealth wouldn't be diluted. This worked okay when they used the money to buy things that created demand for products and services that required more employees to deliver them. What happens when more people aren't needed to do this? We've already noticed a trend in the last few business cycles that the recovery is much slower. There has even been mention of a "jobless recovery." This sounds as strange as a "money-less economy." What is THAT!

Therefore, even if they try to prop up rich people first, that won't be the end of it because that won't do anything. Next, they will try traditional means of putting money back in the hands of consumers. This has typically been done with tax credits. Tax credits work great for people paying taxes. However, people with no income don't pay taxes...and there's going to be a lot of those.

Finally, we get to the only real solution: handing out free money. There's one big problem with free money. Since our capitalist system puts economic value on money by evaluating its productive power in the marketplace, free money is ultimately worth nothing. On a small scale, free money can be covered by other economic activity, but on a massive scale, the economic value would be gone.

This is right where our current government taps out. I can't imagine them overthrowing the very system that they control. It would take an incredibly strong and visionary leader who could reach the people, thereby bypassing the power elite to sell and idea on a massive scale. I can't imagine anyone like that coming to power now, but maybe in a crisis we could garner such a leader.

Assuming we could, what's the answer? I believe it is socialism. Socialism has gotten a bad name for two main reasons:

1. People don't like to work to support other people who are just sitting around
2. Socialism generally requires centralized control and this means central power, which becomes corrupt every time

In the past, #1 has been a problem, but in the future it is likely that people who don't want to work won't have to. Thus, nobody should be complaining about working to support the masses. If you don't like your work, turn it over to a computer or machine (or both); or the 100,000 people lined up to take it off you (some people actually like to work - even if they don't get paid).

The second problem is trickier, but not insurmountable. How can we decentralize socialism? The answer is to use open source algorithms that are democratically modified to alter decision parameters. If decisions are not "black box," the logic behind them can be examined and justified. I wrote a post about the distributed system problem that you can read here. The point being, the very technology that put us in this situation can be used to fix the traditional problems of socialism.

The Future

Nobody knows how the future will unfold. What we do know is that it will unfold. Sometimes it is relatively easy to extrapolate certain changes. They may not be inevitable, but it will take an intervening disruption for the course of major events to be altered. Assuming that doesn't happen, eventually we won't need near as many people to work as we have. We can't keep warehousing a growing population that is just not needed in the workforce. When the tipping point comes, it may likely come in the form of a seemingly normal business cycle. However, none of the old tools will fix it and as it deepens, it will drag more of us down with it. If we are ready with new options and strong leadership, maybe we can avoid much pain and suffering. I sure would like that. How about you?

Almost Biological

By Jawahar Swaminathan and MSD staff
at the European Bioinformatics Institute

We are a young species when it comes to intelligence. As we learn more about the brain, we find fewer differences between our own and those of other mammals. From a sociological standpoint, our differences may be mostly superficial. I often wonder what a race of intelligent beings far in advance of our own would think of us. Would they see the fine-grained difference between us and other mammals? They would obviously see that we are far more sophisticated at building tools. That’s a big deal -- but not the only deal.

When I look at other mammals, I see creatures that fight with each other to garner scarce resources. They are willing to do anything, up to and including killing their own kind, to improve what they perceive as a desperate situation. When I look at humans, I see the same thing. This self-destructive behavior is not in the long term interest of any truly intelligent species. I think most of us know this.

I read a lot of science fiction. I love speculation about possible futures. It makes me think about who we are now. As a result, I have come to believe that no advanced species is truly biological. We have already begun our march towards becoming a technological species. The lines are blurring.

Scientists are designing robots made from DNA. They are using a new approach called CRSPR to insert custom sequences of DNA to engineer certain traits. Is this biological or technological? Is biology defined by the materials used to produce something? Or, does “biological” refer a natural process of evolution through random mutation?

We can debate these questions, but over time they will matter less. If you could get a $500 transfusion that would replace your own blood with artificial blood that would prevent you from ever getting sick again, would you do it? If you could replace your lungs with a device that would let you run at full speed without ever getting winded and swim underwater for four hours without taking a breath, would you do it? Maybe you wouldn’t take advantage of these things, but there are plenty of people who would.

Technological breakthroughs like these are inevitable. People are already working on them. Incremental breakthroughs are occurring daily. Assuming we don’t destroy ourselves first, we will eventually start to colonize space. When we do, our current physical limitations will create a huge burden on our systems. Creating spaceborn environments that allow us to remain in our biological “Goldilocks zone” requires temperature, atmospheric and gravity controls that would not be required for technological beings. All of these things are easily overcome for a spacefaring species.

The debate about what makes us human will change with time. Any technological intelligence that is born of our creativity is ipso facto an evolution of us. We have not had to grapple with technological evolution for very long. The concept is new and it is only natural that we would resist relinquishing our biological roots. Currently, most artificial replacement parts are substandard compared with the our biologically evolved parts. That won’t be the case for too much longer. We’re already building exoskeletons that are stronger and harder than our own bones. Our cameras are far higher resolution than our eyes -- we just don’t know how to hook them to our optic nerve yet. Soon, we will start chipping away at our biology one system at a time. When we figure out how to make a better brain, we will load it with our humanity and see what happens.

When we finally accept that the things that give us the greatest pleasure are also the things that cause us to destroy ourselves, will we let go of them? If we do, what else will we be free to lose? I have no crystal ball, but I can’t help but feel that we will ultimately become purely technological beings. That is not to say that there won’t be any organic elements to our physiology, but they will be highly engineered technology -- not naturally evolved. I’d be happy to be almost biological if it allowed me to live forever and explore the universe. How about you?

Social Media Life

I don’t feel like an old fart, but then I’m reminded of things like the fact that there are adults running around out there that have never lived in a world in which the bulk of human knowledge wasn’t more than a few mouse clicks or finger taps away. As remarkable as this is (that this could happen within a lifetime), it is nothing compared with the realization that for many people, what I call “a life” is only part of a life.

I use email. I know that’s old school, but it saves me a lot on postage. I recently started using Snapchat with some of my younger friends and family. It doesn’t mean the same thing to me as it does to them. For me, it is a way to communicate with them. For them, it is one of the online tools that they use to define their virtual lives.

I remember when my then 10 year old son started talking about his friend from Brazil at the dinner table. He had never been to Brazil and to my knowledge, he didn’t have any Brazilian friends from school. This particular friend was exclusively online. The concept of an online friend was new to me then. Anyone who is or knows some young peeps today has experienced the phenomenon of “in-room” texting. This is when two parties are communicating electronically despite being within earshot.

To the older generation, this simply makes no sense. However, relationships that grow and develop online live there. For certain, the lines are blurred. My other son recently took a vacation together with an online friend from the other side of the country who he had never met face-to-face (or IRL - in real life, as I prefer).

The point here is that people now have online lives that are as important as the IRL part of their lives. There are no rules about the proper balance between these two lives. Some live mostly online and other less. As the tools supporting our online lives become increasingly robust, the experiences we have in them start to feel more real to us than...uh...reality! What is real? The online relationships we have are real. Maybe reality is overrated.

New technology supporting haptics (touch) and olfactory (smell) input/output are making it possible to share full sensory experiences. Early research into brain controller interfaces (BCI) could circumvent the need for all other i/o devices by allowing people to share full sensory experiences brain-to-brain.

What’s clear is that people are growing more comfortable building intimate relationships that exist exclusively online. These relationships are no less real that IRL relationships -- just different. Our identity is shaped by our experiences and as more of them move online, a greater part of us lives there too. Would you escape to the online world if you could use all five senses there? Go anywhere? Be anyone?

Needle in a Haystack

Lately, I’ve been writing a daily blog post every weekday. Today is a Sunday and I was reflecting on my vast readership. I haven’t broken 20 views per day yet and I can’t say for certain that some of those views aren’t me. Have you ever wondered how many pages of content are generated every day on the Internet? It staggers the imagination. Anyone with a smartphone can create a post now.

I have family members (who probably make up about 80% of my readers who aren’t me) that use Reddit and Facebook along with other “feeds.” These services stream random content to you. In some cases, you can filter content be topic categories, but I’ve messed with some of these and even within a category it just seems like the material is...well...random.

How does anyone get above the noise? I seems like the stuff that goes viral is trivial nonsense. Gangnam Style. Really? WTF? I try to write about big ideas or at least small worthy ideas. You know, stuff we should all be concerned with. Things that will affect our future or help us understand who we are.

I guess that stuff is just too heavy for the masses. It’s disappointing. It also helps explain why Donald Trump actually has a chance of becoming president of the United States. If the Gangnam dude wasn’t from South Korea, maybe he’d have a shot too. It breaks my heart. We face serious issues and most people think the whole social system is a joke. They’re probably right, but whose fault is that?.

I’m still looking for the Internet equivalent of shouting in the public square. It seems that the public square on the Internet is about one square inch amidst a million square miles. Maybe I wouldn’t even care if my blog didn’t go viral. I just wish something more profound than Lindsay Lohan’s new extracurricular vomiting exploits would get the nod. Hey, I like Lindsay Lohan’s acting. I think she’s talented, but who cares if she can’t control her drug intake?

I have a good friend who is a deeply religious Christian. We had an interesting discussion in which he concluded that God has put us here on Earth to parrish. We seem to be making good progress in that direction, but I just can’t believe that. I keep hoping. Maybe if my blog went viral, I’d feel better about it. Maybe I’d feel better if we weren’t considering a president whose campaign rhetoric consists of statements like “we’re going to be doing stuff about those things.” I’d say “god help us” right about here, but if my friend is right, that’s not the sort of help I’m looking for.

Evolution Vs. Technology

Last night, I was listening to a TED talk and the speaker pointed out that the total amount of human knowledge is now doubling every 18 months.  This is a staggering fact that has implications beyond imagination.  Since I love a challenge, I will imagine anyway.

It seems to me that the biggest challenge humans face is that biological evolution is slow.  Our basic nature is still stuck in a time when avoiding being consumed by a lion was one of our primary concerns.  Not starving to death was also high on the list.  These basic needs to survive and propagate our genes motivated our behavior.

Today, basic survival is almost assured.  With the technology available to us, every human on the planet could live in relative comfort, prosperity and peace.  While some of us might be able to overcome our evolutionary heritage to enjoy these circumstances, there are many who need to exercise their prehistoric drive to “survive.”

The prehistoric drive to survive is an aggressive affair that usually involves winners and losers.  This was tolerable when the loser got the tip of a spear or the blunt end of a club.  However, when the weapon of choice is a nuclear device or an autonomous killing machine, technology tips the balance of our underlying nature into something intolerable.

The question that has been on my mind lately is: can we overcome our prehistoric nature?  As technology progresses, the power individuals will have at their disposal for destruction will be so great that we can no longer count on the fact that there are only a few people who need to be closely watched with that sort of power.

How can we manage if the average person can gain the ability to destroy an entire city?  Or, country?  Michio Kaku, the great physicist and philosopher has pointed out that one reliable way to measure the advancement of a civilization is to calculate the amount of energy the average individual controls.  The implication here is that as time goes on, individuals will have increasing power at their disposal.  Their instincts could drive them to use that power to remove obstacles to their “survival.”  How we define survival as individuals and societies needs to change.

This is not a small thing.  It is fundamental.  It is difficult.  It is critical to our survival as a species.  In reading philosophical works, one theme seems to return on a regular basis; altruism is an advanced sociological trait.  At our current evolutionary state, altruism tends to be genetically based.  We would sacrifice ourselves for our offspring.  We might endure extended hardship for our immediate family members.  We might even put ourselves out for our community (however that gets defined).  Humanity?  Not so much.  All life on Earth -- forget about it.

We’re currently in the midst of a mass extinction.  This is not conjecture.  This is a fact.  What is also a fact is that humankind is the cause of this mass extinction.  I slept well last night.  Did you?  I have heard stories of dolphins rescuing fishermen who have fallen overboard even as they were being hunted.  If this is true, that is an exhibition of interspecies altruism.  To be sure, there are humans who have put their lives on the line to protect other species.  Unfortunately, this behavior is spotty at best.

When humans achieve the proper level of altruism, the effects will be obvious.  We will readily compromise our own standard of living to ensure that others are not suffering.  We will be so sickened by the suffering of others that we will be immediately (almost involuntarily) moved to action.  We will not accept conditions that allow others to be controlled for the enrichment of their controllers.

We are at a critical juncture in history.  If we don’t go to work soon to make a concerted effort to change our underlying nature, our technological advancements will outstrip our ability to to manage them.  We can’t expect individuals on a mass scale to instigate the social changes necessary to avert this looming disaster.  It will require extraordinary leadership -- something we have seen little of lately (see my article about Meritocracy).

In the movie Starman, the alien character played by Jeff Bridges, having observed humans for a few days commented, “You humans are beautiful.  You are at your very best when things are at their worst.”  Things could get very bad very quickly.  I hope Jeff was right because we’re going to need to do some major adapting.

Technology: The Job Killer!

Once upon a time, there was an argument that technological breakthroughs actually created jobs.  The argument was so compelling and replete with empirical evidence that most people accepted this as a fact.  The automotive industry created millions of jobs as did the modern textile industry.  The industrial age was good to the average worker.

Then came the information age.  Technological breakthroughs came fast and furious.  The industry was born out of nothing and it created plenty of new jobs.  When a few people started to suggest that maybe some of this new technology was stealing jobs from humans, Those responsible for the health of the economy trotted out the old argument that technology creates more jobs than it eliminates.

That may have been true at one time, but technology has reached a tipping point.  With so much of our manufacturing capability being highly automated, new breakthroughs aimed at "increased productivity" are really targeted at maximizing the use of capital -- and I don't mean human capital.

Let's not kid ourselves.  Technology doesn't need a vacation.  It doesn't need time off for a sick kid or a death in the family; and its maintenance contract is undoubtedly far cheaper than the healthcare for the workers it replaced.  Technology that replaces people almost always increases the efficiency of capital.  This is the embodiment of maximizing profits -- the goal of any economic endeavor.

So, as robotics and mechanical systems have gotten more sophisticated, more and more blue collar labor jobs have been replaced with technology.  What about sales jobs?  Well, now we have integrated voice response systems, interactive websites and stay tuned for chat-bots that are almost impossible to tell from a human.  We may still need good salespeople, but not near as many of them as we once did.

 "Get an advanced education," is the cry of our beloved leaders.  Just be careful which path you choose because those jobs aren't safe anymore either.  There are now artificial intelligence algorithms that can write world class classical music, diagnose disease better than most clinicians, and invent new interesting chemical substances faster than any chemist.

Our government hides the truth from us in their unemployment numbers.  Many families have given up on two incomes.  Many children continue to live with their parents well into their twenties and even thirties.  Our economy is being hollowed out by technology.  If you don't think your job is in jeopardy, just keep watching.  New technology is coming to get ya!

Pretty soon, business owners will hire employees just to keep them company.  People won't need to do any work.  They can just watch it being done by technology.

Trajectory: Transparent Distributed Networks

History has a strange way of showing up after it becomes obvious.  Sometimes, events are spontaneous, like 911 and other times they are gradual like the industrial revolution.  One thing should be clear by now, history is speeding up.  The time between major social evolutionary stages is shortening.  This compression helps us see around the corner a little bit better.

The Internet hasn't been around that long, but its effects have been profound.  Many people sense that the Internet is responsible for a fundamental shift in our reality, but it's hard to grasp exactly what that shift is all about.  There are so many aspects to life on the Internet that the big picture gets muddled.

Nonetheless, many of those who are attempting to tease out the big picture are starting to converge on a common theme.  The Internet is driving two fundamental changes that are inextricably tied together and seemingly inevitable: transparency and decentralization.  Let's start by looking at each of these separately.

Transparency

In the age of the smartphone and Google Glass, everyone has a camera with them at all times.  They are able to provide full audio visual capture of just about any event -- public or private.  This makes secrets increasingly difficult.  Furthermore, sites like Facebook, Reddit and Digg make it easy for anything of significance to "go viral" within hours or even minutes of the event.  Whether from groups like Wikileaks and Anonymous, or individuals such as Edward Snowden, no secret can be too well kept.

Our love affair with secrets and privacy runs long and deep.  Yet, we are increasingly opening our lives to each other and this trend sees no signs of abating.  Technology will continue to evolve to make surveillance of every aspect of our lives easier and more accessible.  Drawn to its ultimate conclusion, it is not impossible to imagine a time when our very thoughts will be linked through some future incarnation of the Internet.

Decentralization

One of the other gifts of the Internet is built into its initial design.  The Internet was originally conceived as a communications network for military applications that could not be destroyed by attacking a central point.  This design has allowed anyone with a persistent connection to publish their own content.  One of the initial uses of this capability was music file sharing.  The music recording industry quickly came face-to-face with the full force of decentralization.  Without some central authority to pursue, they were forced to find ways to add value in order to get people to pay for music they could easily get for free.

Recently, the crypto-currency Bitcoin has emerged as another decentralized powerhouse.  Again, anyone with a computer can become part of the Bitcoin ecosystem.  In addition to being decentralized, Bitcoin is also transparent.  Its underlying algorithms are available for all to inspect.  Governments don't like Bitcoin.  Were it to become a standard global currency, it would eliminate their ability to manipulate it.

The latest edition to decentralized structures is Ethereum, which promises to go beyond crypto-currency to provide an open decentralized platform for creating any type of contract between multiple individuals.  Systems like this will allow any individual with a good idea to start a distributed ecosystem that is free from centralized control or interference -- even by its creator!

What Does it All Mean?

Governments have always been controlled by a few rich and powerful people.  In the past, socialism has been attempted to counter this trend, but it has always been corrupted by the powerful few due to lack of transparency.  The Internet and associated technologies offer a means to truly democratize decision-making.  Rather than basing choices on the whim of people, algorithms can be created that are decentralized and transparent that allow them to be optimized for the greater good.

This may seem idealistic.  One could easily argue that any system is corruptible.  Maybe so.  However, with transparent distributed systems, corruption is more difficult due to the risk of exposure caused by transparency and the logistics of co-opting widely distributed systems.  When attempts to do so inevitably fail, algorithms can be modified to eliminate future threats along the same lines.  We already do this with our computer operating systems and anti-virus software.

What if we could all purchase a power plant for the price of a car that would provide us with all the energy we would ever need?  What if we had autonomous flying vehicles that required no navigational infrastructure other than the ability to communicate with the vehicles around them?  What if we had a 3D printer (i.e. replicator v1.0) that could make many of the items we need?  And, what if we all got our food from our own garden and local farmers?  Do you see the pattern here?  Technology enables us to be increasingly independent.  

The less we rely on corporations and governments, the less power they have over us.  As their power diminishes, so does their relevance.  Ultimately, they will need to redefine themselves or fade into the dust heap of history.  If there is one great irony it is that a government funded program and a few huge corporations may be the primary enablers of their own demise.

Technology Explosion

A few years ago, I stumbled on a book by Ray Kurzweil entitled The Singularity is Near.  I knew of Ray from his work in electronic musical instruments so I read the synopsis of the book.  The concept fascinated me, so I started reading and reading and reading...  It's a long book and it is packed with technical information about a wide range of scientific topics.

Subsequently, Kurzweil published a daily email digest of the latest research in many of these areas to which I subscribed.  The result has been an eye-opening experience.  Most people are unaware of the vast amount of research that is being done and the ramifications of said research.

I look at this research collectively and I see a future that is vastly different than what most see.  There are so many breakthroughs on the verge of realization that their combined effects cannot be imagined.  Humans have difficulty dealing with network effects.  Our minds evolved to deal with isolated situations.  Today, there world is so much more complex and this complexity is interactive.

Anyone who has studied chaos theory knows how quickly even complex computer models fizzle out when there are vast numbers of interacting variables.  In a true system of chaos, some variables have a cancelling effect, while others have a reinforcing effect.  However, with scientific research, the bulk of the work tends to reinforce other elements of interacting knowledge gains.

This compounding network effect has the potential to release virtual explosions of understanding in a wide range of areas.  Some of the giant breakthroughs like cold fusion, nanoelectronics, and quantum computing could happen almost simultaneously.  The far reaching impact that these new technologies will have on our reality are too hard to predict.

Like any explosion, destruction and creation happen simultaneously and at least somewhat chaotically.  Hold onto your butts because the next 20 years are going to be explosive.

I Can See Through You

To see through somebody, they need to be transparent. Since people aren’t physically transparent, we can only hope for mental transparency. Imagine if everyone’s mind was completely open to everyone else. There would be no secrets. Anyone who thought seriously about doing something harmful to someone else would soon find themselves being questioned by their peers as to their motivation.

Anyone thinking about starting a war to enrich their family, friends and themselves, would have some explaining to do. It sounds far-fetched and futuristic. Maybe it is, but here’s a time-line that could make you rethink that:

2013 – The first retinal heads-up computer display is developed
2016 – Retinal displays become commercially available
2019 – Experiments with biofeedback input devices allow thoughts to be used for computer input
2022 – The first available hands-free, human physiology integrated, computer input/output device is marketed
2025 – 70% of the population remains wired into the net all day long
2028 – New backup software allows us to backup any or all of our thoughts and memories to the net
2030 – Software allows us to share our thoughts and memories with anyone we’d like
2035 – People get more comfortable with the idea of sharing their thoughts directly with other people – the world starts to change

This may seem an aggressive timeline, but people are already working on the technologies involved and significant progress has been made. There’s no reason to believe that this timeline cannot be met. This means most of us will be around for these breakthroughs.

My attempt here is to show how technological breakthroughs incrementally move us in a direction which may be seen as scary as when taken all at once, but will be quite natural over the proper course of time. The end result is: we change forever. As our ability to share full sensory experiences emerges, we will naturally get more comfortable with the idea. Little by little, we will start to give away the privacy of our thoughts. We will discover that most people are not malicious and we can improve our relationships with everyone by sharing our thoughts more openly.

In time, maybe five years, maybe ten, we will begin to understand the true power of total transparency. It will no longer seem so daunting, but a natural improvement to society. Language barriers will fall as well. The realization that we all share the same basic motivations will bring us closer together. “Bad actors” will quickly be identified and treated for their psychological disorders. War, poverty and crime will be virtually wiped out.

We can dare to dream…

Race For the Bottom

The midterm election is right around the corner.  We have the weekend to cram for the test on Tuesday.  Who is the “right” choice for each of the positions?  Do we really even have a “right” choice?  Frankly, I feel that my choices in most cases are between Ren or Stimpy.  Who gives a crap?  The people we get as leaders are the product of a broken system.

Studies show that, for the most part, money wins elections.  Money comes from rich people.  Rich people get to control the government. Period.  The rest of us, who may donate an occasional $100 to our favorite candidate, get whatever table scraps the rich decide to leave us.  As I have said in other posts, the solution to this problem is public funding of elections.  We fund roads.  Why not our leaders?  And, since the Supreme Court has ruled that corporations are “people,” all we need to do is put a $1,000 limit on individual donations and corporations would suddenly have no more power than some middle class schmuck who decides to go all in.

Getting good leaders is only the beginning of our problems.  Our new global economic system is on a collision course with bankruptcy.  Technology, one of the biggest drivers of the new economy is quickly putting more and more people out of work.  This means that people who control fixed assets (the technology) will accumulate increasing amounts of wealth, while more and more people struggle to find a means of participating in non-charitable economic activity.

There are only a few likely endings for the current trajectory:

1.  Revolution – people have told me that this is unlikely because Americans don’t have the balls.  To this I say, “who said the revolution has to start in America?”  History shows revolutions can be started by seemingly random events.

2.  Fundamental System Change – what if our leaders actually pull it together and create a new economic system which effectively serves everyone?

I’m rooting for #2 because #1 would be very messy and generally unpleasant.  I guess I must be an optimist or something, but I think we can change.  Yes, it will take widespread suffering – that’s just the nature of our species.

If we managed the planet a bit more scientifically, we could figure out how to allocate resources to ensure EVERYONE on the planet was able to enjoy a modest living free from disease and starvation.  If we turn out to be real cleaver, we could even figure out how to give everyone a turn at enjoying some of the finer things in life like cruising on a yacht or sitting on a beach in Hawaii or smoking a Cuban cigar.

As our technology continues to improve our lives, why not let it improve ALL of our lives?  I know this sounds farfetched for humans.  But, we cannot think of the world as it is now.  “Now,” is fleeting.  The future is coming at us faster and faster (exponentially faster to be specific).  In only a few years time, technology will be solving more problems faster than anyone could have imagined even 10 years ago.

Ultimately, it will be our leaders who will need to guide us into this brave new future.  I don’t like any of the current line-up.  They look and sound like last year’s team – losers, all of them – the best a broken system can produce.  As I’m fond of repeating, “people get the government they deserve.”  Until “we, the people” have the will to force our system to produce bold leaders who are willing to take the political risks necessary to do what needs to be done, we will have to choose between Oopsie or Bozo.

David Sedaris, You've Been Found

Well, I haven't blogged in awhile.  I either I haven't been inspired or I've just got too many things going on.  But, since writing about my struggles to purchase a David Sedaris ebook, I have made some progress on this front.  Finally, Borders came out with an eReader for the Blackberry.  Sure enough "When You Are Engulfed in Flames" was on the list.  Imagine my joy!  I bought the book and started reading it.  The Borders eReader isn't near as good as Mobipocket eReader, but it is functional.

Then, I decided to get a Droid 2.  I really love my new Droid.  It does a lot more than the Blackberry.  To my pleasant surprise, Borders has and eReader for Android as well.  When I installed it, I pointed it to my existing Borders account and -- BINGO!  My book showed up in the list.  I expected that when I opened it, my bookmark would not be available and I would have to find my place in the book.  I was right.  What I DIDN'T expect was that this would be the case EVERY TIME I OPEN THE BOOK!  Who releases software like this?

I cannot imagine how anyone could let this happen.  This is a "give them the razor, sell them the blades" scheme. If the razor is no good, you're never going to sell any blades.  So, I'm reading "When You Are Engulfed in Flames" from the inside out.  Or, maybe just in some strange random pattern.  I've honestly lost track of which chapters I've read and which I missed because I'm returned to random pages every time I open the book.  I came up with the brilliant idea that I would just finish a chapter each time I read the book.  But, even the table of contents navigation takes you to random pages

Thank god that there's a version of Kindle for Android.  For a minute there, I thought Borders was going to get my book business away from Amazon.  Not going to happen.  I'm all about supporting Michigan companies, but they must earn my business before they get to keep it.

Energy

I’ve been thinking a lot about energy lately.  My chronic neck pain was being more…well…chronic than usual.   I happened to be going to see my doctor anyway so I asked him what I should do.  I should explain that my doctor is no ordinary licensed drug pusher.  He is a certified homoeopathist, which means that he much more apt to offer an herbal remedy rather than a pharmaceutical one.  Moreover, he’s more likely to order some diet or lifestyle change that anything.  I think most of his patients ignore him when he does this, because he always seems a bit surprised when I follow his advice.

Back to my back.  So, I wanted to address my pain and I asked him if I should see a chiropractor, acupuncturist or a masseuse.  He suggested the masseuse, which seemed like a win for me because I love a good massage.  It so happened that of one of the two people he recommended I had already sampled the work on one of them.  She does Shiatsu massage, which (near as I can tell) means that she combines the concept of acupuncture with massage.  What the hell does that mean?

The Chinese have the theory that there are energy lines that run through the body.  These lines deliver information of a sort to the cells that control body functions.  Sometimes, these energy lines get blocked.  They can be blocked by emotional issues, physical conditions or even spiritual distress.  Basically, if your life gets out of balance in any way, you can suffer energy blockage.  When this happens, bad things happen:  illness, pain, stress, emotional discomfort.  Chiropractors, acupuncturists and masseuses all use different techniques to free trapped energy.

The western medical world has heretofore considered energy medicine quackery.  In the last 10 years, the evidence has been mounting against this view.  The tide is beginning to turn.  Energy medicine is on the rise.  What will it all mean?  People figured out how to manipulate the body’s energy along time ago, but they have never really understood what’s going on at the cellular level.  Now, for the first time, we are exploring all the scientific nuances of the nature of energy’s role in bodily function.

It’s hard to imagine what we will ultimately learn about the body’s energy.  Is there just one type of energy in our bodies or are their multiple types?  If we manage to develop equipment that measures one or more types of energy in the body, will we be able to use it to measure that same type of energy elsewhere in the universe?  If we can, where will it show up?  Will this open the door for understanding the fundamental nature of energy any better than we do now?

Our first experience with energy was fire: fire from the Sun and fire from the Earth’s core.  Our science is pretty advanced when it comes to thermodynamics.  But, are there other, non-thermal, types of energy out there?  Our sense of touch allows us to sense thermal energy, but what if there are other types of energy that our five senses don’t offer any access to?  How can we experience anything in the universe for which we have no sensory apparatus from which to extend our perception?

Some people claim to be able to see auras around people’s bodies.  Maybe our brains have untapped sensory capabilities.  The good news is that we seem to be on the path to discovery.  Hopefully, it’s just a matter of time before we find something.  How exciting would it be to live in a time when the fundamental nature of the universe exposed and the very foundation of our beliefs were altered?  I hope I last that long.  That’s why I’m going to let energy medicine practitioners help me along – however primitive their craft.

Postscript: I am finishing this blog at 2 am in the morning because we lost energy in the house and I had to get up to switch us to our backup power.  Oh well.

The Case for Space

People really seem to like capitalism. Even relatively poor people like it. I think they feel that if others can make it big, as long as the system is in place, maybe they can too. They wouldn’t want capitalism to be replaced by something else before they got their chance at fame and fortune. Sadly, the system is stacked against them. Anyone with lots of money knows that it takes money to make money. What about good ideas, you ask? Good question. The answer is: you’re going to need to sell your “good” idea to someone with money. And guess what? They’re going to make more off your good idea than you will. Yeah, yeah, there are exceptions, but the system grows more stacked against them as the wealth and power in the world gets more and more piled in the hands of the few.

Am I bitching about rich people? No. Hell, just read my last post – I’ve got nothing but respect for rich people (in general). Nope, I’m just pointing out that capitalism is probably here to stay until the whole thing falls apart. It will fall apart, too. It’s inevitable. Okay, so I had better explain that one. Let’s look at some facts about capitalism:

1. Capitalism is based on a consumption model – people make things and other people buy them
2. The success of capitalism requires continuous growth in consumption
3. Consumption requires resources
4. This rock we call Earth has finite resources
5. When growth is no longer possible, capitalism fails

There is a solution. It’s called space. Basically, we need to get off this rock. This task will require vast amounts of resources. The more we deplete our finite resources, the less able we will be to accomplish the task. So, we had better start soon. Oh, but there’s a problem – no return on investment. The largest companies in the world are publicly held and anyone who studies those companies knows that they operate on a quarter by quarter basis. Their stockholders demand it. Hell, if a public company plans out six quarters, their stock price will probably go down. The return on space initiatives will be measured in years of not decades. So, the obvious choice to spearhead such an effort would be the government. Awe! Too bad. They’re out of friggin money. Why? They spent it bailing out an already failing capitalistic system.

We live in interesting times. The inevitable failure of capitalism could open doors to massive initiatives like space colonization. Or, it could lead to something less positive, like war, famine and widespread poverty. Jeff Bridges played an alien being in a movie called Star Man. He was trying to understand the word “beautiful.” When he finally figured it out, he said “you humans are beautiful. You are at your very best when things are worst.” That could be good news.

Infinite Improbability

I am a big fan of Douglas Adams.  He's the guy that wrote Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.  For those of you who don't know the story, it is, among other things, a story about a guy named Zaphod Beeblebrox, who steels a spaceship with an Infinite Improbability drive.  Adams wrote some very funny material, but what is little known is his fascination with science.  It turns out that some of his silly ideas may not be so silly after all (or maybe they are).

The drive system in question took advantage of an element of quantum mechanics known as the Uncertainty Principle.  In essence, this principle postulates that at any given point in time and space, a particle may or may not exist.  Further, our observation of the particle has an influence on this outcome.  This seems to create a paradox because without observing something, we can't really know whether it exists or not.  Apparently, our universe has a sense of humor, too.

But, what if this is just another puzzle to be solved by our meager brains?  Maybe we just aren't smart enough yet to overcome this little conundrum.  Assuming our species survives long enough, we just might figure this one out.  If we do, we could unlock a universe of unlimited possibilities.  Think of it -- if we harness the power of improbable events, we could bring about scenarios that are "almost" impossible, but not completely impossible.

The infinite improbability drive essentially passed through every point in the universe, which allowed the ship's computer to identify the desired destination coordinates and stop the process there.  I know, it sounds silly (which is why Adams was such a genius), but it is "possible."  How about an infinite improbability replicator?  You just tell the replicator what you want and it just cycles through an infinite number of permutations and finishes on the one you wanted.

I know, I know -- if it's infinite, how can you cycle through all of them?  Details, details.  We need to leave these issues to our great great great great grand children.  They'll be much smarter than us.

James Cameron's Giant Step

I just got back from watching Avatar.  I'm not going to do a review of the movie because I'm not a movie critic.  However, as a futurist/philosopher, I believe that it is within my purview to call out the significance of this movie.  I should preface my comments by disclosing that I watched it in IMAX 3D.  I cannot imagine it being seen any other way.

This movie is a game changer for entertainment.  I know there are other 3D movies that use the technology, but this one opens up new possibilities for the technology.  This is the "movie" version of the Internet's eBay.  Before eBay, the Internet was a gimmick: a new way to push out static content.  eBay was the first site to tap the collective nature of what the Internet would become.  It was the precursor to the very tool I am using now.

Avatar uses 3D technology to see a new path for mankind.  After reading some reviews, I realize that there is no saving some people from our savage past.  I actually read a review that said that all but the last 40 minutes of violence was a waste of time.  God help us all.  Clearly, Cameron intended us to associate with "The People."  They understood their connection to the Earth and found peace and harmony in it.  We need that message now more than ever.

My belief is that this technology will be enough to provide some people with a connection with this understanding for the first time.  Moreover, he opens up a new realm of possibility that movies (if that's even the right term for this) can be a powerful vehicle for lifting us out of our own skin.  Many will not understand what I'm talking about right away.  Like any game changer, it will take time to sink in, but as sure as I'm writing this, other movie folk are "getting it."  They will not wait to up the ante.

On the heels of these new 3D adventures will be an explosion of new home theater technology.  Let's face it, some people will be willing to pay a premium to climb inside the mind of the producers and directors who make these features.  Eventually, none of us will need to.  Remember  when a 42" LCD with HD cost $15,000.  Well, not it's 10 times less.  I can't wait until all movies are like this.  People will look back on Avatar like they look at the Wizard of Oz - the first movie that made color mean something.

Highway to the Future

The snow was coming down hard. At 120 miles per hour, it was blowing sideways, it had no effect on the steadfast path of our car. The maglev line from New York to Los Angeles was finally complete. For the first time, travelers could take the maglev from coast to coast.

Downtown Detroit was the first major city to remove their roads. How ironic? Their persistent shunning of a comprehensive mass transit system made Detroit a prime candidate to pilot the maglev. The first rails in place were surface arteries: Woodward Avenue, Grand River, Telegraph and Southfield.

We were on our way back from Chicago. We had some really good laughs as we looked down at those poor fools down below who were trying to drive manually. At 90 miles per hour faster, it was hard to even count the cars through the dense snow. We didn’t care though. We were busy using our laptops to communicate with some friends that were on vacation in Switzerland. They had had their share of snow there, too.

Nobody ever thought that the Europeans would ever overtake the economic supremacy of the United States. But, the Europeans embraced innovative technologies much quicker than anyone else and their infrastructure became the envy of the rest of the world. Many of the roads in Switzerland had been removed. Switzerland had devised a clever park and ride system that allowed people to take vehicles to a nearby spot where it would be kept until they needed it to take the final leg of their journey home.

In 2029, Switzerland no longer needed any roads. The maglev system was complete. Every route that existed prior was covered. Neighborhoods that had low income housing still needed public parking. That’s because many of the dwellings had no private parking area. In nicer neighborhoods, where people had car parking on premises, most homeowners chose to install rail into their garage or carport.

The merge off the Chicago Skyway was a bit congested, the vehicle density on the rail got high enough to drop our speed down to 60 miles per hour. It never seems as bad when your speed is constant. That’s one thing I don’t miss at all – stop and go traffic. By 2015 we finally reached a time in the major cities when the congestion was unending. People changed shifts just to smooth out the traffic. It didn’t help that much. Basically, it sucked.

The Obama administration had come to office with great expectations. Unfortunately, one contraction was quickly followed by another. In 2010, just when the financial stimulus measures started to grow some significant roots in the economy, hyperinflation kicked in. In hindsight, we should have seen it coming. The government can’t print their way out of trouble. The reality that the United States plays on a global stage with many actors that don’t always do what is best for the world writ large was lost on the economic experts of the day. They thought that they could fix the U.S. economy without factoring the effects of printing massive amounts of money would have on the global economy.

The devaluation of the dollar caused massive loss of liquidity in all the U.S. debtor countries. China and Japan suffered the worst, followed by Malaysia and Korea (after the death of Kim Il-sung, Koreans united, but it was just South Korea back then). With nobody to buy U.S. products and services and our own purchasing power diminished, the reality that we needed to pay back the debt for the party we had enjoyed at the turn of the millennium. The best thing to come out of the Obama public works program was the standardization on the new maglev technology that is based on the Halbach Array. Lots of money was spent building a public transportation system that could later be used to replace the decaying road and bridge system.

As our vehicle neared our exit off of I-94, we realized that we needed to stop and get some food. Deciding to pick up some food at the local shopping mart, I plugged the store into our route home just in time for the car to speed past the transfer it would have taken. I thought to myself about the elegance of using electricity to power the transportation system. Whereas old vehicles relied on combustion of either fossil or agricultural fuel, electric vehicles could be powered by a wide variety of renewable energy sources. One thing the Obama administration did manage to do was create a massive alternative energy economy. The result was advances in wind and solar technologies, but also wave energy in the coastal areas and geothermal energy collection all over the place. Harnessing the energy stored in the Earth’s core turned out to be the easiest and cheapest way to mine for power.

Our car swung silently into the nearest parking spot available at the Meijer. As the doors released, we gathered our coats. Neither of us was looking forward to the 40 yard walk to the store. After grabbing some victuals from store, we were back in our car and headed for home. The snow had started to subside and we could see the pristine white blanket below. As we hit the last transfer into our driveway, the garage door slid silently open ahead. We were home.