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The World accelerates Change
Like a Cheetah chasing a gazelle, change is accelerating in the world. In the past, we have seen specific points in history where waves of change have occurred. The Industrial Revolution in 1790. It marked a period of development that transformed largely rural, agrarian societies in Europe and America into industrialized, urban ones.
Goods that had once been painstakingly crafted by hand started to be produced in mass quantities by machines in factories, thanks to the introduction of new machines and techniques in textiles, iron making, and other industries.
The second period of industrialization took place from the late 19th to the early 20th centuries and saw rapid advances in the steel, electric, and automobile industries. But today, we are no longer seeing waves of change. Change is the new constant! The question is, are these constant changes, going to be helpful or harmful? How quickly will you adapt? Is the Gazelle going to be caught by the lion or will it survive?
The Internet is speeding up change
People used the internet in its early days as a way to procrastinate. They used it as a way to follow social media sites and to get up-to-the-minute news access. Since 2001 the internet use has grown to around 4.131 billion users or just over 50% of the Global Population. The uses are becoming more related to work tasks and as a means to electronically shrink the world.
The Covid-19 work environment requires that we do more work from home on the internet than in the office environment. Because of Covid-19, we have had to adapt to a new environment. this has changed the way we use the internet from a way to waste time to a way to get our work done. This may be the beginning of a new change that will accelerate the rate of change of worldwide usage to an even higher level.
Internet Availability
The growth of internet availability is driving this change. An increasing number of people have access to the internet. The United States has more than 4,480,000 people infected and more than 172,000 deaths.
Internet access has given us a vehicle to minimize the impact of Covid-19, while at the same time providing new ways of communicating through blogs, zoom calls, facetime, and many other ways. We now have easy access to a massive new resource- the cognitive surplus. Cognitive Surplus is the extra time people now have to contribute their mental energies to create community and civic value.
Many of us are becoming connected with thinkers from all over the world. We are sharing our ideas. Even the stupidest possible creative act involves a contribution to the public arena because it can provide a spark to another person for an idea that may improve society. What makes sense to one person doesn’t always make sense to another. Reality and perception are not always the same. But as we spend more time using the internet to be creative rather than procrastinating, we increase the mental energies available to make a better society.
The development of 21st-century media and technology encourages creativity and widens the perimeters of human potential. Carl Sagen said, “We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology.”
Will you Join the New World?
How will you respond to this world of accelerating change? Are you going to become a participant and generate new ideas that might spark solutions or are you going to use the internet for activities that are not creative? It is incumbent on each of us to be a part of the solution rather than remain a part of the problem. Use the internet to think clearer and get new ideas.
Blogs became a principal source of ideas. Collectively, the world’s citizens are capable of using this Cognitive surplus of mental energy to generate either communal value, whereby participants create value for the community that made them who they are, or civic value, whereby participants create value for society. But we are leaving many people out. These people are a vast reservoir of untapped energy that is available to the world if we would only provide access to the internet.
Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance.
Who is being left out?
Unfortunately, we have left out 45% of the World’s population. We seem to be creating a bigger chasm between those who have easy access to the internet and those who don’t. Many people in the world seldom have access to a computer and the internet. Think of the cognitive surplus we are losing. The number of people who don’t have access is staggering – 4.2 billion people worldwide. To participate in the knowledge community, you must have access to the internet. If the world wants to take advantage of its cognitive abilities to engage all people they must all have access to the internet and know what information is available. We need everyone’s input to help us solve the problems we are facing.
My Journey into this new world?
My journey into this new world has been limited until recently. I just didn’t realize what I was missing out on. My focus was on my work environment and not on the world’s cognitive resources. Circumstances changed my life and I decided to go in a new direction by becoming a writer and joining the world community.
I intend to be a part of the solution to the world’s problems and not a contributor to them. Success in solving these problems will come from the world of knowledge. There is untapped knowledge all around us. The internet is changing the world and the change will only accelerate as we increase the internet’s availability to all. We live in a community of vast knowledge. We live in a sea of knowledge that has to be related to new ways to make our world a better place. I am building an international community of contacts to improve my writing and to help improve theirs. We will be regularly collaborating to improve our contributions to the cognitive surplus.
I am going to be contributing new meaningful content on the internet. Becoming a participant with others in conversations that matter, discussing why enlightenment brings out the best in human beings, and be a part of the changing human narrative related to our sustainability. I want my narrative to be one of helping people become liberated from oppression.
What should you be doing? Join us and add to the solution rather than wasting your resources.
We each have two choices – join the community and add to the cognitive surplus or remain isolated.
“You see, in life, lots of people know what to do, but few people actually do what they know. Knowing is not enough! You must take action.”
Tony Robbins
