A couple days ago I explained how several exponentially increasing technological trends (solar power, blockchains, virtual reality, robotics, 3D printing, etc.) are just now achieving 1% adoption, or will very soon. One percent adoption may not sound like much, but breaking the 1% barrier means these technologies are now only 7 more doublings (2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 100) away from saturation.
And, adoption of these technologies doubles (or more than double) every year. So, by 2025, these technologies will be as ubiquitous as cell phones and microwave ovens are today. There is little to nothing that can or need be done to delay or accelerate their eventual dominance over our lives. The trend is established and all but unstoppable.
In today’s post I’d like to ponder some of the implications of that incredible fact. In particular, I’d like to explain how these technologies will make moot many of our most contentiously-debated social issues.
CARBON EMISSIONS
By 2025 and certainly by 2030, clean, reliable, distributed and dirt-cheap solar power will supply effectively all of the world’s energy needs. Consequently, today’s debates over carbon emissions and “clean energy” are already moot, we just don’t recognize it yet (because our minds can’t grok exponential growth and quickly the future will arrive).
By 2025, we’ll look back on today’s panic over carbon the same way we look back on the 1990’s panic over the hole in the ozone layer.
GUN CONTROL
Once 3D printers are as ubiquitous as microwaves and cell phones (by 2030 at the latest), we’ll all be “prosumers” rather than “consumers”, meaning that we’ll individually both PROduce and conSUME much of what we want and need. Need a new shoe lace or watch band or bracelet? Instead of going to Walmart or ordering one from Amazon and waiting days for it to arrive, you’ll simply download a computer program off of the Internet and hit “print”. A few minutes to a few hours later, you’ll have a brand new shoe lace, watch, bracelet or most anything else that you could want. While these printers will eventually be able to print out something as large as a house, they’ll focus on smaller household items at first.
And this includes...guns! In fact, 3D printable guns are already a “thing”. Though present versions are ugly and fragile, this will no doubt change in short order. Effective “assault rifles” will be 3D printable soon enough.
As a result, obtaining even advanced weapons in the near future won’t require visiting a store and undergoing a background check. Rather, it will be as easy as downloading a file to your computer and pressing “print”.
Will governments then “ban” the distribution of such undesirable computer files? Perhaps, but any such ban will be ineffective for several reasons. First, multiple court cases in the US have established that computer programs are a form of “speech” (they are just information, after all), and the US Constitution prohibits anticipatory suppression of speech. For instance, the US government can’t prevent your or me from publishing or possessing instructions for building a bomb. Why? Because...free speech. If it can’t even do that, how can it prevent me from publishing or possessing computer code detailing how to build a gun?
But more importantly, even in countries that don’t protect fee speech, any ban on “undesirable” downloads will be just as effective as the present “bans” on online gambling, porn, etc., which is to say...not effective at all. File sharing via the Internet is simply too easy and the contents of any file can be readily obscured via encryption, etc.
Might some governments attempt instead to seize and shut down file servers that offer these “undesirable” file downloads? Sure, but some jurisdictions (the ones that currently support online gambling maybe?) will readily harbor these file servers. Even if not, these files will be readily available on the “dark web” (just like child porn is readily available there today).
Regardless, thanks to uncensorable blockchains, would-be gun owners won’t even need to know how to navigate the dark web: Some anonymous person somewhere will simply post the program to print 3D guns onto an established and otherwise economically critical blockchain (where anyone can access and download it at will). Governments will be powerless to deny access to this file.
In short, the gun control debate too is already moot, we just don’t recognize it yet. By 2024, we’ll look back on today’s debates over gun control the same way we look back on the 1980’s debates over porn control. The Internet made controlling porn impossible. Blockchains and 3D printing will make controlling guns impossible.
“HATE SPEECH”, “FAKE NEWS” AND COPYRIGHT
Over the last couple of years we’ve seen multiple calls for book and website publishers to be more diligent in suppressing “hate speech” and “fake news”, and to protect copyright, or else face additional governmental regulation. Consequently, one might fear that the beautiful age when “I might disagree with what you say, but I’d die for your right to say it” has passed.
Fortunately, such fears are misplaced. In the quickly approaching age of open and uncensorable blockchains, anyone may post anything online, including anonymously, without fear of ex post facto censorship. “Take down notices” will be a thing of the past because taking something down from a blockchain is effectively impossible.
Consequently, just as soon as new intellectual property is released, anti-copyright “Pirate Party” types will anonymously publish it (books, music lyrics and perhaps eventually songs and videos themselves) online to established and economically-critical blockchains and/or decentralized file sharing services. Copyright infringement, hate speech and fake news will be impossible to stop or to effectively punish. (I may discuss the implications of this in a future post, but suffice it to say that humans will be forced to grow up and discern for themselves rather than relying on governmental or corporate overlords to tell them what’s true. Critical, logical thinking skills will be THE MOST IMPORTANT SKILL in the near future).
The age of censorship and copyright is past, we just don’t know it yet. Again, we’ll soon look back on today’s debates over censoring hate speech and fake news the same way we now look back on the 1980’s debates over censoring porn.
UNEMPLOYMENT AND MINIMUM WAGE
Many have already noted how artificial intelligence and robotics will potentially lead to mass unemployment over the next couple of decades (for instance, self-driving cars and truck will make truck, taxi and Uber drivers a thing of the past) as these technologies put people out of work more quickly than they can be trained for new work. However few have recognized that 3D printing will exacerbate this challenge. When people can print many basic household items at home on a 3D printer (which will be as ubiquitous as microwaves), we no longer need people to manufacture those items remotely and transport them to our homes. Million and millions of jobs currently depend upon manufacturing and transportation.
The days when politicians or economists can manipulate employment by “juicing” the economy are over.
ROLE OF REGULATORS
As more and more of the economy moves onto blockchains (where it will be possible to safely exchange value with anyone else in the world at any time anonymously and privately and without anyone’s permission), taxation and regulation of commerce will be increasingly difficult.
Some governments will first attempt to regulate at the edges of blockchains (that is, the on ramps and off ramps where blockchains connect to the legacy financial system), because that’s all they can effectively do, but this regulation will make the legacy system even more lumbering and uncompetitive and will therefore incentivize the faster adoption of blockchains. It will also incentivize people to avoid these onramps and off ramps completely, hastening the day when blockchains are a closed, self-sustaining, un-regulatable economic ecosystem. When both your earnings and your expenses are paid in cryptocurrency, with little or no need to ever convert to fiat currency, then regulating the on and off ramps will be meaningless. And regulation of such ramps in the meantime only hastens the dawning of that day.
The days of government-regulated commerce are over, we just don’t know it yet.
INCOME TAX RATES AND “WEALTH TAXES”
Furthermore, when value can be transferred among people anywhere in the world securely, anonymously, privately and without permission, and when it can be stored in ways that can’t be effectively seized by governments, taxing income or wealth becomes exceedingly difficult. Taxing sales is also impossible: How is the government going to collect sales taxes on the new shoe laces or bracelet that you just printed on your own 3D computer?
We know from history that people have little or no reluctance to evade taxes when they safely can. Just look at Greece or most third world countries, for example. And even here in the US, how many waiters, waitresses or golf caddies report all of their cash tips? Perilously few.
In short, the world’s underground economy is already enormous and, in an age of ubiquitous blockchains and 3D printers, it will quickly become the dominant one. In a relatively short period of time (a decade or two form now), governments will lose trillions tax revenues as the world transition to the new un-taxable economy.
Consequently, to preserve their existence, governments will be forced to adapt. At first they will simply raise tax rates on legacy (non-blockchain) economic activity to make up for the shortfalls resulting from the growing underground economy, but this will just make the legacy economy even more uncompetitive vis-a-vis the new one and accelerate the complete triumph of the latter. Higher taxes on the legacy economy will just exacerbate its death spiral.
Eventually, rather than taxing sales and income, governments will be forced instead to tax hard, trackable assets like real estate. However, when even title to real estate is conveyed via blockchain rather than the government’s records, how will governments enforce their tax liens?
Supposing they even can, then the higher taxes on physical assets will simply make digital alternatives even more appealing and hasten their adoption. For instance, why travel to Europe and pay very high property and travel taxes (embedded into hotel and airfare rates) when you can instead have a far cheaper, hyper-realistic, and much more fantastical experience visiting Europe in “virtual reality”?
In short, the day when governments can tax with impunity has already passed, they just don’t know it yet.
THE WELFARE STATE
With its ability to tax greatly diminished, governments will struggle just to service debt and provide even basic services. Consequently, the days of the welfare state are already past, we just don’t know it yet. You can no longer rely on a social safety net to protect you.
DATA GATHERING AND SHARING
In the future blockchain world, you (rather than Facebook or Twitter) will control and own your identity and your own data. You will decide who gets to know what about you and when. You, rather than some centralized credit agency, will be able to sell verifiably accurate data about yourself (or about your various online identities) to marketers, demographers, advertisers, etc.
You will have options to transact or communicate online anonymously, pseudonymously, openly, or all of the above depending on the circumstances. In fact, you’ll likely have multiple online identities (think of them as virtual identities) that will be very difficult to trace back to you personally. Nonetheless, each one will have its own “social reputation score” and “credit score”, both determined under transparent algorithms encoded in the blockchains you choose to use (rather than via proprietary corporate algorithms). If you troll, treat people poorly, or don’t provide value to others, expect the blockchain life to be a difficult one for you.
Instead of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc., you’ll use decentralized social media blockchains (like Steemit.com), where you’ll be able to post whatever you want whenever you want, and where you’ll be directly rewarded with cryptocurrency for posting good content (or have your reputation score punished for posting bad content). Rather than your data and posts making Zuckerberg rich, it might instead make you enough money to buy a few nice dinners each week or take a nice vacation a couple times a year. The most ambitious and talented among us will become wealthy freelance social media stars.
The days of credit reporting agencies and centralized social media sites (like Facebook) owning and controlling your data are past, they just don’t know it yet.
CORPORATISM AND CRONY CAPITALISM
When combined, blockchains, 3D printing, solar power, etc. decentralize most everything. They eliminate (or at least greatly reduce) the need need for (and power of) centralized rule making, centralized law enforcement, centralized record-keepers, centralized manufacturing, centralized energy suppliers, etc. Consequently they free people and markets to an extent never before dreamed. The influence of all “middle men”—governments, banks, brokerage firms, regulators, distributors, manufacturers, energy producers, utilities, etc.—is greatly reduced and eventually made moot.
Not only do these technologies make the centralized, crony-capitalist corporate business model irrelevant, they make the entire corporate governance structure itself irrelevant, replacing it with with DAOs—Decentralized Automated Organizations running on voluntary blockchains.
The days when rent-seeking corporate board leaders can conspire among themselves (and with government officials) to limit competition and feather each other’s pockets are long past, they just don’t know it yet.
CONCLUSION
Over the next decade or two, your world will change to an extent never before seen in human history. A convergence of technologies will remake our society from the ground up. The dominant institutions of our culture—the government and the marketplace—will be disrupted in ways that we’re only now beginning to comprehend.
For many, the above may sound like a dystopian vision of the future. But that’s true because I’ve only explained how these new technologies will disrupt our old governance structures and coping mechanisms without explaining how they will also provide potentially superior alternatives. Perhaps the potential of these technologies will be the subject of a future essay. For now, just know that we need to prepare quickly for these changes because they will be here far sooner than we expect, and they will have a nearly incomprehensible impact on our lives.
Technology had its adverse effect on the environment till 20th century but now we are preferring ecofriendly technology, so that our mother earth doesn't get that much effected.
Climate change is currently threatening the livelihoods of millions of people who are already poor and vulnerable, by altering the natural and physical assets they rely on, particularly for agricultural production. In order to adapt to climate change, they will need access to new and improved technologies, skills and knowledge. The most appropriate technologies can enable people to improve their livelihoods even when there is uncertainty about the future climate. Many such technologies are already in use at the local level. For instance, technologies that reduce vulnerability to climate change, such as early warning systems or improved water management. But these require much wider dissemination if they are to bring benefits to the millions of people affected by climate change.
Companies with strong accountability systems, strategic board oversight, clear human rights, transparent environmental management policies, and active & effective stakeholder engagement stand a good chance of achieving sustainability. In fact, the results are bound to be favorable for these companies, across various parameters including renewable energy usage, reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, and application of sustainability practices for product and service delivery.
I hope our technology is going more green day by day and in coming decades we will have technology that doesn't effect out Mother Earth
We see how the effects of a stroke too deep even technology. In fact, many benefits and negative points that we are exposed to.
NEGATIVES
1-The phone allows us to communicate but at the same time emits radiation.
2-Natural gas is heating up our houses, and at the same time many lives with the explosion.
3-As we provide our computer research
causing our eyes to break, brain cancer.
4-Dishwasher, washing machine, etc. take water out of the machines and wander the electrical current in these waters. and people accidentally disrupt people's body balance with the pressing this water.
5-As cars accelerate transportation, they also pierce the ozone layer with exhaust fumes.
6-When tin cans are left in the surrounding area, the soil makes them difficult to destroy in a very long time.
7-Pillars can be destroyed in very long years when left in the land despite the fact that we are at work in many places, and living things under the earth are affecting too badly.
8-Electricity brings harm to people with much benefit. Electric shock, as a result, people even lose their lives.
9-Airplanes make a lot of noise while creating a noise pollution while allowing us to go from one place to another.
10-We do a lot of things with paper, but we have many trees for these papers.
11- The biggest problem of our planet is caused by global warming catastrophe technology.
12- Many new products that come out of us forget our culture. Because of fast food called fast food, Turkish culinary culture has seen great losses.
13- Mixing inorganic salts, pesticides and artificial organic chemicals with water.. bla bla
so there are actually too many simple examples. we do not know where your life will go.
The article you wrote is very successful. I like the points you touch. thanks for this post
Gosh, so many changes are coming our way... I can't wait! I find 3D printing so fascinating! The idea sounds like some sort of Sci-Fi movie that can't become a reality. It seems impossible in my mind, but yet here we are! The technology is going to become as popular as a microwave. Seriously, things are moving at a such rapid speed, I think all predictions will be blown away, because all of this might start moving even faster and faster.
Having a strict change over the lives of technology, its true tha will change a lot in the next decade of the world, in the future, no other way will be improved, the technology is growing so the world is ...
Technology is actually a catalyst for change. The breakthroughs in technology represent the light at the end of the tunnels when it comes to creating solutions for a durable world. For example, zero-emission vehicles running hydrogen.
You have done a great job, I think this is one of the best post I had ever read on steemit.
The field of vision is so expanded, every thing of this contemporary world is touched almost.
We must make our development sustainable and environment too. Your post had touched every major problem and provided the way forward too for the better humanity.
Everybody must play his part in this world and make sure the coming generations will also breath same non poisonous air and water too.
You have a lot of valid points.. I pray to be alive
and prepared to witness these fast approaching changes.
technology is having a drastic change over the human lives, its true tha world will change in next decade alot, the future will get way advanced than any of the other, technology is growing so does the world...
Technology is indeed a catalyst for change. Breakthroughs in technology represent the light at the end of the tunnel when it comes to creating solutions for a sustainable world. Take for instance, zero-emission vehicles that run on hydrogen. Unlike regular vehicles, hydrogen-fueled cars release water vapor as waste. The use of thermoset plastics that can be recycled is now on the rise due to its potential to remarkably cut down landfill waste...
Love your optimism! Or was it optimistic realism? Pretty much everything you write here reminds me a lot of a friend of mine, who is equally as optimistic about the future, and also able to enthusiastically explain the why and the how, in great yet easily comprehensible detail. (Unfortunately, he is not on Steemit, or else I would refer to his profile.)
Anyway, this has got to be one of the most uplifting posts I've come across here in a long time, and I hope it gets the attention it deserves!
very helpful post. thanks for sharing.
Great article about technology and its benefits my friend..
Thank you for sharing this helpfull and didactic writing about technology...if you have time you can visit my blog and look my new contents...
See you my friend...
Great article about technology and its benefits my friend..
Thank you for sharing this helpfull and didactic writing about technology...if you have time you can visit my blog and look my new contents...
See you my friend...
a very good post I really like to hear about the post @sean-king.
Three things: The first is that you give credit to blockchains for much of the revelations, but what if they are outlawed. You make a good case for that and at the same time end the fly in the ointment called cryptocurrency. The second thing is that governments are ingenious in developing ways to control others just as criminals and hackers are to find ways around impediments and firewalls. Just shutting down the internet is a third option. Even if we move from a hard wire internet service to satellites they can be shot down. If I was a top ranking bureaucrat, I would take alarm at your post and start taking steps to make sure these freedoms do not take place.
Blockchains won’t be sustainably outlawed for at least two reasons:
(1) Any countries fully embracing blockchain will experience wealth-creation and an influx of capital on a scale never before seen. Blockchains will give such countries a HUGE advantage over the others that try to ban the technology. The others will have no choice but to eventually defect and join the blockchainers. The incentives to defect, and the penalties for not defecting, are just too great. Trying to ban blockchain would be like trying to ban the Internet. How has that worked out for North Korea?
2). Blockchains are designed to resist censorship and bans. They ENABLE resistance in the same way that cash enables resistance, only better. For instance, failing to report and pay tax on one’s cash tips is also “banned”, but the vast majority of earned tip income still goes untaxed. In short, any such ban on blockchains would be completley ineffective, and the rulers know this. A direct ban would simply expose (far sooner than the elites would like) just how censorship-resistant blockchains are and just how inept the rulers are to stop them.
The whole point of blockchains is to deny governments their historical ability to regulate and supress. Blockchains will succeed in their purpose or they won’t. I personally think it’s clear that they will. Regardless, if you think there’s a non-zero chance that they will succeed, the implications are so extraordinary that you’re crazy not to prepare now.
Shutting down the Internet indefinitely would completley collapse the entire world economy leading to mass anarchy and open rebellion, neither of which are in any government’s (or even the elite’s) best interest. Our rulers are selfish and often evil, but they are not stupid. They can be trusted to act in their own selfish best interests, and shutting down the Internet is not in their interest.
There will soon (with a decade or two at most) come a tipping point where the elite rulers realize that resistance to blockchains is futile. At that point there will be a race to the exits in the legacy system. They will recognize that the only way to protect themselves and their wealth is to begin acquiring crypto and using blockchains en masse. And then the end of the legacy system will come swiftly.
I see people here talking about blockchain "wealth", but I don't see tangibility. The only thing of real value is precious metals and other tangibles. Blockchain wealth is similar to paper currency in that it is based on confidence and fluctuates. Gold is the standard and everything fluctuates around it including paper currency. An ounce of gold will buy the same tangible asset today that it bought 1000 years ago. In other words a piece of land you bought 1000 years ago for an ounce of gold is the same value today unless there have been value-added improvements to the land or area around it.
One way that governments control populations is to turn off utilities. Water is usually first, but with device addiction the way it is maybe turning off the electricity would bring faster submission.
Respectfully, you are spouting metal maximalist religious dogma and not anything backed by evidence. It’s just not true that an ounce of gold will purchase the same thing today as $1,000 years ago.
Yes, an ounce of gold would have bought me a fine wool suit in 1995, but it would have bought me a much, much, much finer one (or more than one less fine one) by 2015. The dollar price of fine suits (or clothing in general) barely changed between 1995 and 2015, but the dollar price of gold skyrocketed. Consequently, and once of gold bought me far more suits/clothing in 2015 than 1995. I love gold, but the idea that gold has consistent purchasing power when measured in real world good is just silly. It demonstrably doesn’t.
I respectfully suggest that you don’t understand what blockchains actually are. Blockchains are simply access tokens to open and censorship resistant networks. To say that these networks have no “real value” is either the height of arrogance or naïveté.
Networks in general have a well-known value that can be measured using Metcalfe’s Law (or ideally, one of the more modern and superior variants of it).
Being able to insert information into a publicly available and censorship-resistant blockchain may be one of the most useful (and therefore valuable) things ever invented. In a blockchain world, free speech is not longer just a “legal right”, rather it’s a constant practical capability that can’t be denied. If you see no value in that, then I can’t help you.
If you’re convinced that most of the world’s governments are going to coordinate to implement North Korean levels of control over their populations (for instance, by depriving them of food and/or power), then yah, you may be right. But I think that’s very, very, very unlikely to happen from a game theory perspective.
Thank you for the exchange
Since you are not a top ranking bureaucrat hard at work to ramp up fascism because your days of managing slaves is truly coming to an end, I hope you will instead be ready to work to make this revolution something that benefits the world. This is a pivotal moment in time and the potential of duality to take us much too far to the left, or right, should concern anyone of a reasonable nature. One thing is guaranteed, the future is now and the paradigm shift has begun. The variable is how we play the cards in both our microcosm and as a collective. Either way its excited to be along for the ride
I made my living for 45 years developing countermeasures to every imaginable threat to the desired outcome. I was involved in one of the first cryptocurrenecies called DXGold. I had similar enthusiasm to this new way of commerce. Didn't workout so well. There was a guy in DXGold that kept repeating the same caution over and over. "Don't invest more money in DXGold than you would use to light a cigar." He was right. It was fun, but I lost way more than I would ever use to light a cigar. The worst thing was that I was like a Judas goat leading the sheep to slaughter on a platform similar to steem.chat assuring people it was the greatest thing since sliced bread. I'm wary of anything except gold in my water-resistant safe bolted from the inside to a concrete floor. I have faith in God, all others not so much.
You are right.
children are now gambling and pornography in technology.
this should be prevented.
can the government prohibit the use of technology by children?
maybe you have time to look at your studies. it would make me happy.
Technology can be our best friend, and technology can also be the biggest party pooper of our lives. It interrupts our own story, interrupts our ability to have a thought or a daydream, to imagine something wonderful, because we're too busy bridging the walk from the cafeteria back to the office on the cell phone.
Hello and good evening @sean-king
This makes for a lengthy post and informative one at that, I'm happy with the way technology is revolutionizing the world, no wonder Toffler said that
But I'm a bit scared about the 3D printing of guns, what if people start printing and using it negatively by killing one another for no just reason, won't that be bad?
The world is changing and in 10 years time, we'll be seeing some of what you've said, thanks for giving us a peek into the future.
Stay amazing always, my regards to the family.
Only true psychopaths kill for no reason. If your concerned about the increased mass shootings, as we all are, then we should really focus on the reason these shootings occurred. The guns are only a tool used to carry out a desire, in the mass shootings it was the desire to cause harm and kill others. In most of the cases the shooters could be diagnosed as sociopath but not psychopath. Alienation and disconnect are eating away at the fabric of society and have been at an increasing rate as we became a consumer culture, force fed false desires, in order to keep an insatiable economy alive and gorging. The entire system is designed for wealth accumulation and occasionally throwing the dog a bone. Is it really a wonder why some are filled with despair to the point of disconnect? These technologies when used for good will allow better distribution of wealth and encourage cooperatives. Unifying and potential to fulfill purpose will give back control to communities and allow for an actual democratic system to be realized.
Can some psychopaths print some guns and case some harm? Sure they can, but the benefit to liberate and elevate the entire world population is not without risks. Nothing good in life ever is
These are all fantastic points and I feel you are more describing a utopian society where through blockchain and unified purpose we can accomplish things that the current power structure of governance seems to drag its feet on like the transition to green energy. As long as these technologies are accessible by everyone then the future is incredibly bright. My biggest concern is that the aristocrats with their hands on the steering wheel might opt to drive it off the road rather then let us get our hands on the wheel. Then they can manage control of the technology in the aftermath. A future with the tech in just the hands of the elite ruling class would be a dystopian society with little hope of liberation.
I really don't like painting ugly pictures but that is one possible outcome. We all need to be aware and diligently ready to protect our right to utilize the technologies we discover. We need to quickly embrace and embed the blockchain into our world. As a collective we can flip the script in the blink of an eye
From a game theory perspective, the worst case scenario you describe is very, very unlikely. Supression of blockchains (if it’s possible at all) would require universal, worldwide coordination, something that just won’t happen. If even a few countries support blockchain, they will benefit so greatly that others will be forced to follow.
We can look to the Internet as an example of how things will likely play out. Despite initial resistance from dicatators, market and competitive forces obligated them to make the Internet available in their country even though it meant their likely downfall. And, just as they worried, it did lead to their downfall—the Internet is credited with contributing to the toppling of dictators all across the world. No country (except North Korea) was able to effectively resist it.
Do you really think that most every country in the world is going to coordinate to enforce North Korean levels of tyranny and control over their populations? I don’t.
That's a very optimistic way of seeing the blockchain-technology-future.
I ask myself what material is going to be used for all the homemade productions you talk about. As I am not familiar with 3D printers I wonder what resources would be needed. Also, I ask myself if things are so easily produced by printing them how the products are going to last or to function. I just cannot imagine having printed my furniture or materials I need in the kitchen and so on. Is it all plastic then? As plastic is a major problem for the eco-system I am concerned with health and environment.
If governments cannot collect taxes what common goods will be provided by the individual who can print everything he wants? Also, the most vulnerable issue, which is food, will then probably be taxed as still transportation and distribution must be taken care of. So when the tax on food is going to rise that will be a problem when it's not compensated by other products to be taxed...
Also, as blockchain technology (same with printing) needs a lot of energy the great energy providers of today will get a hold on this. As I see it we are far from green energy - most of what is tagged as "green" is more of a public relation effort and the resources needed for wind or solar energy a problem of itself. The hunger for electricity is huge and it's doing a lot of damage.
As much as I am in favor of getting rid of centralized control I have questions. What if this technology will be used by insurances (health care or others) as well to my disadvantage? Or how do you see the insurance sector to fit in there?
I am all in favor to get some things back into the hands of the people and not having to feer "corporations" as we do nowadays. I am in favor for small-scale solutions and would like the cities to alter more into green gardens and gaining back the knowledge of how to grow food and establish little community cells instead of having everything done by the officials. It would give people back a sense of responsibility and meaning if they would be responsible for food (and also shelter, which I cannot imagine how to get this back other than to live off grid). So, I like the thought of "prosuming" when it is not developing into more senseless consumerism.
How do you see your future when you add food production like I did?
When I think how excited I was as a child to get a transistor radio!
I went to a lecture by the Indian ambassador here in Paris and he went into how difficult it was for governments to deal with robotics; most financial transactions these days are done digitally, and many of them on the "dark net". Governments are totally overwhelmed.
I wish I had seen this sooner and could have upvoted. I am a college teacher with 30 years experience, and I am predicting the same exponential change/evolution in online education, but my colleagues look at me funny when I bring it up :).
Amen brother! a few years ago I worried about a lot of these things until I listened to Ray Kurzweil talk about the exponential growth of technology and then again when I listened to him talking to Colin Powell (Former United States National Security Advisor) about the fear of running out of fossil fuels. He described it so perfectly in that while fossil fuels are a finite resource and as such will continue to rise in value that technology is only getting faster,more powerful and cheaper every year and used that model to show that solar power will first reach the same price per energy unit and then surpass it...it's actually already happened we just don't have the infrastructure to bring it out in scale yet ;)