I realize my Blockchain video presents an abundance of information that may be difficult to absorb all at once. For that reason, I’ve pulled together images from the video and accompanying text into a slideshare that people can review at their own pace.
Access the slideshare here.
Access a PDF of the script here.
I hope the scenario below provides a compelling enough reason why regular folks need to get up to speed on Blockchain, decentralized (digital) identity, tokenized behavior, and smart contracts. You can be sure the Davos crowd is well aware, and we really do have to start catching up if we want to save humanity.
Picture this:
A possible future, perhaps fifteen years from now.
The Fourth Industrial Revolution is well underway.
Wages and conditions for jobs involving physical labor and direct service are forced below subsistence levels.
Austerity continues.
Debt is omnipresent.
“Smart” devices, facial recognition software, and drone surveillance ensure the public and private spheres are constantly monitored.
People’s lives have become ever more precarious.
The working class has few resources left and cannot serve as a market for goods and services.
There is limited currency in circulation.
Instead, alternative exchanges of value are logged in Blockchain ledgers.
People are increasingly managed as commodities to keep capital circulating.
Economic activity, such as it is, revolves around data.
That data is stored on Blockchain, your permanent record.
Data are used to prove compliance and demonstrate the successful “impact” of poverty management systems.
Public services, like education and healthcare, have been outsourced to private entities funded by speculative investors.
Predictive analytics dominate the lives of all but the most powerful.
Big Brother lives in the cloud.
Each person carries a minder, a smartphone or a chip inserted in the hand.
Finance and technology interests anticipate managing humanity as an extractive industry.
It is a future that hinges on bringing self-sovereign identity and Blockchain to scale.
So, will it scale?
Will people recognize the peril?
And will they refuse to cooperate?
For more information:
Smart Cities: Link
Internet of Things: Link
Blockchain: Link
Smart Contracts: Link
Self Sovereign Identity: Link
Alternative Currencies: Link
Behavioral Economics / Nudge: Link
Watch the video again:
Thank you for these multiple formats and efforts to explain the blockchain system of human capital management. I listened to C-Span this weekend. An economist was trying and failing to explain the blockchain. Your examples of the consequences, some of these already in play, are excellent. The hypotheticals are well chosen to illustrate the credits/debits/and no-win consequences for non-compliance with the rules set by others, all seeking to extract profits, aided by studies in “behavioral economics.”
In April I gave a talk on tech with a couple of references to yout work. The powerpoint included this image, along with some connections to the international push for data standards in education and the like.
https://bloomboard.com/microcredential/view/97f24917-c7ba-4542-ace3-b9fa88566006
@Molly Summer,
you wrote “Wages and conditions for jobs involving physical labor and direct service are forced below subsistence levels.” I would like to challenge that conclusion by suggesting that digital currency and block chain technology allow a solution in the form of universal discounting of prices to poor people in a form that makes a seller profit while by charging more to rich people and less to poor people for the same thing. I am developing an income adjusted currencies and/or pricing model that demonstrates how sellers can make a lot of profit by charging more to rich people and less to poor people for the same thing. I would like your thoughts and support on my project to advance it. here’s a short description.
What if there were a digital currency based on “hours of your personal time”. with such a currency based on personalized time value, everyone gets a personalized $/hr exchange rate and prices are stated as a mix of dollars and hours. prices are converted from hours on the price tag to dollars at the cash register using a formulae. For example, a cup of coffee for example would most profitably be priced as $5 or “$2 + 0.1hr”. With a price tag of “$2 + 0.1hr”, person who makes $30/hr would still pay $5 = ($2 + 0.1hrX$30/hr). But a person who makes $100/hr would pay $12 for the coffee ($2 + 0.1hrX$100/hr). And a person who makes $10/hr would pay $3 for the coffee ($2 + 0.1hrX$10/hr). In this example, the replacement cost for the business to sell one more cup of coffee is $2 so the business never loses money on any sale. In this example, the cost of shopping around is 0.1hr or 6 minutes to travel to the next best coffee shop, so the store doesn’t lose any customers. In this example the coffee store makes more profit on sales by charging more to rich people and less to poor people for the same coffee.
You say that blockchain is not a technology of liberation, but this “hOurs Equals Price” digital blockchain currency based on hours of your personal time seems like it offers some solutions to growing income inequality. You seem very informed on the subject and I’d like to hear your thoughts or invite you to learn more at the hOEP project (hOurs Equals Price) and let me know what you think of their project as shown on the P2P foundation website. https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/User:ThehOEPproject_(hOurs_Equals_price)
I’m not Molly…but allow me to reply. This is really creepy. Keep your tech out of my life please. This makes me want to live off the grid.
I’m not Molly either, but the idea that people are only equal to how many hours they can work in a day is a form of enslavement; whether or not you earn more per hour than someone else. I’d prefer to move towards “however many hours it takes to get a job done” kind of world. You can keep your hour tracking time clock.
brilliant connecting of the dots, but chilling view of a near future we are hurtling toward if we don’t raise awareness and counteract it
quality of life vs. measured “growth” via data gleaned from mindless algorithms/predictive analytics surreptitiously mining and controlling every aspect of human existence for the profit of the few–think it can’t happen here?? Think again
this is real 1984 stuff and frightening. but it all depends on the continuing availability of cheap oil. without oil, none of the tech-hell world will be possible. humanity and what is left of Nature will return to pre-agricultural times. not at all easy, but far better than this tech prison vision. thank you for this invaluable informaton
Agreed. I think the folks behind this are hoping for breakthroughs in cold fusion. I hope none of this is able to scale.
Yup. Nobody wants to hear this, tho.