Finally, we are seeing the trend reverse course.
Technology has helped humanity in ways we never imagined a could hundred years ago. This medium is responsible for more advancement over the past century than the entire course of human history before that.
Unfortunately, this came at a price. There was a trade-off for the advancement.
Over the last 100 years, the nation-state became more powerful. It is now possible to listen in to every conversation that takes place within a country. Social media sites provide a wonderful way for people to interact yet they became arms of the surveillance state. Killing today is more precise and can be done from most anywhere in the world.
All this led many to speculate that we are moving towards a technological dystopia.
While that was the path, we can see the trend reversing course. Open source software that is tied to peer-to-peer systems is expanding. The use of these systems is growing on a daily basis. Over the next few years, we are going to see products that make it rather difficult for the present models to exist.
We see decentralized messaging applications that encrypt the data to provide anyone secure capabilities. Cryptocurrency now allows any individual to send money to anyone else, directly, without the use of a central server nor a centralized institution. A bank effectively can exist on one's mobile phone providing services that suffice for 90% of all customers.
The next decade should see rapid progress in this direction. We are only now starting to see enough programmers involved to make a significant difference. Applications are showing up that are providing alternatives to the present system. This is all going to allow for even greater breakthroughs as people experiment and test our different ideas.
Greed is a powerful human emotion. It is ground in the fear that spreads as a result of a scarcity system. Technology is starting to alter that. For the past few decades, we witnessed a few areas that experienced abundance. This is only going to expand.
Peer-to-peer networks were the original idea of the Internet. Unfortunately, for many reasons, this was lost as centralized entities started to take over. One of the main reasons was the speed of the systems. Centralization was much faster. It also allowed the power players to maintain control.
We are starting to see billions pumped into decentralization. Peter Thiel was one of the co-founders of PayPal which provided one of the first Internet payment systems. Last year, he invested an undisclosed sum in BlockOne which is behind the development of EOS.
https://www.coindesk.com/peter-thiel-bitmain-co-founder-invest-in-eos-developer-block-one
There is a lot of money flowing into this space and Wall Street is still basically on the sidelines. When that dam breaks, the flood of money will further stimulate development, accelerating the process.
Certainly, there are still a lot of barriers to overcome. One is the creation of a digital identification system. This is sorely needed. With this, we should see the shift to people being able to own their data. That is the new "oil" according to many.
A monetary system based upon scarcity is always going to favor just a few. With one that is shifting towards abundance, we can see much improved results. Getting things established to the point where adoption rates and the network effects kicks in is vital.
We are still going to be mired in the abyss for a while. Things are not going to change over night. There are two reasons for this. The first is that development takes time. This is something that we just need to be patient with.
The second is even a longer process. It is the change in human behavior. This will take some time before people start to pull their money from the fractional reserve banking system or ditch the likes of Facebook and Twitter. It will happen, just not in the next 90 days.
There are a lot of reasons to be optimistic. As technology progresses and more people are working on and in the peer-to-peer environment, we can see how things are going to change. The control that the established entities have is going to slip away. Open source helps to foster an environment where technological breakthroughs occur at an increasing pace. This is what is most exciting.
I am anxious to see a day where technological progress can be made on a wide scale without enormous trade-offs taking place on the individual level. This is something I feel we are on the edge of.
The next few decades will be a reverse of what we experienced in the last half century. Technological progress will move us closer to utopia as opposed to dystopia.
And that is a welcome shift.
If you found this article informative, please give an upvote and resteem.
