Our Current Financial System Will Soon Not Be Needed… Then Poof
It is really hard to imagine the future. This future particularly. Because we are not going where most people think we are going. Not the dystopian cyberpunk writers, nor the Elon Musks.
If you think the future is the Amish with smarter phones, you would kinda be right?
All those images of futuristic green covered cities won't exist. Just like all of those bladerunner-esk mega cyberpunk cities won't exist.
What will exist is self sufficient communities dotted all over the earth. Populations of around a 100 being normal, up to a thousand for some communities who need more people to build big projects, or keep refineries going.
The need for the giant cities disappears. The need for the giant bureaucracies disappears. Giant corporations disappears.
These things just aren't needed anymore. Like a giant power company (like PG&E with millions of customers that they fail to provide enough electricity to during hot summer months) is no longer needed when you can make your own electricity. Cleanly, simply, and enough for your community to do whatever they want.
What we consider assets today, will not be assets tomorrow.
People in the future will wonder how those barbarians thought that these things were valuable
Death to Corpse-orations
Businesses in the future will be a society affair. The community will focus on one or a few trade items to make. Do you believe people will sell parts of these off to unknown people? Selling "stock" in a company will seem ludicrous.
Manufacturing will be very decentralized. How would you sell stock in that? It will be more like everyone who owns stock today, will instead own piece of the manufacturing system tomorrow.
Funding through stock offerings is already on the way out. The real stuff today is being done by crowd funding.
The need for legal protection that you NEED a corporation for these days, will go away. With everyone in separate communities, there is no harm to a buyer that can be proven. People will have to take responsibility for their actions. Further, trust will be very important. So, feedback of a communities product will be decentralized and ensured. You will know what you are getting.
It isn't that corp(se)orations will be forced out, it is just that no need for them will exist.
However, BigPharma and the like are going to see pitchforks and torches.
Death to banking
Then ENTIRE banking industry is going away. Every part.
It is not just that bitcoin is bringing back real money, and you no longer need a bank account at a bank. It is something far more fundamental shifts, and the entire banking industry is just, no longer needed.
Investments will no longer exist as something you can just buy. Stocks, REITs, ETFs, will just cease to exist. And with that, the savings account, the CDs, the brokerage accounts and such will be gone.
The insurance scam. Where over half of the insurance fee just goes to salesmen. Where they argue with you, nickel and dimeing you to death, whenever you need to make a claim. And lacking any insight on actually helping the victim. All of this goes away in the future. It will be easier, and better just to have savings. It is not like the bitcoin loses value sitting in a savings account. And, when trouble does happen, people all around will be far more helpful than any insurance company has ever been. Further, most things we insure against will become meaningless with better construction techniques. (how about walls that instead of burn, actually suppress fires?)
Retirement accounts are just so much easier if you have deflationary money, and you can just park your money with no fees. The whole idea of needing 10% growth is only to counteract inflation. The whole idea of needing lots of money to retire is because we keep sending over half our currency to the banks to "pay" for our living abode. Houses will be paid for when they are built, and so, mortgages, and enough money to pay the mortgage become mute points.
Bonds from govern-cements who make nothing will be seen as ludicrous, as they rightly should be. No one will lend a govern-cement money when they KNOW that they can never pay it back. If people want a government program, they will donate, probably to some private firm, to enact that program.
The entirety of wall street, and their salesmen will be gone. Not closed down for crimes against the people. No top banksters jailed for fraud. It will just cease to exist because the reasons for its existence are gone.
Death to govern-cement
This is one of those weird things, where everyone believes that this all powerful entity will continue on to enslave everyone, but will just… disappear into history books.
Govern-cement exists by the will of the people. Only by supporting it, does it continue to function. However, govern-cements through their schools, have indoctrinated everyone to believe that they are important and necessary. And that the people should obey the govern-cement.
However, if we all just decided to stop paying taxes, there is little the govern-cement could do. And we will, soon. People will realize that the money they are paying the govern-cement is being spent on EXACTLY what they do NOT want. This also comes with cryptos coming mainstream, and people can hold their money, without banks just giving it to the govern-cement.
As people start forming into communities / families, the entire structure of govern-cement starts to feel unnecessary. The group is independent, doing its own to protect, provide, and settle disputes for itself. No govern-cement help wanted or asked for.
And this will cause one big problem for govern-cement. Now, the govern-cement isn't dealing with one person who they can easily bully. They are dealing with a group of people. And they will be dealing with groups of groups of people. The govern-cement loses if they ever try to use force.
The next piece is that the future holds many advances in defense. We all hear about drones and robot dogs with guns on their backs. And we think how scary. But, what if we turn this around? The govern-cement needs million dollar drones to fly long distances, with lots of fuel and ammo, and sensors and guidance… very expensive, very complex. To defend against this, how about a bunch of $10 drones carrying a metal wire net between them. All they have to do is get in the way, and the govern-cement drone falls out of the sky. You could also use sticky balls or even just bricks. And for ground defense, we can have turrets. The same AI as the dogs, but set in place with lots of armor. Able to recognize everyone that is supposed to be there. With lethal and non-lethal armaments. Or, just the most important thing, warning that someone has intruded. We could have 10 of these for every dog they build.
Death to all the old assets
What this you could say that the support literally falls out from under the market.
Not just a little bit, but all of it.
It is like people driving wheeled cars after flying cars are a thing.
The stock market stops being a thing. Yes, we will tokenize the stocks, but it will be short lived as corp(se)orations go away. Investing in the stock market stops being a thing.
Bonds will be gone, as no one will think that bond issuing corp(se)orations or govern-cement will have the ability to pay them back. And anything worth investing in, is worth donating to.
Rental properties stop being a thing as we acknowledge and take on the responsibility that every child born must have a home provided for them. The community will make sure all their community is housed. Who will be left to rent? Why would anyone rent?
Soon, the banks and all their derivatives will be gone. They are no longer needed. And as we find out more and more of their corruption, they will be no longer wanted.
Almost everything we consider an asset today will not be so in the future. The zoomers will live to see this change. The house of cards is already trembling, and then, seemingly all at once, Wall Street is gone.
A utopia, I have theorized that various civilizations that have left monuments and tombs, and such: one day the people were fed up and walked away. But that's only theory the four horseman of the Apocalypse might have gotten each and every one, a metaphor for mortality causes.
Hmmm...how many robots/robotics do you think will be in these small towns?
You are talking about some of evolution or change and some areas of the world will at different rates or not at all, choosing a different course completely.
It is a different idea and I look back on your 3d printing posts.
The really useful robots are ubiquitous and tiny. Like the timer that runs the sprinklers.
Defense robots will probably be hundreds, and most will just be sensors of some sort.
I was thinking of robotics to make products to sell, computing to have services or some such things.