The World is Changing Right Before our Eyes

One thing is for sure, the rate of change itself is changing, and in many cases exponentially. In such a state of unprecedented change, it's difficult to predict what will happen using old paradigms and previous patterns of behavior or current systems, economies and rules. One of the most serious unprecedented changes is the virtual democratization and cost elimination of communication via the Internet. Never before have so many conversations and exchanges of information taken place on such a delocalized level. It is this collective and free world conversation at the level of the poor and the average income person that is empowering. And we've only seen the beginning of where this is taking us. It will make it increasingly difficult for those in power to manipulate people. Anything is possible. But there are some wildcards due to the unprecedented nature of this change. Optimism and proactive choices are important, we think.

There is a book called Abundance by Peter Diamandis, who started Singularity University. Here's a two minute video about it by a fan of the book.

And here's a 16 minute TED talk by Peter Diamandis on the book:

http://www.ted.com/talks/peter_diamandis_abundance_is_our_future.html


Singularity University is about the optimism we can look to as the human species goes through this exponential change event that we're just heading into now. Things that are costly today, will be made less scarce and therefore less costly due to exponential technologies. Energy is one great example. If our group doesn't make contributions there, others will. If a widespread easy to adopt low cost energy technology becomes free to all, then massive redistributions of power and wealth to all people can occur. This is exactly happening with information, which used to be for the wealthy who could afford it. Now it's virtually free. One by one, future technologies, such as nano-technology, will render things which used to be costly to the point where they're virtually free or orders of magnitude cheaper. And in such a new world, things such as cheap Chinese manual labor or high US wealth will become less important than they are now. The playing field of what is important will change dramatically.

What is happening right now with the human species is a grand and uncontrollable experiment that no one knows the outcome of and no one can control. Rich old men in cigar filled rooms will not control the future that we see.