My 100-year-old self, a pig’s heart and my grandson

My 100^th Birthday celebration will take place about mid-century.  You’re all invited. It won’t be easy to reach that age.  My Dad passed away a few years shy of his 90^th.  But, I figure 100 is within reach with the help of a handful of highly skilled people and a lot of technology.

There’s a history of heart disease in my family.  So, I might have a new heart by then – one grown using my stem cells inside a pig or perhaps printed in a 3D printer. 

I may need the help of a home health aid, a robot that first analyzes what pharmaceuticals I need each day by means of a transdermal scan.  It will mix my drug cocktail of the day and administer it through a patch.  

My medication will keep my energy up and an artificial limb may keep me physically able.  I won’t be old and frail – just old.  And, that’s a good thing because my financial planner projected I would have been gone long before my 95^th birthday.  So, I’ll have to work. 

My commute will be comfortable.  A self-driving electric car dispatched directly to my home will pick me up.  Its batteries will be constantly recharged by a system embedded in our highways.  This service will be provided by one of the big three integrated transportation service companies – GM, Uber and Delta (nee Delta Airlines).  I won’t own a car and won’t care which of these companies takes me to work.  I’ll likely choose the one with the best rewards program.

Of course, all this assumes I can keep my skills up to date.  Lots of jobs will be gone by then.  Those wanting to work will have to be either smarter or cheaper than machines enabled by embedded sensors and big data analytics. 

Highly skilled labor will still be much in demand, of course.  If you’re the doctor who can implant my new heart or install my bionic leg, your financial rewards will be great.  Same goes for those who can create the algorithms that will keep modern society functioning.  And, the AI revolution will create lots of new jobs for the post-Millennial generation trained in robot repair, higher math or data analytics -- just not enough to replace the ones that will be lost.

Many Millennials will be unable to find work, as they will have been well educated for 20^th Century jobs.  Taxpayer dollars providing free college educations will have been wasted. 

No worries though.  The government will guarantee a level of income sufficient to maintain a middle-class lifestyle.  The industrial revolution that spawns this new economy will produce vastly more national income.  So, we’ll be able to afford a new, huge safety net. 

My grandson, Jake, will be gainfully employed having graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy (Class of ’48) and will be on his first tour piloting UAV’s in outer space.  This new network of satellite-based drones will act as a deterrent, capable of launching hypersonic rockets to take out the power grids of any country on earth, disabling their capability to make war or function as a modern society.  The operation of drones still flying within earth’s atmosphere to take out single human targets, like terrorists, will have been turned over to artificially intelligent fire control systems that will analyze data and evolve assassination algorithms consistent with the agreements reached by the industrialized world in the new Geneva Conventions. 

So, if I have to work, how will I earn a good income in this new economy?  Well, I was educated in the 20^th Century before the digital revolution.  So, I will still have skills that will be valued and can’t be replaced by artificial intelligence.  I know how to motivate, negotiate, persuade and coordinate. 

Try to get your robot to do that.

WHO WILL LEAD?

This Is Your Brain… This Is Your Brain in the White House

I am beginning to be glad I am such a dummy.  Have you noticed how the smart guys really screw things up?  All those smart guys in Washington got us into a war in Iraq.  Oops, no weapons of mass destruction.  All those smart guys on Wall Street bought into the mortgage mess.  Oops, the mortgages weren’t worth the paper they were printed on.  All those smart guys in the Silicon Valley convinced themselves that IPO’s of pre-revenue startups were a great investment.  Oops, the tech bubble bursts.

Ever since the Age of Reason, we have convinced ourselves that we are rational human beings.  The central concept is that reason should overrule emotion.   So, we rationalize everything, convincing ourselves that our rational mind is in charge.  Our leaders – government and corporate -- are no more or less immune to this phenomenon than are we.   To make matters worse, we are now converting our best reasoning into software, moving to a society ruled by algorithms. Wall Street runs their trading operations by computer.   Computers write news reports for Forbes magazine.  And, Wal-Mart’s computers automatically generate orders to their suppliers when their stock runs low.

Now, the math geniuses behind this trend are preparing us for robots that will clean our houses (think Roomba on steroids) and cars that will drive themselves. 

We can’t trust the tech industry with our credit card numbers.  Now, we are going to have them drive our kids to school?

All of this is going on within the context of recent studies of brain science that suggest we are not simply moved by math.  We are motivated by emotion and our success is a function of the human cocktail that blends both sides of the brain. 

Karl Albrecht, Ph.D

I had been thinking about this when someone sent me a link to Psychology Today’s website.  The blog post (Brain Snacks), written by Karl Albrecht, Ph.D. delineated recent presidents along the lines of the type of thinker they are.  It divided them into two spheres – left brain is Blue and right brain is Red.  And, it further identified the high concept thinkers (Sky) and the pragmatists (Earth).  So, there are four possible combinations. 

Dr. Albrecht is careful to disclaim any notion that he is certain of his analysis.  After all, he hasn’t examined the “patients”.  That said, he believes he has had enough opportunity to observe the style of recent presidents to reach some tentative conclusions.  Ronald Reagan was both a Red Earth and a Red Sky.  Bill Clinton, a Red Sky.  Big thinkers with a vision, he says. 

Not so, the current contenders to be our nation’s chief executive.  Obama, according to Albrecht, is a Blue Earth thinker while Romney is likely a Red Earth.  “If you’re hoping for a Reaganesque ‘new America’ narrative, for example, don’t hold your breath,”  says the good doctor.  “Whoever wins, it’ll be all about tools and tool belts.”

He goes a step further and claims that even the programs that the two candidates propose will not matter a whole lot.  “Very few of them will survive the first collision with the Congress and the lobbyists,” he says.  “Ultimately, what matters is the individual leader’s ability to deploy his or her particular kind of intelligence, and his or her cognitive orientation, in a way that can mobilize people and resources to get the big things done.”

George Friedman

I have reported on the writings of Stratfor founder George Friedman in the past (Hey, We Had a Deal... Didn't We?).  He has observed that we have had a crisis that gave rise to a strategic president who made big changes to the way we are governed about every 50 years.  Most recently, it was Ronald Reagan.  Friedman does not suggest any reasons that it’s 50 years.  He just makes the observation.

I had been hoping that the current crisis might give rise to a strategic presidency – one which would make big sweeping changes to our entitlement programs, our fiscal circumstance and our social policies -- someone who might shorten the 50 year cycle.  But, if Dr. Albrecht is correct, we’ll have to wait a little longer.  Pragmatists like Obama and Romney are not guided by ideology.  They focus on what can get done. 

What they can get done is important.  However, how they LEAD is more so.  Reagan was able to convince Democrats to vote against their own interests.  Clinton forged a path contrary to his party’s ideology on trade and fiscal matters.  Bush imprinted our nation with a new security paradigm following 9/11. 

So, what happens next?  Can either of the current candidates LEAD us to a more sustainable economic future?  Or, should we just find an algorithm to do the job?