Dear Mx. Politician,
Everything matters, each and every issue on the campaign trail, of course it all matters.
Everyone is equal, some are just more equal than others. This does not make anyone more than anyone else. In the same way, certain things matter more.
Like the economy and jobs. Everything else depends on this.
Big Tech and Politics
As we have seen over the past few years, Facebook and many other Big Tech companies have reaped great rewards from the chaos they helped create. They used to be friendly startups that wanted to change the world, and now they’re grown up adults with mean streaks.
It is no surprise that the world over, people are demanding change.
And it is a natural rising tide of sentiment, a rising force of indignation that finally overwhelms the populace and sparks revolution.
Revolutions can be of two types. The good ones are very good.
The bad ones today can be brutal. Revolutions can be likened to natural disasters, powered by human mass mania. Even a neutral pandemic like coronavirus is an orthogonal event with extremely non-linear consequences. Computer viruses have wreaked billions of dollars of damage, in greater orders of magnitude than even natural disasters like hurricanes and wildfires. A revolution in America would be bad.
Similarly, a “bad” AI is going to be Very Bad. As it is, AI is going to cause job losses to the tune of hundreds of millions of jobs in this decade alone. Most folks have no idea what kind of a tsunami is about to hit the human race.
While the media distracts with President Trump’s tweets, very important things like this are being ignored. Climate change has been another similarly ignored topic for far too long.
However, as politicians, you may not care about all these things we’re talking about, as much as you care about what will get you voted in. Or out. This is understandable. This is why we have also connected the dots for you.
Big Tech and Economics
As it stands, Big Tech is not helping anyone except themselves. In other words, they’re the takers, and they’re helping themselves to up to 50% and more of what the makers produce. For instance, restaurants are being treated in quite the inhumane way, folks like Door Dash take up to 40% to 45% of the revenue generated by a restaurant! Advertising costs on Facebook have increased dramatically the past few years, making it only affordable by the venture backed, or already rich.
BTW, how rich are we talking about? Society can only withstand so much “trickle-down” promises, when it is obvious that there is no trickle down. We will literally see a groundswell that is going to turn ugly if we don’t do something about this problem. It doesn’t take rocket science to see this, it is the stuff of revolutions and it has happened repeatedly throughout history across all civilizations. Of course, given that most don’t know their own history, they are doomed to repeat it.
How did we get here?
Capitalism vs Feudalism
There was a period of time, which kind of ended in the early 2010s when platforms like Facebook could be considered “friendly”. They proceeded to go from friendly to frenemies to outright enemies of the people and the state.
Feudalism as it turns out, is a type of capitalism. One can argue glibly against the perils of socialism while watching the monster of inequality grow – which has of course happened here in America and many other countries around the world – and has gotten us to where we are today.
Politicians today are all really pro-establishment, no one wants to be the bold one. So be it. Let us remember however: politics abhors a vacuum. The rise of Donald Trump and many other nationalist leaders around the world have a cause – no one cared for jobs and the people – they cared more about ideas about how things ought to be.
And this is happening again, now. This time, the deluge of unemployment is likely to be so big, that revolution is inevitable. And for all aspiring leaders, career politicians of our future: such a tidal change is in the offing. Make no mistake – we are going to lose hundreds of millions of jobs this decade to climate change and AI.
And politics abhors a vacuum.
Big Tech can’t be stopped without tech. Just like the coronavirus vaccine will involve a virus.
Without a way to unravel the network effect, the fragmentation of the Internet will continue to sustain data silos that the platforms will use to extract value from our economies. This data silo problem has not been solved for the past 30 years.
When the HTTP and WWW protocols first enabled the modern Internet, we all had hoped for a global village that brought the world closer and brought equal opportunities for all. This has not happened, clearly, and today there is an outright war for the customer – you and me – at the expense of our own societies.
The lack of an attribution layer and an associated Internet transaction settlement system has created the conditions for this data and AI warfare that we are seeing today – and this is just the beginning. With quantum computing around the corner, the world has no idea what is about to happen. We’re about to see trillions of dollars of value creation happen this coming decade alone. And it is very likely going to be concentrated at the very top. Again.
And the existing Big Tech guys already have non-linear power – the best AI and the best engineers working for them. They’re already worth trillions, and they’re growing at 30% year on year.
The New Economics and Politics 2.0
Aspiring political leaders: what if there was a way to change the status quo? What if this were technologically possible, suddenly, and what if we used this new invention to fix the world, to fix the Internet to begin with?
What if we suddenly launched an Internet-wide attribution and transaction settlement system?
What if we were suddenly able to create 1M businesses and 100M jobs globally within 10 years time?
What if we could entirely change the topic of political conversations to the economy, and jobs, to what always matters in the end?
What if we had a way to administer government programs such as job guarantees and Universal Basic Income, and any number of other such public benefits programs, all in a way that generated returns? What if we could track each cent spent, and track where each cent of value creation occurred, by who, and what they need to be paid?
What if we could create a true free market, and create a booming economy that propels itself in entirely regulations compliant and tax positive ways? What if we were to apply this technology to create jobs in the green energy and other virtuous regenerative industries?
What if we used this to fix the problems of scarcity, and distribute the abundance to anyone who wants to work for it, for themselves and for their families and communities?
This technology exists now, and we’re beginning to reach out to prescient political leaders around the world. We’re raising our hand and saying: we’re here to do our part.
Help us create jobs, better societies, and better outcomes for everyone.
Politics is Economics
It is no surprise that Trump won, and he is likely to win again.
Whatever the outcome this time, it is simply a reminder: it is always about the jobs. And when the economy seems to be booming, it really is hiding the structural changes that are about to give way, the cracks have been widening.
And when it gives way entirely, remember also: politics abhors a vacuum.
We’ve even figured out how to raise unlimited amounts of campaign dollars for any candidate. Time to get going. Reach out to us: [email protected], help us help you.
