(Twenty-minute read)

We all know when you look at what is happing in the world around us that the Fourth Industrial revolution as it is called is detaching us from what are the true realities of our world.

THE AI GIG ECONOMY IS COMING FOR YOU.

In this post, I am not going to regurgitate what is wrong but to suggest a practical solution to enable reattachment.

We have created a culture of distractions with us increasingly becoming disconnected from people and events around us, and increasingly unable to engage in long-form thinking or engagement.

Digital connections offer the illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship. We expect more from technology and less from each other.

Google, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, e-mail, messenger, Reddit, Imgur, work, Netflix, text messages… we distract ourselves instead of understanding how to be alone with our thoughts.

So, will we continue to be a distracted society with our notifications and hand-held devices?

Absolutely. It’s only going to get worse.

I think because the artifical- intelligence industry will run on the invisible labour of humans working in isolation.

Behind every trained profit-seeking algorithm is the erasing of any connection.  There is no accountability or service to our true needs or real opportunity to participate in our economies, doing away with time and chances to contribute.

There is no doubt that the internet has opened up a whole new world of content, connections and networking possibilities. The explosion of digital and social media has fundamentally changed the way we function, communicate and do business both on and offline.

Yet the technology that was supposed to connect us and bring us closer together actually seems to be having the reverse effect.

Social media encourages one-way communication, and combining this with depersonalization it is making us outside observer of everything from Climate change to political strife.

What we actually need for exponential growth is a network of transformational rather than transactional connections.

It’s about connecting in the right way, engaging in two-way conversations and sharing value with each other.

There is a simple solution that will not only generate billions but will spread the wealth in more equitable terms, reducing the costs of Social Care, reducing Political Crises, reducing our desires by purchasing our future needs.

All around the world Lotteries operate offering vast winnings under the pretext of spending their raises funds on good causes – from Sport to Social Care, from Education to Art but no matter how one looks about them and the good they might or might not be doing they do not direct attachment.

They are a tax on the poor.

What if?

We were to introduce alongside them an opportunity to invest in Citizens Bonds.

This would allow people to invest in their future, in their country, in their Health, in their education, in their environment, in their green energy, in each other costing as little as a lotto ticket, backed by world governments issued by the United Nation.

These Bonds should be non-tradable, but inheritable so their rewards shouldn’t be profitable on the backs of citizens

Investors would make all their money back and enjoy 10–20 per cent profit for their trouble on maturity. Instead of governments paying non-profits to deliver social services, they would pay investors a profit for making the investment on their behalf.

The governments would not be spending any less; they are just spending differently.

Governments would have to ante up, no matter the outcome because if you force investors to take a bath, they won’t come back next year. There would be no risk transfer. Making sure investors get paid, irrespective of the outcome.

People pay their taxes (and expect corporations to as well) in part because they want their government to deliver effective services to the people who need them.

Now I am aware that Social Impact Bonds have been tried but this bond direct tax dollars to bank profits instead of to a homeless person trying to get off the street.

Also, people are tired of seeing Aid going down the swanny because of corruption.

However, with Capitalist profits now disappearing underground with the help of algorithms people are no longer responsible for what happens in the market.

Because computers make all the decisions.

It comes to down harnessing the power of technology to gain advantages whilst trading. High-frequency trading allows large institutions to gain a small but notable advantage in return for providing vast amounts of liquidity into markets.

The foreign exchange market, for example, sees over $5 trillion of currency traded each and every day to hold the title as the most liquid market in the world and it is this staggering volume that creates small spreads that only offer material profit opportunities if they are traded in large volumes.

( I have song lyrical about algorithms, high-frequency trading, sovereignty wealth funds and they’re like in previous posts) there is nothing ethical about the relentless appetite for profit when it comes to high-frequency trading they operate in dark secret pools of data.

The point here is that very few of us are going to be afforded the opportunity to benefit directly Citizens Bonds will break the wall of injustice between those that earn their living with their hands against those who earn their living by subtleties.

For any future worthwhile we must build together.  We have broken the link with nature and it is time to change as we are all going to be called to account in the next 10 to 12 years.

Our brains can achieve things that are still beyond artificial intelligence.

It is as if nature “knows”

We have reached a tipping point on climate action, not climate change.

All of us must reattach to our own well being.

If that happens, it would transform our ideas about both physics and the mind.

Taxpayers are already paying billions to rebuild communities after climate-linked disasters. 

However, even if we manage to avert its worst effects if we are not directly attached to ours and the world’s well being. 

If the Earth Treated Us the Way We Treat the Earth as scary as things are now, it’s going to get much, much worse in the future if we don’t do something about it.

 

All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.