Trump will never be President again
Today was another historically bad day for Trump. Congress will order Trump to testify before before the January 6th Committee about his role in leading the insurrection. The Supreme Court refused to intervene in the investigation against Trump for stealing and hiding classified Top Secret documents, many of which remain unaccounted for. The State of New York filed an injunction to stop the Trump Organization from continuing their fraudulent real estate business practices. America is sick and tired of the divisiveness brought and fed by Trump. Americans are not happy with Biden, but would elect a chimpanzee over Trump. The majority of people had enough of Trump. It's time to move on.
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The future is predictable. Our ability to predict the future depends on our processing capacity to analyze all possible present variables affecting a future outcome. The closer in time and the less variables involved, the more accurate the prediction. Conversely, the farther away in time and the more variables involved, the less accurate the forecast. When it comes to investing, you can bet that certain sectors, countries, and regions will continue growing strong in the next few decades. Sample sectors include, but are not limited to renewable energy, artificial intelligence, and financial technology. Sample countries and regions include India, South East Asia, South America, and Africa. Fortunes will be made (and lost) pursuing the almost unlimited investment opportunities that will arise in the future. Challenges will include natural disasters, wars, and the standard politics enforced by religion, or even worse, by authoritarian force.
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Predicting the future
Culture tells you that "no one can predict the future". If you repeat that statement long enough, you end up believing it. That is a limiting belief that makes you dumb and dumber. Free your mind and do not become a victim of silly cultural beliefs. To a large extent the same applies to blindly believing in religious or political dogmas developed by primitive humans millennia ago. If you decide to live your life today based on ridiculous myths crafter by primitive people, you are wasting your life and the advantages presented to you in the information era. Just an appetizer to think about.
Every time you hear someone saying that such and such is the plan of god, you should ask yourself, even if fully respectfully, which god? The one invented by who and when? Invariably, when you trace back the origin of that god, you go back millennia. At the end (or beginning) you find the origin of the myth coming from the creative minds of primitive men. Do you really want to live your life according to mythical rules invented by primitive men millennia ago? Realize that the people who crafted those myths knew significantly less than you, and had significantly less access to scientifically corroborated knowledge. Just saying.
The same applies to not buying into the cultural notion that the future is unpredictable. What we call the future is the aggregate result of all the variables making up the "time zero" or present time. Take the weather for example. Although we cannot predict the weather with 100% accuracy too much in advance, our accuracy increases the closer we get to the time being forecasted. Our ability to predict the future approaches 100% accuracy as the event approaches "time zero" or the present.
For sure, humanity cannot predict the future with 100% accuracy yet. And of course, the farther in time we want to predict, the less accurate the forecast. This is not because the future is unpredictable. It is simply that we lack sufficient processing power and intelligence to discern the combined effect of all the different present variables that will create the future.
Our inability to predict the future is temporary. Just as our ability to simulate and forecast the weather has improved as we have increased our computational and simulation capabilities, our ability to predict the future will continue increasing overtime as we keep increasing computational capacity and simulation intelligence.
As we develop more processing and simulation capacity, we will be able to make better predictions about everything in the immediate and nearby future. Eventually, a super intelligence will be able to predict the near future with significant accuracy, even if not 100% certainty. We are far from that moment, so for now we have to rely on educated guesses.
Renewable energy will continue growing.
Renewable energy will not replace fossil fuel anytime soon. However, it will continue growing strong in parallel importance. Burning fossil fuels is for the planet what smoking is for people, a killer. Fossil fuel burning will continue, but it will become more expensive, more regulated, and less appealing overall. Again, you can compare it to smoking.
Governments, industries, and consumers will demand cleaner alternatives to the fossil fuel "smoking" that is warming up and messing up our planet. While most countries will continue burning fossil fuels to produce energy to power their economies, they will increase their investments in cleaner technologies (e.g. advanced filters) and renewable sources of energy. Almost everything that is powered today with fossil fuels will have a cleaner and greener alternative growing in parallel alongside.
Digital intelligence
Digital intelligence, also known as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning is a nonstop trend that will continue shaping our future. Digital intelligence or AI may look like magic to many, but is really just an aggregation of big data (lots and lots of digital data) following simple and repetitive algorithms.
AI and machine learning are not that much different from biological intelligence and human learning. We are essentially organic computers. Our brains are data processing machines. A simple yet not scientific way of visualizing what life does and how it process data is to think of the binary electromagnetic algorithm of attraction and repulsion. Every cell in our body seeks or is attracted to a positive energy state, which we identify as pleasurable. Conversely, every cell in our body avoids the negative energy state that we identify as painful.
Of Pain and Pleasure
Digressing a little, let's repeat a common theme of TakeSlap.com. The binary pain / pleasure mechanism controls everything in this dynamic experience that we call life. All living organisms, including humans, are programmed by evolutionary happenstance to avoid pain and seek pleasure. It is not design; it's evolutionary happenstance.
Survival traits, or traits that statistically promote survival, are passed or inherited from one generation of survivors to the next. Imagine that there are two groups of animals. Say for example that one group finds pleasure in increasing its energy state by feeding and eating food. The other group finds pleasure in decreasing its energy state by avoiding food and starving to death. Which group survives, procreates, and passes on its feeding trait? Of course, the group that finds food pleasurable survives and procreates.
Since we are the offspring of those who enjoyed food, we inherited that trait and thus enjoy eating. Does that make sense? It should if you live in America, which from land of the free and home of the brave, has turned into land of the obese and home of the brave. We descend from humans who were addicted to food. We have so much of it around that we need our intervention to save us from our collective food addiction. We are becoming fatter and fatter every year. Word to the wise: eat less to live more.
Human predictability
We are programmed to seek pleasure and avoid pain. That simple binary algorithm explains the totality of human conduct and can predict human behavior. What is tricky in humans is that we can associate physical pain with mental pleasure and vice versa. Although it is 100% predictable that the human will seek pleasure and avoid pain, the uncertainty lies in knowing what a particular human will associate as pleasurable or painful in any given situation.
For example, we can predict that Americans will continue getting fatter, but that does not necessarily mean that we can predict that a particular person will gain weight next year. Unless we know all the variables affecting the human's thought process in a particular instance, we can't tell what the person will label as pleasure or as pain. Of course, the more we know the person, the more predictable the person is. Take for example Donald Trump. By now, he is probably the most predictable human alive today because we have studied his past conduct and know most of his pain / pleasure mental associations.
Digitalization
Returning back from the intellectual regression above, it is predictable that humanity will continue developing and relying on inorganic data processing machines (computers and robots) to expand our data processing and intelligence capabilities. Those with the most processing power and intelligence will dominate the world. No wonder China and the United States are in an AI race at the moment. The future belongs to the nations and companies that can develop the most powerful AI systems on Earth. You can bet on it. There is a lot of money to be made (and lost) investing in technology. Count on it.
Everything around you will be digitized to be processed by digital computers running aggregate learning programs. Eventually, the mega massive aggregation of zillions over zillions of sensory data by interconnected computers will resemble what we call consciousness.
You can bet that the future will bring an expanded consciousness comprised of organic data processing machines like humans coexisting with inorganic data processing machines like almost sentient robots. You can also bet on a gradual integration of humans and robots into cyborgs. This will lead to advances in medicine, specifically genetic software engineering that will significantly expand individual lifespans on Earth. That is a scary proposition in and of itself. Imagine if Putin and Trump could live 200 or 300 years. I think that we can all agree that they will both die in the next decades.
Financial technology
In predicting the near future, you can bet on increased expansion of financial services worldwide. Financial technology refers to innovative tools and methods for the provision of financial services. Finance is about the handling of money. Money is a "technology" (tool and method) invented by humans to facilitate trade. Money keeps changing and evolving as the economic needs of society keep changing and evolving. In some civilizations, cacao beans were money. Today, digits on computers serve as money.
Money facilitates the quantification of economic value (i.e. how much something is worth); facilitates the payment of debts (i.e. satisfaction of financial obligations); and facilitates the storage of value for future use (e.g. like having "money" in the bank). Money can be seen as a promise-based permit. That is, money can be seen as a permission to engage in certain economic activity based on a promise to pay.
Different economic systems assign monetary privileges differently, based on different considerations. Capitalism, for example, assigns the economic privileges of money to those who already have money or can acquire it. Socialism assigns privileges to members of the society in general (i.e. legal citizens). Communism assigns the privileges to the members of the "community" (ruling political party). Racism assigns the privileges based on the construct of ethnicity or race. Elitism assigns privileges based on socio academic status (class). So and so forth.
Digital money
Money has been digitalized. Money is nothing more than digits accounted for by computers. Our mighty US dollar, which is currently ruling the world, is nothing more than a digital token of a fiat currency without anything tangible backing it up. The value of the dollar is based on the full faith and credit of the United States.
Looking forward into the future, you can bet on money remaining a fiat digital asset handled almost exclusively by mobile phones and computers. Money will continue evolving as a completely intangible transactional permit or permission to participate in certain economic activity based on the perceived credit worthiness of a promise to pay.
As we end racism, credit and the permission to transact or participate in economic activities plus the perceived credit of promises to pay will be extended to more humans on Earth. Mobile banking, micro lending, and micro payments will continue revolutionizing banking, and reaching millions of otherwise unbanked and discriminated humans on Earth.
Mobile phones will be the main devices facilitating the rollout of financial technology applications. Ever smarter and hyper connected mobile phones will serve as the wallets, checkbooks (for those old enough to know what those were), credit cards, and bank tellers facilitating all financial transactions of individual consumers.
Cash will continue to lose importance in the next decades. Cash will not disappear completely, but it will become an unpopular and inconvenient relic. Traditional retail banking will continue losing popularity and relevance also. The practice of visiting a physical bank location will not disappear, but just like using cash, the practice will continue losing popularity and relevance.
As stated previously, hand held mobile devices will be the epicenter of most consumer financial transactions. The whole banking industry will be disrupted by mobile digital technology as the global village continues handling digital money with mobile phones around the globe.
The expansion of digital banking via mobile devices will extend financial services and credit to billions of currently unbanked global citizens. To be clear, poverty will continue to exist as it is mostly due to politics enforced by religion. However, lifestyles will continue being upgraded all around the world because it is one of the easiest way to expand the economy and make money. There are fortunes to be made developing a middle class around the world.
Politics, religion, war, crime, immigration, and other natural disasters
Not all is peachy in the future. There are many variables and uncertainties that will impact economic growth and development. Politics and religion will continue being the social tools available to rulers in keeping control of people. Politics, just like religion, is the administration of power over people.
Over the next few decades you can expect to see all around the world the same political clashes that you see today. The classic political struggle worldwide is essentially about social control and social class structure. Political ideologies look for what are the best ways to enforce a class structure that can serve those in power and at the top of society.
Developing countries that could end poverty will not do so because their socioeconomic systems are structured to depend on having a poor underclass serving an upperclass in a cost effective way. For example, if you have to pay servants and unskilled workers $20 USD an hour, you will quickly find yourself without servants. If you can pay $2 USD per day, you can enjoy life living like royalty. That is why many third world countries will manage to keep their populations poor to ensure a steady supply of cheap labor for the upperclass and their business interests. The poor will be kept poor by religion, authoritarianism, or both.
Developed countries also look for ways to preserve the social institution of poverty. Here in the United States, the conservative regressing to banning abortion plus the attempts to curtail public education and social security benefits are ways of ensuring a steady supply of an underclass serving an upperclass. Wealthy families will have access to family planning and private education of their choice while poor families will struggle complying with the wishes of an imaginary god. On the liberal side of the spectrum, immigration is the preferred tool to ensure a steady supply of underclass servants. An open border policy ensures a steady supply of workers willing to do the jobs that American citizens no longer want to do and at significantly lower wages without legal protections. Illegal immigrants do not complain so as not to risk deportation.
Africa, Southeast Asia, and South America
There is ample room for economic growth in Africa, Southeast Asia, and South America. In general, growth opportunities are higher in the southern hemisphere that was colonized and held back in the past. However, globalization also depends on having a global underclass serving a global upperclass. While poverty could be eradicated worldwide, it will not be done any time soon. Both conservative movements and liberal globalists will ensure that there are sufficient poor people at the ready to serve the upper classes. As always, politics and religion will be used to keep control of people and keep billions poor at the ready to serve the global elites.
Trump will never be President again
What do you think?
Slap is food for thought. Take more at TakeSlap.com
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