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Techvolution: A New Philosophy - Epilogue
Welcome
Hello Stargazer! I'm glad you came aboard. If it wasn't for you, the future would exist only in science fiction. Now because of you, we can start the era of mass-collaboration.
There's lots of work ahead. But we've done it many times before, the Minutemen, Abolitionist, Civil Rights, Environmental movements have all changed the world. While I, unfortunately, can't tell you what your journey will be like. You can follow your own heroes, or better yet, be your own celebrity. I'm sure you'll soon love to tag #installsolarpanels, #forgetrushhour, #newsmallbusiness, #smallhomeliving.
And if you like, you can follow my trek to make our society better. I'll be a guide.
A Frontline Problem
Watch this clip from Netflix's Black Mirror. It's a story of a crazed man who wants to talk with the CEO of an Instagram-like app called Smithereen. He holds a company intern hostage awaiting the CEO's call. Police surround him, corporate lackeys try to deflect him, bullets are fired at him. But he still wants his phone call.
The only thing people know is he was hit by a drunk driver years before.
New technology is either our salvation. Or our distraction. This is frontline pain. It's not caused, or solved, by Progressives or Conservatives. It's not a problem of poverty, so it can't be solved by the mass-production of vehicles or insurance contracts. It's also not someone else problem or bad luck. This is the pain of regular everyday life on Main Street in 2020.
Like any story, we either step up to solve this pain with technology. Or, Evolution finds someone else to carry Life's banner.
This Black Mirror episode shows the poor souls' car insurance adjusters speak to. While most aren't so devastated, far too many are. (In fact, many adjusters don't use social media because of threats from callers, sadly a kidnapping isn't too outlandish. Some callers send thank-you presents though, so there's good and bad).
Deadly crashes, hijackings, abductions, drive-by shootings, drunk driving, car fires, running red lights, and yes, distracted driving—every human tragedy eventually calls an insurance adjuster.
And all the while DING-DING-DING-DING-DING-DING.
I wept while watching Smithereens, full out tears. I knew what the plot twist was—that distracted driving killed a loved one—because I'd spoken with this person too many times. This was the motivation for me to make my app. I wanted to help solve horrible, useless, and preventable car crashes with something (I now call) the Life Star.
Here's why I failed, and here's why I'll succeed.
My App
My app was straightforward. Using modern web development, it took just a few months to finish. Take some free code from GitHub, an inexpensive cloud-computing account, and the design skills of a novice. It was so simple, it might not even get me a job in "tech."
Here's how it worked.
Today's insurance industry is entirely based in the Industrial Age. So after an accident, drivers are expected to exchange information on paper notes. Because they have no guidance, nevermind being understandably frazzled, they often don't. As a result, adjusters have to search for each other—literally calling around or hoping someone calls you. Delays pile up like crazy; causing most of the maddening DING-DING-DING-DING-DING.
Like Uber uses online maps, my app let adjusters post an accident on a google map. Since every accident shares GPS coordinates, all adjusters, regardless of what drivers do, can find and email each other. My apps minimal cost was paid for by rental car companies and repair shops who loved the ability to communicate with adjusters online instead of waiting on hold.
That's how simple it is to foster digital mass-collaboration and save hundreds of millions of dollars and millions of hours of productivity. That's how much the Internet Age is already here. And of course, when adjusters used the app, it's majic made them instantly smile.
The best part was something that Frederick Douglass would love; learning more about ourselves. Because with my app, and digital collaboration in general, we start getting much better information on our economy.
Because of my small little app, we'd have a database of the exact time, location, and causes of car crashes. After that, we could collaborate with weather, traffic, demographics, and many other databases.
We'd finally learn why car crashes happen and start to fight back.
How many lives could be saved? We won't know until we try, but it's definitely more than zero. My personally goal was 5%.
A database of crash locations and causes doesn't exist today. Big Government regulators don't care about it any more than Big Business insurance company managers do. Which is funny, because extras (of course) assume "they" do care. Beause no one in power does, when tires are faulty, intersections jam up too much, potholes get too big, or anything else repeatedly causes crashes, our society doesn't correct the problem.
My little app was a happy upgrade in the cyborgology of humanity, but not good enough. Or better said, too good. My biggest problem was I messed with a lever of power. Now because of Techvolution, I can depend on player gods to help me fight back.
Attacking a Lever of Power
Adjusters hold the insurance checkbook in their hands. They decide how much to pay out on every claim. Making adjusters use telephones isn't an accident. It's a massive lever of power to say, "call me when I'm available." By easing congestion and taking away the DINGS, I was, in effect, taking away the insurance company's ability to create friction for anyone withdrawing money. And, sadly, lessening crashes wasn't much of a selling point either.
This was never officially said to me. Remember being far from the frontline makes people not realize the consequences of their actions. In fact, most insurance decision-makers today have never even spoken with a customer, nevermind processed a claim. They'd watch Smithereens with no tearful recognition.
Simply put, with no pain felt, there was no problem to solve. In fact, the more disorganization at the bottom meant the more lucrative garbage meetings at the top.
Thus, now I know how to fix my failure. The key to success, for me and you Stargazer, is making a modern lever of power. With it, we make frontline pain common knowledge. By knowing our society's pain, we turn extras into player gods who take control of their lives.
The Life Star
At its heart, Smithereens is a story about an extra. The tortured man assumes the company Smithereen will care about his problem. Extras believe "they" have the people's best interest at heart. "They" in government bureaucracy. "They" in corporations. "They" someone else. The truth is, "they" only have your interest at heart if you're holding levers of power.
Because only then does "they" the powerful, becomes "we" the player god.
And that's the subject for the next book. For all the antagonists blustering and excuses, once a regular person becomes a player god, and majically bonds with levers of power in their cyborgology, the game is won.
Consider this, for every dollar Main Street puts into car insurance, we only get back 50 cents in claims; the rest goes to taxes, marketing, and administration fees.
This book made you a player god in mind, the next will make you a player god in reality. Because now that you'll pay for apps, that means you'll control many levers of power in your hand.
I'll do this for car crashes. No middleman. No phantom chasing. No dark majic. No Death Star. No Darth Call Centre. No bullshit jobs.
Just you in control of your destiny—exactly like a person playing Civilization, Anno 1800, or Cities: Skylines who always has all the levers of power they need to win the game.
The Life Star is the technological re-creation of Evolution, a rulebook to enforce Techvolution. It lets everyone play, understand, and master the game of civilization with fair, accountable, and understandable rules that give everyone a chance to win.
The Life Star is a modern rulebook that makes everybody happy. It finishes Paul Baran's dream of a fully distributed interent.
Philosophers call the Life Star the rational state earned through years of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis in the march of better and reasonable technology and economic policies. I also call it the State of Nature. A place where all lifeforms happily work frontline jobs because Darth Blockbuster isn't allowed to play.
The Life Star will give us the money to start Star Fleet, and begin exploring the stars. You'll soon hold my new app and read about how you'll use it and others to win the game of civilization in Techvolution II: Building the Life Star.