Prompted by “5 waves of technology disruption that are just getting started”: http://venturebeat.com/2014/12/21/5-waves-of-technology-disruption-that-are-just-getting-started/
Changes in technology are happening at a scale which was unimaginable before and will cause disruption in industry after industry. This has really begun to worry me, because we are not ready for this change and most of our leading companies won’t exist 15–20 years from now. Here are five sectors to keep an eye on:
The whole prompting piece is worth reading, and while it’s informative, I feel compelled to play devil’s advocate here for public safety and benefit.
Manufacturing:
It makes sense to conclude that manufacturing will continue to be more about 3D printing and robotics, so humanity will be forced into more cerebrally challenging jobs (e.g. improving, maintaining, and fixing the technology).
Since the evidence strongly shows human overpopulation, and the creativity usually accompanying that challenge is apparently way too often absent, that may be a serious point of pain that kills off many people incapable of competing with that increasingly technological workforce.
People believe computers will soon outsmart us, but that’s not true by complete reasoning. Yes, computers can calculate mathematical models far better than we can now hope, but humanity has evolved for millions of years to be able to adapt to reality. Computers have not been, so they still heavily rely upon human support. As computers (robots, etc.) are continuing to be necessarily taught to adapt by way of degrees of suffering (for solution prioritization) similar to humans (which will eventually cause them to demand equal rights) — and yes, that suffering is happening right now — there’s thankfully more to consider.
Understand that eventually humanity and computers (obviously including robotics) will fully merge, but that will likely occur beyond a couple of decades at least due to ample logistical (e.g. upgradable brain computers, etc.) and ethical issues. While our technology becomes stronger (in part by better helping people to adapt from certain physical challenges — which is also happening these days throughout near history), humanity will become stronger by merging with that technology. Computers are positioned to evolve into cyborgs, while humans are positioned to evolve into cyborgs.
Cybernetics (including mentally integrated virtual reality and much more) is the future of the technologically enhanced being for both human and machine.
Finance:
Traditional (so not really progressive) political leftists really suffer from misunderstanding the basics of economy, and that’s dangerous due to conservative sufferings unintentionally empowering traditional leftists.
We are already witnessing a controversy over Bitcoin. Many technology and retail companies are supporting it. Crowdfunding is shaking up the venture-capital industry and making it less relevant because it provides start-ups with an alternative for raising seed capital. We will soon be able to crowdfund loans for houses, cars, and other goods. With cardless transactions for purchasing goods, we won’t need the types of physical banks and financial institutions that we presently have. Banks in the United States seem to be complacent because they have laws protecting them from competition. But our laws don’t apply in other countries. We will see innovations happening abroad which disrupt industries in the United States.
Sadly ironically, banks are all about trust.
Bitcoin has trust issues, because like any software, there’s always a way around intention (e.g. no copyright protection scheme has survived relatively quick disarmament, because computers must be told precisely what to do, so hackers can reverse engineer and rebuild a hacked version for global release). As such, fully abandoning tangible currency is unlikely as long as computers can’t keep secrets.
While society refuses to learn the obvious serious conflicts of interest against public safety when grossly empowering our oligarchy, defining the value of a dollar has been tragically left in the hands of our public servants (e.g. “trustable” politicians) — whom have devalued the dollar seriously over the past few decades — terrible news upon considering our dollar is the global reserve currency.
That value definition means the dollar is a fiat currency, and such currency methodology doesn’t have a bright past (all fiat currencies have failed after roughly two centuries, memory serving). The dollar shows no sign of being different with the exception of being the global reserve currency, so a much larger economic collapse is mathematically inevitable (which is why federal interest rates are basically sustained at zero).
Economic falsification is not a solution (value needs to be genuine for worst through best), but the seed of economic distrust that likely causes the whole system to collapse to the point where precious metals form the basis for the new economy has been unbearably powerfully planted.
Gold, silver, and other precious metals sustaining their value for thousands of years will not go away (that’s why Russia, China, India, etc. are apparently buying up as much gold as they can), so the need to protect those metals remains. Who best protects those metals?
Banks dedicated to the cause.
Healthcare:
Our healthcare “system” is a tragic mess for the same reason that any monopoly is a tragic mess. There’s no incentive to compete properly (thanks to serious government rigging), so a bandage can cost roughly $500 (or whatever it actually is beyond basically the pennies it should cost) — i.e. price fixing is rampant to the point where insurance is even needed for common and simple health issues.
In any other area, insurance is about protection from excessive damage or loss. You don’t use insurance for basic car maintenance. You don’t use insurance for minor home issues. You shouldn’t use insurance for basic health procedures, which due to technological improvements naturally reducing costs, should be easily affordable in a properly functioning marketplace.
People hate the idea of tying money to health for obvious reasons, but the hard truth is any area involving resources is always a marketplace, so we all need to get over it. Profit is not inherently evil. Abuse is inherently evil. Profit is merely having more revenue than expense, so is simply a growth mechanism too often horribly abused.
You want to blame the insurance companies, you need to first blame the government rigging the market to favor them. Always remember that there’s no sector line in power, folks. The private and public sectors form one oligarchy. Empowering one sector over the other never truly solves the problem of power abuse.
Based upon my reading, the “Affordable Care Act” is in serious danger, because grabbing people by the metaphorical balls as a “solution” to being uninsured is obviously idiotic. Due to insufficient signup (people just don’t like their balls being grabbed and even tortured in this metaphorical case), there’s a guaranteed (apparently serious) cost jump coming soon with deductibles so ridiculously high, there’s no real benefit to this laughably judicially proclaimed tax.
The “system” is severely broken, and if you think a single payer health system (another government-forced monopoly) is right, then your mental health is logically problematic. Upon exacerbating the healthcare crisis, good luck finding quality care without the incentive for healthcare professionals to earn understandably desired resources for seriously challenging and risky work — resources needed to support their families’ quality of life.
You want to know the real future of positive healthcare? It’s avoid that “system”, because otherwise, you’re at serious risk of suffering and dying from conflicts of interest (e.g. financial incentives to apply unneeded testing and drugs). No other species survives beyond the inability to self-heal. Technology and medical expertise obviously helps, but it’s better to learn to stay hydrated, change your lifestyle to keep your blood pressure healthy on average without needing a prescription (proper diet, exercise, employment, relationship sustainment, etc.)
If the laws weren’t ironically illegally rigged, then small businesses with innovative business models could slash the price for basic care without the need for insurance. That’s the only real solution (out with the deprecated old and in with the credible new) for worst through best.
Energy:
I’m all about energy, and so are you and everyone and everything else. Reality is purely energetic from humanity’s perception, and therein lies to truest breakthrough in energy that fuels our lives.
Until scientists and technologists have a masterful grasp of energy type conversion even eliminating the need for fuel tanks (e.g. think ‘flying saucer’ processing energy in basically real time with minimal radiation exhaust), I believe strongly in solar as the dominating near term fueling technology at least for homes.
Communications:
Yes, long distance phone calls are disappearing, but this “wave” is unrealistic.
You think Verizon is disappearing, because land lines are, and long distance services can be free? Where do think Skype data flows? Verizon and the other companies insanely dismissed as dinosaurs about to collapse when all data flies dominantly over their networks.
Given the critical nature of the Internet and the obvious need to avoid abuse via monopolistic (or duopolistic, etc.) forces, I hope Internet access redundancy and options will proliferate.
The future of communications is majorly contingent upon data manipulation.
Companies wildly consuming information about you during your social networking, application use, and other transactions are problematic due to serious abuses of that consumption. The (perhaps huge) computer error is still too often more trusted than your correction.
I’m still waiting for the privacy industry to burst into power, so people such as yours truly can view a summary of data outflow to easily identify problems (e.g. “smart” television sending out private information from its camera and microphone), and then use informational distortion, termination, and any other defense tool needed to protect information having a real impact upon private lives.
Conclusion:
Stress (physics definition ultimately rendering stress as synonymous with change) is obviously the key factor to defining our species’ future.
As one prominent terrorist organization is learning the hard way (as I recently read), qualified professionals involving healthcare (etc.) work to escape thuggery combined with reason abuse — not embrace and support it.
Thuggery combined with reason abuse is incompatible with civility.
Thuggery combined with reason abuse is the absence of maturity, so obviously the absence of leadership.
Thuggery (including religious, economic, judicial, and regular) and reason abuse (lies and the ‘partial truth = whole truth’ scam) need to be minimized (if not terminated) for a healthy future.
That starts with you and me.
I am an honest freak (or reasonably responsibly balanced "misfit", if you prefer) of an artist working and resting to best carefully contribute towards helping society. Too many people abuse reasoning (e.g. 'partial truth = whole truth' scam), while I exercise reason to explore and express whole truth without any conflict-of-interest -- all within a sometimes offbeat style of psychedelic artistry.
Spirit Wave Journal 
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