What's it gunna be McFly? Are ya IN... or OUTT? (Third Industrial Revolution thoughts/reaction)

This 1 hour and 44 minute Vice special featuring Jeremy Rifkin, an economic theorist, laying out the road map for our third industrial revolution. Mr. Rifkin has written over 20 books on mostly dealing with technology, workforce, environment, and social aspects and the roles they have in our economy. Let me tell you, this guy... is fucking brilliant. Set aside all of your political views for this 1 hour and 44 minutes and listen with an open mind. This is not about the D or the R this is simply about what is right for us. He takes the time to set up all of the dangers that we are currently facing, food crisis, climate change, government inefficiencies, and then addresses them head on. The beginning of this will honestly make you feel like things are pretty bleak and hopeless. In all honesty things kind of are trending that way. Storms are continuing to grow and become more severe due to the increase in precipitation in our water cycle from global warming. Unemployment is going to continue to increase as we become more automated. We continue to contaminate our only source of food, the earth itself, which in consequence also pollutes our air. Continuing this way of life is obviously not sustainable.
Mr. Rifkin proposes a lot of very innovative and unique ideas that would significantly increase the productivity and efficiency of our society. Obviously all involving green environmentally conscious factors.
One of the major problems that he addresses is global warming and the energy crisis. It's unfortunate that this is still even considered an argument. We are already beginning to see and feel the repercussions of the changing ocean currents, increased water in our water cycle, and the severe weather that comes with it. The scariest part is this is just the beginning. It will get significantly worse for a long time before it gets any better. In order to begin reversing any of these things we need to significantly reduce the toxic waste that we produce while burning fossil fuels. We need to begin reversing the desertification and deforestation that we are causing. Our whole ecological balance depends on the balance of carbon that's in the air, vs. the carbon stored in the ground. More carbon in the air equals a higher temperature for the planet. One statistic that he throws out is, "For every one degree the temperature goes up on the planet, the atmosphere sucks up 7% more of the earths precipitation." He goes on to explain that those factors create larger, more concentrated and more violent water events. They are also more infrequent which means you have longer droughts which are then followed up by extreme rainfall which creates flooding and landslides. This is the beginning of the sixth extinction event of planet earth. In the next 70 years we could lose half of life currently on earth. All this and every year it continues to move faster than predicted.
It seems bleak and hopeless but of course there is a light. In the world that we live in with all the technology that we create on a daily basis, with the creativity and resilience of our world there is always a light. We are humans, although just babies on this earth we have had the greatest impact and have displayed the greatest abilities to manipulate and control our environment. We have hunted animals to extinction and we have even brought them back again in some cases. We have significant power and influence in the ecology of our world.
In order for us to achieve these things we are looking at what Rifkin calls the Third Industrial Revolution. In the transition of a major economy to another their are three major factors that Rifkin outlines; communication technology, new sources of energy, and new modes of mobility. All of these factors combine to move into a new economic system.
We have all the tools to move from our old economic system into the new Sharing Economy that we will soon come to be known. Matter of fact it is all the communication tools like the internet and social media, all our new modes of transportation and logistics with autonomous cars and even what we now send via the blockchain..... hint, hint, cough, cough..... Steem, that allow us be this new sharing economy.
The most controversial topic in all of this is the source of energy. Everyone knows our current energy system runs off of fossil fuel, even though it is highly inefficient and has a very high marginal cost. Marginal cost is a key component to the Sharing Economy. Marginal cost is essentially what it cost to produce something. Things like ride sharing, producing online content on social media platforms and alternative energy forms like solar, wind and gravitational energy allow us to operate at little to no marginal cost. The lower the marginal cost the more accessible.
One idea that Rifkin mentions is that each house is connected to another through an internet system. Essentially each house it's own node and its own producer of energy using alternative energy forms to power them. The power can be collected and then redistributed to other houses or areas that need more energy. I know that there are currently companies in the crypto space who are trying to set up systems where people can be paid to rent out their GPU space. In the sharing future you could be producing and selling your own energy. You would be your own Comed or Nicor. Once again low marginal cost and also helping solve and redistribute wealth.
The biggest worry in all of this is the infrastructure and the loss of jobs to automated systems and honestly I have to say while yes traditional jobs may be lost, other jobs and forms of income will present themselves offering us a much more healthy form of lifestyle. People could spend less time trying to answer back to emails and waiting for approval on projects that become outdated by the time they are approved. In order to complete all of these things there will be a significant to build all the infrastructure to support this. And all along that process we are educating a new workforce to manage and help operate these systems.
The Sharing Economy is the clearly the future for us. We have a long way to go and much planning to do. We have two road maps set out in front of us. The current one that ends in catastrophe, or the brighter one that lessens the blow that we will inevitably take, but can recover from. It all depends on what we are willing to address, what we're willing to accept as a serious threat, what we're willing to sit down and have a rational conversation about. The third industrial revolution is here, so we're going to have to decide..... Are we in... or out?