On page 262 of his interesting mélange of lessons Professor Harari, gives us for the 21st Century, the otherwise author of the formidable Homo Deus and viral contributor to the world’s new post haste direction assessments, tells us that “expert Pedagogs”
recommend the four C’s [aka the Four K’s.]
These are what the world’s educators should be focusing on, in developing their charges to handle 2050: rather than the current emphasis on technical skills and knowledge that may be obsolete by 2050. Some of these are apparently already obsolete, even though they are still practiced.
- Four C’s? aka The four K’s are
- Kreativity,
- KommuniKation,
- Kollaboration and
- KritiKal ThinKinking
And the fact that you had to think about the letter K in place of C, that had you anything from Konfused to Enraged to downright Konvinced that the writer was illiterate: is part of the message Harari and I are putting out.
For instance who is not perplexed at the adult schoolboy antiks of the past week. I refer to the competition amongst a clutch of Pomeranian wannabe, late developing schoolboy heroes, pursuing the title of Pomeranian PM, to handle the Brexit dilemma.
A thousand days they have been at it. And they are no closer to either remaining or leaving the Groland Union, than they were back then a 1000 days ago: when they voted in 2016.
By way of komparason, in less time, [than a thousand days] the Red Bears have built and put into use the Kerch Strait bridge, an eighteen kilometer road n rail, four lane edifice, that towers some 40 meters above the water: and obviously has to be buried in it.
The Chi-Nois have built komplete roads, rails and harbors in a dozen places over a thousand days. They also fixed an entire road in four days back in March. A road in North Mozambique that was flooded out of existence, leading to weeks of power outages in our home territory after a hurricane hit their coast. Hardly 100 hours never mind 1000 days.
However just one day last week saw a potential revolutionary change that could ambush all the protestations of the Wannabe PM’s. That change was heralded by A revolutionary disruption to the world’s money idea.
Those worthy ‘Sixth form’ lads, chasing the big PM prize, could quite easily claim the after-party, Post Meridian prize instead. Because they haven’t yet, between them, over 1000 days, come up with a feasible plan for post Brexit- growth, and wealth creation outside the old age home that is the Groland Union. [Not that the G.U. seems to have a plan themselves for that matter.} And here is someone, Mr.Tzu, who will make any concepts they are toying with seem quaint.
However, as my tale predicts: Disruption rulz.
So Disruption arrives
[again]
in the form of a fellow I have called Mr.Tzu… My worthy historical character [from that tale in my developing story set, placed in 2070 ish] whose vision is to take us all to the next dimension in development steps. Mr. Tzu asked himself the question that was most worthy of Kritikal Thought… What is Money? … Without knowing: he arrived at the insight that “Money is a way of thought.”
Simultaneously he recognized that in the same way that the world entered a post- Socialist frame [post 1989]
it also entered a Post-Capitalist world in the wake of 2008.
And thus from the turn of the decade, when the basic tool of the new post- industrial, information based era, the ubiquitous ‘smart phone’, arrived in that full force: carefully rebranded as FIR. [4th Industrial Revolution] the planet’s further financial evolution set off in pace, under the as yet hardly recognized reality that: DATA IS THE NEW MONEY.
And in the same way that Mr. Tzu learned as a child, that the one with the most toys gets the most prizes, he understood: that the one with the most data, rulz. [Not that anything would really be that easy.]
And he has just done this. He has determined that his business, which holds by this time in excess of 25 Zettabytes of random data, from billions of ‘subjects’: has never been valued formally by the present widely, memicly 19th century financial modeling mechanism. [Zettabyte equals one billion billion bytes]
He decided that the name of the new game in town was not “Who will next govern the Poms? … Nor who should have 5G or not? But rather, how should I treat my most valued asset?
GAAP rules dictate that Data is an intangible asset: and should be valued as a nil value asset. However he [Mr. Tzu] has had issues with the disposal and [mis] use of this non-valued asset. He has seemingly decided, as a result, that if the errors from misuse are to be costed and treated as tangible liabilities then, in accounting language, the raw material itself, all 25 plus Zettabytes of it… should be counted as a tangible asset.
In other words by using the lowest “Prudent Value” method recommended by many ‘prudent’ Financial Economists, of valuing 25 plus Zettabytes of data; 25 billion, billion; at a nominal 1 nine hundred thousandth, of a Firmian Cent… [Or perhaps 1 microgram of pure troye ounce gold] per byte, he would raise the capital value of his business by much more than two trillion dollars.
This means that he could finance a form of digital ‘universal income’ to his network of some billions of members… He could become in fact, a unitary business model: or even a micro economy… A new kind of Market Utility in fact, displacing almost every other business in a single disintermediating step. This model would be copied, and well within the time frame of 1000 days misused by the Poms.
In some ways Mr Tzu’s crafty move could be construed as a similar evolutionary manifestation of the ‘rewards’ cards, used by an almost infinite number of supermarket chains. Only the sheer scope represented by an injection of trillions of digital value instruments into a declining economic environment has the potential to completely revolutionize money: and what it means.
Good on Ya, Mr. Tzu. The experience made me realize something I had forgotten about in a rush of enthusiasm. It was this. Over the past year I have presented an argument with far too much seriousness, regarding Basic pay: and how to finance it… And suddenly Mr. Tzu arrives and the future came in with him.
Ask and ye shall receive.
!NiK[’19]
.