While fascinating, the technology or more accurately the promise that coming technology holds seems more bleak than intriguing. The coming technology seems to promise more dystopian future than one would have speculated in decades past.
Consider the world of tomorrow as seen through the eyes of Americans in the 50s. Everything was going to be automated. Mundane tasks would be done by robots. We would have flying cars. People would be able to focus on pursuits for which they had true passion. While there were alternative views presented by futurists like Auldus Huxley and George Orwell, there were writers like Gene Roddenberry who presented a future full of possibilities like true equality for all people.
In contrast to the two, very different futures presented back in the day, the future we now face seems to only be trending towards the dystopian. Though technology may continue to hold the promise of a more enlightened, equitable and fair future for most, it feels as if the minority who will control it only have bad intentions. It feels as if a smaller group of people is seeking to own everything: The wealthy are trying to buy up all of the residential housing by forcing home prices out of range for most. It feels like the rich are buying up all of the agricultural land to control food production. It feels as if the elites are seeking to control the rights to water and other commodities that we all need.
Even if those seeking to control all of the things necessary for survival had the best intentions in their hearts and minds, who's to say that those who inherit these things would. The offspring of these rent seekers will not have the same same life experiences as their parents. The parents created their wealth and built their empire through hard work, manipulation, theft and whatever other tactics they used to attain their fortune. The offspring may simply feel entitled to it because it's their birth right.
Something you earn will always be more appreciated than something you're given. The problem today is that our laws reflect a Society in which so much wealth is simply passed down from one generation to the next rather than earned. This will not only lead to an accumulation of technology that will be held over the rest of the population but a technology that will be held by those with less empathy than is necessary to weld such power.
While stretched out over millennia, Humanity's future may look bright, it is the near-term in which we will all suffer. We will all be renting everything we need to survive which will mean that few of us will thrive. Even something as basic as the way with which we communicate is becoming a thing fewer of us understand or control. To talk on a phone, we must relinquish are right to privacy, as cell phone companies can sell or trade our information at their discretion. The phones themselves cost as much as a used car cost a few decades ago, but you can't even fix your phone. Few people even understand the technology behind a cell phone but it has become something that most people can't "live" without. Someone (other than your intended audience) or some thing is always listening to your conversation. If you don't believe me, just start talking about cat food or deodorant or Bitcoin or replacing your gutters and watch the advertising you'll get in your browser... They are always listening and they will always have the potential to give your private information away to some agency or authority.
In 2018, I wrote a book highlighting the problems Humanity would face if more power, wealth, and control was funneled to a small group of elite individuals, groups or organizations. In my book, I provided solutions (from myself and others) to the inevitable problems and also a means for the Public to analyze, compare and contrast the words and deeds of those we choose to follow against reality. In my book Solutions: Enough complaining. Let's fix America.
In "Solutions...", provide the means for readers to disseminate information as provided by their news sources of choice, their elected officials, and any other authority they chose to follow. The book also offers a means to hold their leaders up, not just to a higher standard than is currently accepted but to one that would improve their lives and the lives of those they care for.
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