Technology is Poised to Make Moot Many of the Most Contentious Social Issues of our Time

A couple days ago I explained how several exponentially increasing technological trends (solar power, blockchains, virtual reality, robotics, 3D printing, etc.) are just now achieving 1% adoption, or will very soon. One percent adoption may not sound like much, but breaking the 1% barrier means these technologies are now only 7 more doublings (2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 100) away from saturation.

And, adoption of these technologies doubles (or more than double) every year. So, by 2025, these technologies will be as ubiquitous as cell phones and microwave ovens are today. There is little to nothing that can or need be done to delay or accelerate their eventual dominance over our lives. The trend is established and all but unstoppable.

In today’s post I’d like to ponder some of the implications of that incredible fact. In particular, I’d like to explain how these technologies will make moot many of our most contentiously-debated social issues.

CARBON EMISSIONS

By 2025 and certainly by 2030, clean, reliable, distributed and dirt-cheap solar power will supply effectively all of the world’s energy needs. Consequently, today’s debates over carbon emissions and “clean energy” are already moot, we just don’t recognize it yet (because our minds can’t grok exponential growth and quickly the future will arrive).

By 2025, we’ll look back on today’s panic over carbon the same way we look back on the 1990’s panic over the hole in the ozone layer.

GUN CONTROL

Once 3D printers are as ubiquitous as microwaves and cell phones (by 2030 at the latest), we’ll all be “prosumers” rather than “consumers”, meaning that we’ll individually both PROduce and conSUME much of what we want and need. Need a new shoe lace or watch band or bracelet? Instead of going to Walmart or ordering one from Amazon and waiting days for it to arrive, you’ll simply download a computer program off of the Internet and hit “print”. A few minutes to a few hours later, you’ll have a brand new shoe lace, watch, bracelet or most anything else that you could want. While these printers will eventually be able to print out something as large as a house, they’ll focus on smaller household items at first.

And this includes...guns! In fact, 3D printable guns are already a “thing”. Though present versions are ugly and fragile, this will no doubt change in short order. Effective “assault rifles” will be 3D printable soon enough.

As a result, obtaining even advanced weapons in the near future won’t require visiting a store and undergoing a background check. Rather, it will be as easy as downloading a file to your computer and pressing “print”.

Will governments then “ban” the distribution of such undesirable computer files? Perhaps, but any such ban will be ineffective for several reasons. First, multiple court cases in the US have established that computer programs are a form of “speech” (they are just information, after all), and the US Constitution prohibits anticipatory suppression of speech. For instance, the US government can’t prevent your or me from publishing or possessing instructions for building a bomb. Why? Because...free speech. If it can’t even do that, how can it prevent me from publishing or possessing computer code detailing how to build a gun?

But more importantly, even in countries that don’t protect fee speech, any ban on “undesirable” downloads will be just as effective as the present “bans” on online gambling, porn, etc., which is to say...not effective at all. File sharing via the Internet is simply too easy and the contents of any file can be readily obscured via encryption, etc.

Might some governments attempt instead to seize and shut down file servers that offer these “undesirable” file downloads? Sure, but some jurisdictions (the ones that currently support online gambling maybe?) will readily harbor these file servers. Even if not, these files will be readily available on the “dark web” (just like child porn is readily available there today).

Regardless, thanks to uncensorable blockchains, would-be gun owners won’t even need to know how to navigate the dark web: Some anonymous person somewhere will simply post the program to print 3D guns onto an established and otherwise economically critical blockchain (where anyone can access and download it at will). Governments will be powerless to deny access to this file.

In short, the gun control debate too is already moot, we just don’t recognize it yet. By 2024, we’ll look back on today’s debates over gun control the same way we look back on the 1980’s debates over porn control. The Internet made controlling porn impossible. Blockchains and 3D printing will make controlling guns impossible.

“HATE SPEECH”, “FAKE NEWS” AND COPYRIGHT

Over the last couple of years we’ve seen multiple calls for book and website publishers to be more diligent in suppressing “hate speech” and “fake news”, and to protect copyright, or else face additional governmental regulation. Consequently, one might fear that the beautiful age when “I might disagree with what you say, but I’d die for your right to say it” has passed.

Fortunately, such fears are misplaced. In the quickly approaching age of open and uncensorable blockchains, anyone may post anything online, including anonymously, without fear of ex post facto censorship. “Take down notices” will be a thing of the past because taking something down from a blockchain is effectively impossible.

Consequently, just as soon as new intellectual property is released, anti-copyright “Pirate Party” types will anonymously publish it (books, music lyrics and perhaps eventually songs and videos themselves) online to established and economically-critical blockchains and/or decentralized file sharing services. Copyright infringement, hate speech and fake news will be impossible to stop or to effectively punish. (I may discuss the implications of this in a future post, but suffice it to say that humans will be forced to grow up and discern for themselves rather than relying on governmental or corporate overlords to tell them what’s true. Critical, logical thinking skills will be THE MOST IMPORTANT SKILL in the near future).

The age of censorship and copyright is past, we just don’t know it yet. Again, we’ll soon look back on today’s debates over censoring hate speech and fake news the same way we now look back on the 1980’s debates over censoring porn.

UNEMPLOYMENT AND MINIMUM WAGE

Many have already noted how artificial intelligence and robotics will potentially lead to mass unemployment over the next couple of decades (for instance, self-driving cars and truck will make truck, taxi and Uber drivers a thing of the past) as these technologies put people out of work more quickly than they can be trained for new work. However few have recognized that 3D printing will exacerbate this challenge. When people can print many basic household items at home on a 3D printer (which will be as ubiquitous as microwaves), we no longer need people to manufacture those items remotely and transport them to our homes. Million and millions of jobs currently depend upon manufacturing and transportation.

The days when politicians or economists can manipulate employment by “juicing” the economy are over.

ROLE OF REGULATORS

As more and more of the economy moves onto blockchains (where it will be possible to safely exchange value with anyone else in the world at any time anonymously and privately and without anyone’s permission), taxation and regulation of commerce will be increasingly difficult.

Some governments will first attempt to regulate at the edges of blockchains (that is, the on ramps and off ramps where blockchains connect to the legacy financial system), because that’s all they can effectively do, but this regulation will make the legacy system even more lumbering and uncompetitive and will therefore incentivize the faster adoption of blockchains. It will also incentivize people to avoid these onramps and off ramps completely, hastening the day when blockchains are a closed, self-sustaining, un-regulatable economic ecosystem. When both your earnings and your expenses are paid in cryptocurrency, with little or no need to ever convert to fiat currency, then regulating the on and off ramps will be meaningless. And regulation of such ramps in the meantime only hastens the dawning of that day.

The days of government-regulated commerce are over, we just don’t know it yet.

INCOME TAX RATES AND “WEALTH TAXES”

Furthermore, when value can be transferred among people anywhere in the world securely, anonymously, privately and without permission, and when it can be stored in ways that can’t be effectively seized by governments, taxing income or wealth becomes exceedingly difficult. Taxing sales is also impossible: How is the government going to collect sales taxes on the new shoe laces or bracelet that you just printed on your own 3D computer?

We know from history that people have little or no reluctance to evade taxes when they safely can. Just look at Greece or most third world countries, for example. And even here in the US, how many waiters, waitresses or golf caddies report all of their cash tips? Perilously few.

In short, the world’s underground economy is already enormous and, in an age of ubiquitous blockchains and 3D printers, it will quickly become the dominant one. In a relatively short period of time (a decade or two form now), governments will lose trillions tax revenues as the world transition to the new un-taxable economy.

Consequently, to preserve their existence, governments will be forced to adapt. At first they will simply raise tax rates on legacy (non-blockchain) economic activity to make up for the shortfalls resulting from the growing underground economy, but this will just make the legacy economy even more uncompetitive vis-a-vis the new one and accelerate the complete triumph of the latter. Higher taxes on the legacy economy will just exacerbate its death spiral.

Eventually, rather than taxing sales and income, governments will be forced instead to tax hard, trackable assets like real estate. However, when even title to real estate is conveyed via blockchain rather than the government’s records, how will governments enforce their tax liens?

Supposing they even can, then the higher taxes on physical assets will simply make digital alternatives even more appealing and hasten their adoption. For instance, why travel to Europe and pay very high property and travel taxes (embedded into hotel and airfare rates) when you can instead have a far cheaper, hyper-realistic, and much more fantastical experience visiting Europe in “virtual reality”?

In short, the day when governments can tax with impunity has already passed, they just don’t know it yet.

THE WELFARE STATE

With its ability to tax greatly diminished, governments will struggle just to service debt and provide even basic services. Consequently, the days of the welfare state are already past, we just don’t know it yet. You can no longer rely on a social safety net to protect you.

DATA GATHERING AND SHARING

In the future blockchain world, you (rather than Facebook or Twitter) will control and own your identity and your own data. You will decide who gets to know what about you and when. You, rather than some centralized credit agency, will be able to sell verifiably accurate data about yourself (or about your various online identities) to marketers, demographers, advertisers, etc.

You will have options to transact or communicate online anonymously, pseudonymously, openly, or all of the above depending on the circumstances. In fact, you’ll likely have multiple online identities (think of them as virtual identities) that will be very difficult to trace back to you personally. Nonetheless, each one will have its own “social reputation score” and “credit score”, both determined under transparent algorithms encoded in the blockchains you choose to use (rather than via proprietary corporate algorithms). If you troll, treat people poorly, or don’t provide value to others, expect the blockchain life to be a difficult one for you.

Instead of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc., you’ll use decentralized social media blockchains (like Steemit.com), where you’ll be able to post whatever you want whenever you want, and where you’ll be directly rewarded with cryptocurrency for posting good content (or have your reputation score punished for posting bad content). Rather than your data and posts making Zuckerberg rich, it might instead make you enough money to buy a few nice dinners each week or take a nice vacation a couple times a year. The most ambitious and talented among us will become wealthy freelance social media stars.

The days of credit reporting agencies and centralized social media sites (like Facebook) owning and controlling your data are past, they just don’t know it yet.

CORPORATISM AND CRONY CAPITALISM

When combined, blockchains, 3D printing, solar power, etc. decentralize most everything. They eliminate (or at least greatly reduce) the need need for (and power of) centralized rule making, centralized law enforcement, centralized record-keepers, centralized manufacturing, centralized energy suppliers, etc. Consequently they free people and markets to an extent never before dreamed. The influence of all “middle men”—governments, banks, brokerage firms, regulators, distributors, manufacturers, energy producers, utilities, etc.—is greatly reduced and eventually made moot.

Not only do these technologies make the centralized, crony-capitalist corporate business model irrelevant, they make the entire corporate governance structure itself irrelevant, replacing it with with DAOs—Decentralized Automated Organizations running on voluntary blockchains.

The days when rent-seeking corporate board leaders can conspire among themselves (and with government officials) to limit competition and feather each other’s pockets are long past, they just don’t know it yet.

CONCLUSION

Over the next decade or two, your world will change to an extent never before seen in human history. A convergence of technologies will remake our society from the ground up. The dominant institutions of our culture—the government and the marketplace—will be disrupted in ways that we’re only now beginning to comprehend.

For many, the above may sound like a dystopian vision of the future. But that’s true because I’ve only explained how these new technologies will disrupt our old governance structures and coping mechanisms without explaining how they will also provide potentially superior alternatives. Perhaps the potential of these technologies will be the subject of a future essay. For now, just know that we need to prepare quickly for these changes because they will be here far sooner than we expect, and they will have a nearly incomprehensible impact on our lives.