Cyber Socialism

::: nBlog :::

It is already 32 years ago when I was first presented with a comprehensive view of the connected future, with refrigerators automatically ordering milk and walls acting as touchscreens. Self-driving cars were just around the corner and fusion energy would make energy free; people would soon live in peace and harmony, happily without work obligations. The state would take care of us.

The prophet here was my physics teacher, a prolific writer and hobbyist philosopher. Having just hacked together  my first computer- and radio-controlled model car I was enthusiastic. My adulthood would be super cool with this technology immersion!

During those golden 80‘s, the Finnish education system was somewhat left-leaning, which mostly appeared as emphasizing the virtues of the Soviet system against the cold capitalist West. The political view at home was strongly the latter, so I got quite mixed messages. Puzzling and thought-provoking it was for the 12-year-old me.

Now in 2015 when everyone is talking about the Internet-of-Things, these dogmatic future views are stronger than ever, giving me somewhat cold vibes. Self-driving cars are again almost here, robots will pervade our homes and offices, and artificial intelligence systems such as IBM Watson will change everything. These predictions are inherently – yes – socialist, as they make far-reaching and rigid assumptions about how people should think and act.

The strongest lesson from my passion for technology has been that most of these future predictions fail, as non-deterministic innovation generates totally unexpected models for business and life in general. In other words, people have the resources (computing, data storage, raw materials, global delivery etc.) more available than ever before. This radically increases the pace of innovation.

This is why we must always prepare for the uninvented, and continuously adapt. Just like our BaseN Platform has always been designed to do.

//Pasi