I am going to start with the Globalization 4.0 article I have come across recently on the World Economic Forum. World Economic Forum used Globalization 4.0 term as a basis for the Davos meeting of people of influence:
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/11/globalization-4-what-does-it-mean-how-it-will-benefit-everyone
Founder and Executive Chairman of World Economic Forum, Klaus Schwab, argued the following:
»The unprecedented pace of technological change means that our systems of health, transportation, communication, production, distribution, and energy – just to name a few – will be completely transformed. Managing that change will require not just new frameworks for national and multinational cooperation, but also a new model of education, complete with targeted programs for teaching workers new skills. With advances in robotics and artificial intelligence in the context of aging societies, we will have to move from a narrative of production and consumption toward one of sharing and caring.
Globalization 4.0 has only just begun, but we are already vastly underprepared for it. Clinging to an outdated mindset and tinkering with our existing processes and institutions will not do. Rather, we need to redesign them from the ground up, so that we can capitalize on the new opportunities that await us, while avoiding the kind of disruptions that we are witnessing today.
As we develop a new approach to the new economy, we must remember that we are not playing a zero-sum game. This is not a matter of free trade or protectionism, technology or jobs, immigration or protecting citizens, and growth or equality. Those are all false dichotomies, which we can avoid by developing policies that favor “and” over “or,” allowing all sets of interests to be pursued in parallel.
To be sure, pessimists will argue that political conditions are standing in the way of a productive global dialogue about Globalization 4.0 and the new economy. But realists will use the current moment to explore the gaps in the present system, and to identify the requirements for a future approach. And optimists will hold out hope that future-oriented stakeholders will create a community of shared interest and, ultimately, shared purpose.«
Vision presented in this document in many ways addresses Klaus Schwab concerns. As he points out, clinging to an outdated mindset and tinkering with our existing processes and institutions will not do. Furthermore, as he continues, this is not a matter of free trade or protectionism, technology or jobs, immigration or protecting citizens, and growth or equality.
In reality, we are not faced with the Globalization 4.0 problem, the globalization term is too narrow to address the massive change it started to emerge. In fact Globalization already is an obsolete term. From my perspective, we are witnessing the rise of the Civilization 2.0.
But Klaus Schwab points out political conditions are standing in the way of a productive global dialogue and the new economy. Correct point of view would be, our present Civilization 1.0 is standing against the rise of Civilization 2.0.
Unfortunately, as history teaches us, old paradigm have to be burned, to give a space for a new paradigm to emerge. Like Phoenix, the bird from Greek mythology, that cyclically regenerates and is born again from its own ashes.
People fear technology. They fear for their jobs, technology is going to take away from them. It remains inscrutable to them, that technology is a natural phenomena. Technology is a part of the evolution.
Even transhumanism, feared and mostly demonized trend is a part of the evolution. To defend my preposterous claim, let me go back to our history, when we have been given a brutally clear trajectory to transhumanism. I am going to assume that readers of this document are enlightened enough, and have watched Arthur C. Clarke Sci-Fi classics, Space Odyssey 2001. There is a famous scene, Dawn of Man, when hominid, reprogrammed by mysterious influence of monolith (computer) realizes the power of tools – bone in this case.
I argue that the Dawn of Man scene also marks, perhaps even more important, the dawn of transhumanism. Like in modern definition of trans-humanism, Hominid suddenly became aware of limitation of the mortal body. Dawn of Man scene is a first successful attempt to overcome the limitations of our flesh body with the help of technology.
Today, fear we are witnessing is about the realization that technology can do better at certain areas. Since dawn of man, humanity embarked into the two parallel tracks. Evolution of body, known to men in modern science, and evolution of transhumanism, how to overcome limitations of our own body with the help of tools. Those two parallel tracks are coupled, but the level of progress for each track remains significantly different.
We might say, the progress of technology is gaining incredible momentum, it is almost at the state of the explosion. The reason is, we are approaching the limits of one technology, namely limits of our flesh bodies. Let me add here, we are still far away from the limits of our flesh body. But the fact remains, we are witnessing today the capacity of technology, which seems to have less limits. Transhumanism could help us to merge capacity of both approaches, flesh and technology into the more effective synthesis.
All the problems we are faced with as a civilization trace their roots in the fact that our way of life is entirely alienated from how we are expected to live. We follow wrong narrative, we fail to understand that we are the part of the system called the planet Earth or even bigger system called the Universe.
Civilization 2.0 is about how to correct this wrong narrative. But not before we do not eradicate the biggest mistakes of Civilization 1.0 like patriarchy, our adherence to the false belief systems and our fragmentation, based on cultural, racial differences and other differences. We already passed a pivotal point of no return, where small fixes and adjustments are not going to eradicate the problems, this is the Klaus Schwab concern and it has become painfully obvious.
With explosive advancement of technology we are witnessing every day, the gap between our Civilization 1.0 parading compared to the possibility Civilization 2.0 can deliver to us is getting bigger and bigger. Abyss is getting bigger and bigger.
To really transform our lives we will need to include those who were artificially suppressed until now. Enlightened women thinkers for example. They are the ones who are going to envision how to live in harmony with the planet, with the Universe and with the technology. Why women today don’t have equal opportunities? Because mercenary economy based Civilization 1.0 has been envisioned by men, it is patriarchy driven society. Civilization 1.0 is not natural for women, and it is not natural for the entire planet.
Civilization 2.0 is going to be envisioned by women. And technology is going to support them. Because on the end we are about to discover, technology is our allay, not foe.
What about globalization, why I believe it already is an obsolete term? Globalization happened because it has been fueled by greed. It has been powered by migrating manufacturing facilities to the areas with less expensive work force, with less human rights, less environment concerns. It has been driven by possible increase of a profit and by mercenary economy. Mercenary economy by default is a landmark of a patriarchy based economy.
But globalization has yielded another, perhaps even more important global effect, namely knowledge entropy. In only few decades, China, once already a mighty power of advanced knowledge, could catch up with the West. Suddenly knowledge is not only in the domain of western civilization and this raises eyebrows of western civilization which has been used to dominate knowledge and technology on a global scale. History teaches us about raise and fall of all great civilizations.
Another important factor in knowledge entropy plays internet which has brought to the humanity easy access to the knowledge vault of entire humanity.
To summarize, we already entered the era, which is going to be shaped by the high tech technology and knowledge entropy has already happened. Knowledge is spreader around the globe in more uniform way than ever before. Accessible knowledge is the first step, which might lead us to the harmony.
A year ago I wrote about IT vision idea, I called this vision a Project Concordia. Roman goddess Concordia is described with the following words: “She was depicted as a matronly woman, veiled and heavily draped, holding an olive branch, emblematic of peace, and a cornucopia, to symbolize the abundance that can be achieved when people work together in harmony. “
Idea behind project Concordia was my intention to connect people and all other business subjects doing their business. They should work in harmony and they should create abundance. Project Concordia could be also seen as an entropy with indealistic goal to connect the entire Globe into a single enterprise.
I believe entire Civilisation 2.0 is going to be based on a similar Goddess Concordia paradigm. Civilization 2.0. is about how to connect people to create abundance and our technological progress to reach the stars. Abundance created in harmony with humans and by technology is going to free those who were oppressed until today.
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