I perceive our society’s two biggest challenges to be:
Environment. Climate change is no longer “in the future”; it’s here. The question now is “who gets hit next” and “how badly”.
Economy. Automation is relentlessly wringing labor out of the production equation, concentrating wealth in the hands of a few while everyone else is being impoverished. We print trillions of new dollars, but that money never gets invested to prepare us for a new economic reality we face, or repairing the environment we depend upon.
Like so many others, I’ve been watching and worrying as these trends emerged. I kept wondering when our society was going do something about these massive problems.
As you know, there wasn’t much action. I gradually came to realize that change wasn’t going to happen top-down. Since I have no influence over society, my only option is to focus my efforts where I actually do have influence, and that’s within my own household.
Over the past few decades I’ve gradually migrated from a position of high vulnerability to a position of relative security with respect to these two big challenges. I still have a long way to go, but considerable progress has been made.
The General Navigational Heading
Main Focus
The two main topics of discussion will be:
- The situation. What’s the economic and technical context we’re in that will affect what and when we do to address the key impacts of environmental degradation and automation
- Product development. How do you change an economy? One product at a time, and one purchase decision at a time. We need a flood of new products, so let’s get really good at product development.
