The Age of Transformation

Believe it or not, we are only at the very dawn of a new hi-tech revolution...a period in which change will continue to accelerate until it comes at us blazingly fast. This change will have both political and individual consequences that will range from the positive potential betterment of humankind to a situation of extreme danger to society as we know it today.

When world population jumped from two billion souls in the 1950's to about 7 billion today, the powers that be realized that the only way for the US to survive this throng of humanity, was to compete with them. They also understood that the US advantage lay in the fact that they were were the masters of innovation but were unable to compete with the cheap labour in poorer developing countries. Thus globalization was born under the heading of "our technology and know-how for your cheaper goods". On the surface this sounded pretty good. At the end of the day, though, technology is replacing jobs...and not only manufacturing jobs!

Employment and job creation are also changing extraordinarily quickly. Lets take a look at the impact of driverless cars. Estimates are that by 2030, 25% of vehicles will be autonomous. I happen to believe that percentage will be much higher. John Mauldin: There are 250 million cars and trucks on US roads today. there are 3.5 million truck drivers, 75% of whose jobs (at least) will be replaced. Ditto for the 250,000 taxi drivers and 160,000 Uber drivers, not to mention the 100,000 Lyft drivers. 

Mauldin continues - "Estimates are that automated driving will reduce accidents by 90%. That will obviously reduce insurance costs but will also decimate the ranks of auto insurance agents. Each year 1.3 million people are injured in vehicle accidents, that’s a lot of hospital visits. Eventually, 90% of those injuries will go away, reducing demand on hospitals and eliminating jobs. We won’t need as many policeman, firemen, and ambulance drivers at accident scenes, either. The total job loss just in the United States might approach 10 million."  And that folks is just one industry! The Bank of England: The adoption of driverless cars will leave a massive dent in the car insurance market, forcing insurers to team up with car firms as they transform their business.

The Guardian: "New technology is revolutionising modern farming, but this brave new world of robot farms and hi-tech sensors could have consequences for rural livelihoods. Around the world, but especially in the developing world, food and farming systems continue to rely on 20th century technology. But this is changing. The same information technologies that brought us the internet and transformations in medicine are now revolutionising farming." It’s a new era for agriculture and one that does not bode well for middle America. For example, Japanese company Spread has recently announced that robots will carry out all but one of the tasks required to grow tens of thousands of lettuces each day in its indoor automated farm. Hopefully the talking heads and decision making bigwigs are aware of the breathtaking transformation we are facing.

In simple language, billions of people are going to be left behind when this transformation arrives. We either find a way to move forward together or humanity will be draining a different swamp.

I can't change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination - Jimmy Dean


Let us remember: One book, one pen, one child, and one teacher can change the world - Malala Yousafzai

Without a struggle, there can be no progress - Frederick Douglass