21st Century Challenges: A Lecture Summary

There are very few books that have captured the modern imagination as much as the global bestseller - Sapiens. It was no surprise then that hundreds of people (including your writer here) flocked to listen to the wise Doctor about some interesting phenomenon that our century faces.

I am summarizing some key takeaways from the lecture (errors if any, are mine). This is reproduced from memory after all!

Mankind has done some good work during the last century. Some of our key achievements have been ending famine. Man always lived on the brink of starvation due to the inability to grow and distribute properly. While we have disappearance of natural famine - we do still face political famine due to restriction of food due to politics and administrative efficiencies. This is the first century where there is enough food for everyone.

We live in (relatively) non-violent and healthy times. Fewer people die of infectious diseases now than ever before. The recurrence of cancer is a 20th century phenomenon due to people actually managing to live upto an older age. War has lessened (while it has not disappeared), never before have so many countries avoided war as a practice to mitigate international issues.

The 21st Century brings in its own set of challenges that are unique to the times we live in.

For the first time in history, sugar is a bigger challenge than gunpowder. Our 3 biggest challenges therefore are:

Return of Warfare

Ecological Collapse

Technological Disruption

The decrease in warfare has only been due to modern human wisdom. This can be reversed at any age by an individual's human stupidity or group action. Unlike medical technology that has reduced illnesses, war is not irreversible. It can be ignited by any spark of an unwise decision taken at any point of time.

While war is not an immediate threat, climate change is a disturbing present reality. Unfortunately the easiest way to curtail ecological damage also corresponds to curtailing economic growth. And, irrespective of what all kinds of government may call themselves (liberal, conservative, republican, communist) - they are actually all united in being pro-economic development even at the cost of ecological destruction.

Technology has turned humans into gods. Due to the upswing in technological development - man now has the potential to have abilities that ancient mythologies only prescribed to God - think of something like Genetic engineering.

In fact, the biggest product of the 21st century is not likely to be textile, vehicles and weapons but body, brains and mind.

For the first time since the beginning of life some 4 billion years ago, has a living being tampered with the fundamental aspect of humanity. All creatures were only governed by 2 things:

Natural Selection - as the basis for evolution

Organic Biochemistry - in terms of what they were created from

We are on the precipice of making cosmic mistakes if we are irresponsible.

Mankind is always caught in the chasm between:

A) Power or the ability to manipulate systems

B) Wisdom or the ability to understand system

Unfortunately mankind tampers with power leading to unintended consequences because of the failure to tap into wisdom.

It is therefore equally important to tap into our inside world of senses, emotions and thoughts.

The next crisis could be mental.

Unfortunately due to modern society's reliance on focusing on certain attributes, AI could be lopsided (say focusing on intelligence and discipline alone excluding compassion or spirituality). While Artificial intelligence focused on the former could be more productive in the short term, in the longer term - we might witness a societal decline if we lack the latter attributes).

Employment will change Forever

The last major change we saw was the creation of the proletariat or the working class in 19th century as part of the Industrial revolution. The 21st century can see the creation of the Worthless or Non - working class. Think of a 45 year old truck driver - what does he do when self driving vehicles become a reality? Does he have the potential to fight the emotional and psychological fatigue and become victorious by re-skilling himself?

The future will not have one but multiple watershed moments due to constant reinventions due to technical disruption. Mental Resilience will be a key personal attribute one will then have to possess.

Another thing we could witness could potentially be rise of digital dictatorships and unprecedented totalitarian regimes with a potential to hack human beings. This would require 3 aspects

Biological Understanding

Data

Advanced computing powers

All 3 are something that we possess that Stalin, Mao & Hitler did not have access too.

KGB & Gestapo could follow you for months but not know what was in your mind but Google already does in a way through your search history and expressions you search for.

Hacking humans can then become a big danger if power is pushed into the hands of a few elites.

Prophecy V/S Possibilities

All of this could come to pass and could not. It is upto us to determine the future. Technology is never deterministic by itself - we could all use our phones to learn to play chess and code though mostly we like cat pictures!

This is not a doomsayer prediction. Unfortunately, private companies focus on the positive effects of such thing as AI, IoT that they completely miss out other aspects it could cause havoc in.

Regulation will mean little

Of course, one government say India can say it won't participate in genetic engineering but what happens when China & US race ahead to do it. India too would have to participate. SO we have to keep in mind that any of these things are global in nature and scale because technology and engineers/scientists can't be restricted to one nation alone!

The changing definitions of Nationalism. If you think of Nationalism as being against other countries than your sort of nationalist holds little precedent in being a partner for Global-ism. But, if your definition of nationalism is seeing your nation prosper and your citizens grow - than by being nationalist you are actively being globalist. Because these 21st century challenges threaten everyone, they are global challenges that neither can one or few countries solve or avoid at all. Global problems will lead to global solutions and hence if you are a true nationalist, you will tie in your thoughts to a global approach accordingly.

Creating Reality Maps for the Future

The old way was living while

Stage A- Learning

Stage B-Working

This is obsolete as to stay relevant one MUST learn and keep changing continuously.

One of the things that we must keep doing is to ensure that training happens with an eye to guide the future. There is an absolute need for ethical training otherwise algorithmic processing is susceptible to discrimination.

Even as humans, we intellectually might be against discrimination - subconsciously we do discriminate against people who are not like us. What are we doing as a society to ensure that these barriers of discrimination do not affect the smartest people in the world who are creating these algorithms?

Will computers discriminate the way humans discriminate then?

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