The evolution of technology and our financial system means that each one of us is like a mini corporation. The financial system that we all live in already treats us like a lump of money. Just like how annuities like life insurance work– you deposit a lump sum of money, and some company agree to pay you a guaranteed income for a set period of time — or for the rest of your life. Our skills and abilities are like an investment sum of money that makes us money and tax is then sliced out of it. How much somebody is worth depends on market conditions and their ability to negotiate in the system. On the other hand, our expenses are the things we spend on.
Because of technology, this concept is going to become more and more in our face. Just like social media forced each one of us to learn how to act like a media company or hire someone to teach us, block chain technology will go one step further and eliminate even more slack. Dubbed the Internet of Value, blockchain is going to change how we record and exchange value. Block-chain is already used to generate crypto-currency. Bit coin and hundreds of other currencies are becoming more and more popular. In time currency as we know it will no longer be tracked by a central authority, like a central bank that controls the money supply. Instead all currency will be maintained via a vast network of computers.
Just like credit card payments changed our relationship with spending, blockchain will do that too. For example, right now youtube views do not in and of themselves generate money. Money comes from advertising revenue or sponsorships. With blockchain, the possibility exists that page views instantly convert to value that is then exchangeable with actual things. The speed of connection as well as the value of connection will both become economically tradeable.
In the past technology has changed how we look for satisfaction, as well as how we engage with products or services, and what we pay with. Hypothetically speaking, the amount of time that we spend on facebook, going through news feeds and friends posts is a potentially economic activity that can be monetized and generate money.
Social media changed our definition of work versus social time. Now anybody who wants attention for their product, looks into social media. Anyone looking to sell their books or ideas tries out social media. Social media generates a huge amount of revenue even though it is free for users. The demarcation between free and paid is going to be more fuzzy –it has already become fuzzier for reasons that I will talk about in a separate article.
Blockchain implies that many of our activities can create value for us in a variety of ways. There are many possibilities for blockchain applications and crypto currency is just one of them.
The changes in technology means that each one of us is going to have to act like a mini corporation. We will have many possibilities for earning an income. Our free time is going to be under more pressure than ever before. If ever there was a time that forces each one of us to understand who we are and what we want from life, it is now. Given the near constant pressure to create wealth as well as the matching pressure to spend it, we will feel generally feel more psychological pressure. Our threshold of happiness will be higher, even though the number of people we are competing with for the same happiness is even more. We will act in more selfish ways, maximizing our personal gratification and since this way of living is psychotic, we will turn to religion and spirituality to soothe our near constant sense of separation from each other. We will reach desperately to find our tribe and yet feel more isolated than ever before, as the conditions of belonging to any tribe will be ever more stringent. In our hyper connected world where connection is value, our sense of belonging will be even more conditional to the kind of value we are perceived to provide.
We will rely more and more on our devices and the reactions of complete strangers to live, work and belong. Our world is going to get even more psychotic than it already is. If there is hope it will be that we realize the value of authentic friendships and real connection.
This small device–just a phone is our most reliable companion. People criticize phones because they separate people. When most of us are so broken, the only person who would want to spend time with us is a phone.
Behind The Veil 