The WEF (World Economic Forum) declared that we are in the throes of 4th Industrial revolution. This means it will rationalise between Man and Machine, Software technology will bloom to support all systems (Elon musk and Stephen Hawkings caution us that we must not develop deep AI) and hence it will bring about a change in the world social order and hence the world economic order.
My opinion is that just by wishing well we will not be able to achieve change. I believe that we need a pivot or a central lever to harness this so called 4th Industrial revolution. I will at this instance insist that if we consider the semantic aesthetic of the word Industrial revolution it flashes in our head the system that we have build and live in now, An old world order of slave and master made to suit the present social balance, where droves of workers walk to the factory like the painting of L.S. Lowry. I believe and propose that we rename this to the 4th Economic wave.
Every economic wave needs a pivoting problem to solve, like the assembly line of Mr. Ford that opened the doors to mass production. At this moment thanks to the invention of Mr. Ford we have sped our lives and economy blindly in the direction of mass production and hence mass consumption which has led to the present challenge that earth is facing, Climate Change.
Climate change is real and human beings have been trying to find solutions to solve this challenge. We continue to make, remake institutions and create market instruments such as CDM, carbon fund etc to solve. We have been in an active phase of trail and error and finally arrived at carbon tax and carbon pricing as the real problem solvers. I support it simply because it draws the problem back to its source and begins the process of rationalisation.
These 6 slides were made 4 years earlier for a client called ThoughtWorks (TW) in which I introduce the idea of the 4th economic shift and also propose a process called "Mandala of Sustainability".
- click on the link below for more details of the 4th Industrial revolution and the good things it promises - http://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/11/5-ways-of-understanding-the-fourth-industrial-revolution/
- The ideas proposed here are an abstract and part of a book that I am working on titled "Mandala of Sustainability"
