The future is ours to see 7

Fear for the Future

Do we have to fear the Future?

Of course not! Future is always exiting, and will always be. It is always uncertain, that’s the nature of it: unpredictable, because we do not know all ingredients. But to fear it, is as stupid as fearing your own destiny…

Our material certainties are fading, at least for most of us. The top 2% doesn’t bother. They think they can get away with it, but the ones who have most to loose will lose most in the end. That is history, and there is no reason not to believe that it will be future as well.

Systems come and go. We cannot imagine to survive without the near past economic certainties, at least in the Western world, the lucky part that gave shelter to the “happy-few”. But it is changing fast. New economies come up, copying ours, and are successful like we were when it started. Most people in the Bric-countries are still poor, which is also not new. The same happened in our regions when we discovered industrialization, and it needed a couple of generations before we reached the welfare we are afraid of loosing now.

Human life is all about possibilities, and as soon as a group, a nation, or a part of the world has more, the rest wants to follow. I want what you have, is even more natural to us then eating, drinking, or even breathing. Gathering is where we live for; afraid as we are that life is meaningless without it. That’s the problem with us people: the more we gather, the more we are afraid of loosing it again.

The society we live in today will disappear eventually. As a fact that is history as long as mankind walks the earth and because of that it will be future as well. History is what shows us future, and even new techniques cannot change this repetition. We become older by every generation, but living longer is no guarantee for wisdom.

Mankind came quit far. A successful specie developed a wide range of tools to make it easier for himself, and even struggles to understand what and why he is. We brought the whole world back to our desktop and even laptop or pad, so we can carry it with us wherever we go: The whole world in a tiny suitcase, still sounds as a fantasy story.

No system we know yet can cope with that. The world we surf on a daily base is in our house 24/7, and totally without boundaries. It is still a young reality, but one we face together, have to accept together, because there won’t be a reverse. Outside the little box on our desk or lap, is still a different reality which is in the total of its appearance the absolute opposite. How long will this discrepancy survive?  I don’t know, not in measured time, I only know that it has to vanish. In a world without boundaries regulations will differ and mankind has to face a new truth: the acceptance of total responsibility of each individual for the complete machinery of our future system. With such a complex structure the world will be, there is no other path to walk…

…to be continued…

The future is ours to see 6

Rising out of a stone wall

Since the coming up of digital media there is a lot going on about privacy. It looks as if we loose on a daily basis. Social Media like Google, Facebook, and Twitter, are interactive pirates by using our input on what - we like to believe - is our personal page.

At first: There is nothing personal to it. As individuals we are free to decide if we use these pre-prepared tools. We did not develop it, and we are aware that these are open instruments; otherwise we would not sign up for it. It is, because everyone can see it, that we want to be part of it. Social Media are appellations to our human-want to exhibit ourselves. That’s why they are there, and that’s why we use them!

Having said that: Is it fair that those companies use our input for their own commercial goals? No! But who wants to believe that all this work to develop and design was just be done to please the world’s community?

Besides this: what is privacy? Generally spoken it is everything we do not want to share, and that is not the same for everyone. From a basic point of view privacy means: the knowledge about yourself you only share with a small group of intimae. So it can’t be your name, address, etc…, because these are written down, and known by a lot. As soon as you need something in the outside world the first knowledge about yourself you have to leave are these. It can’t be what you eat, shop, or whatever you do in the open, for the same reason. Stay home if you do not want strangers to know it. But still, this is the knowledge Social Media companies use to provide your page with ads, or to sell to third parties with the same goal: to bombard you with advertisements you did not ask for. That’s what annoying us, that’s when we point to privacy-acts, and call for more and better regulations.

Further: privacy is also a matter of culture and history. Even when people are on holiday, privacy views change. They walk half-naked along the Costa’s, something they never would at home, in their own neighborhood. So, privacy differs, and changes per situation.

Our call for privacy though, means completely something else. What we really want is protection against being harass.

Well, you better get used to it, or change your feelings about it! Internet also interacts with our harassment feelings. It is from all times, that when you get something for free, it generally means that you have something to offer yourself as well, and the use of Social Media is free of any charge, except the offer they ask you for: Your privacy! If you don’t like it, don’t participate.

As I stipulated before, Internet is a truly free environment. Of course you need a provider (or become one yourself) to have access. It is not that you don’t need any investment to use it, but once you pass the gate, the world behind it, is free of charge if you know how to use it. Internet in itself, the environment, belongs to no one. It is an open world, but everyone uses it: some just for fun, others to make money, and those others are the ones who charge you, even when it is for free…

…to be continued…

The future is ours to see 5

Alone

It is not easy to understand today as part of history. We look back on a Golden Age, summarizing 100 years in one chapter, while we see the year’s just past – let’s say: pre-Internet – as already ancient, and not of our time anymore. The ones, who are not on the Net still, addressing as dinosaurs…

Our time will be summarized as well in future. One chapter for a period of just after WWII till a date still in the future: the time that evolution became revolution, the age of commerce, or a new mid-“evil” of individualism and selfishness?

A mix, I guess. An add-up of revolts, started in the late fifties. Highlights and conquers of technology, line-up with human de-socialization. A time mankind never saw before, not because of endless inventions, but mainly because of the fastest expansion of population ever, in combination with a growing disinterest in each other, and each others environment. The more people there are, the more possibilities to get in touch with each other, the more we focus on ourselves, become ego minded. Our own small environment, highlighted as the center of everything.

This is the time we live in, not the future, because if this consequently evolves mankind won’t survive. The less room we get for ourselves, the more we need, has no future. But what can turn the wheel we maneuvered ourselves in?

As said before, systems have to change. The way the world is ruled is still 19^th century, almost feudal, in spite of the fact that we generally address it as democracy.

I don’t want to start a political debate about what Democratos really meant. That is not the issue. It is not about elections, and who wants, or is in the possibility to be elected. It’s about the opposite, about the billions who have no saying, or almost too non influence on their future. It’s about 98% of the world’s population, getting more knowledge, are better informed, to accept that an upper-class rules for them. I don’t believe, however, that a repetition of the French Revolution is about to come. Revolts still may happen in the Middle-East, it is not the method to change systems anymore. There are other signs.

In spite of acts and governmental intentions, the interest in who is ruling is declining. People set their own rules, and again the Internet is a leading example. Even upper-class needs protection. They do things which they don’t want us to know, but the digital highway broadcasts everything. Secrets are no secrets anymore, and gossips become information in use by billions. The ones who are at the top today can fall tomorrow.

That is the future. In spite of who and what we are, we invented the Internet, allowing everyone seeing everyone naked as they are, and there is no system as we know it to cover such. The way our society is organized will change dramatically, and the answers are not in commercialization or institutionalization. They belong to the past. In future, nor enterprises, governments, or institutions will rule. In fact ruling itself is outdated. The widely spread individualization of today is just an exercise on the evolutionary ladder. People will more and more stop obeying and will find their own way to go. I know it is hard to imagine, but think of your selves, surfing and searching for new ways to express, new items to discover. It is from this daily behavior that future changes will be extracted.

…to be continued…