Authored by Kane McGukin via BombThrower.com,
Where are we headed? It’s hard to say, but there’s one thing for sure. It’s a future that looks a lot different than the past we’ve known.
This is one of the foundations Ray Dalio discusses from time to time. People and societies tend to get accustomed to how things are. They get carried away with the good and the bad and expect them to continue into infinity which is exactly when we get change. The moment everyone is positioning for the current mood to continue, it switches. He further discusses some of the ramifications of this in his piece paradigm shifts.
Since roughly the early 1900s we’ve experienced globalization. Slowly bringing people and countries together and connecting them, even amidst the wars and protectionist periods. We globalized people in the early 1900s but after the wars (WWI & II), it was commonplace for people to travel internationally but for business to mainly remain localized. It wasn’t until the 1980s and 90s that businesses really started globalizing; once the digital infrastructure had been built out. For the period in between I can only imagine it felt a bit like de-globalization, much like we hear tossed around today. And in some regards, it’s true. We are seeing people begin to localize again. Lockdowns forced individuals to stay put. Supply chains broke and countries began to reconsider outsourcing everything. They all began to hunker down and bring work back within their borders to create protections and avoid obvious weaknesses.
However, I believe this period of de-globalization is temporary. It is just so we can add a third leg to the stool, global money.
It’s so we can figure out how to work in a world where people, business, and money are global. It’s a period where we can figure out new rulesets that are needed to run a world with a need for much more liquidity, new financial assets and networks like Bitcoin which all run on the internet. Much like the 1940s I assume consortiums are meeting in secret to rewrite and set new rules. Bretton Woods 2.0 type meetings, where parties on hand define how capital will flow and which countries will be operators of this new world.
For the first time in history people, business and money will all be truly global in nature. They will move from jurisdiction to jurisdiction with ease. Flow like water with little standing in any of their ways. The signs are there.
It’s not just Bitcoin battling banks for power over the financial network. It’s users battling cloud platforms. Pulling out to operate their own nodes and messaging protocols. Subreddits are turning on Reddit. All over broken non-global money. Additionally, many other points of centralization are seemingly breaking down. Both online and offline, in our physical and digital worlds. Why? Because we’ve reached that point.
Years ago, we were approaching the top. Things were rosy and the perception was the party would continue on. Things could only get better. We were on top of the world and no one could fathom it not getting better. Just as Ray has pointed out, that’s when things change. That’s when paradigm shifts happen. When they are least expected. When the next decade(s) is drastically different than the previous. Diabolically different.
In retail, it was the rise of handcrafted. A move from the big box retailer to the small family business or non-chain restaurant. And now, almost a decade later, the movement is prevalent everywhere. Devs are creating messaging protocols to give freedoms back to the end user vs. corporate organizations. Nodes are holding files, managing money and data flows. People are taking a stand. Little by little we are seeking control and ownership of the things that are rightfully ours but have been stored and profited off of by unrightful owners; rent seekers.
A paradigm shift is and has been upon us. One that will feel like de-globalization until this mess around money is solved. And then we’ll move back to globalization which likely will look similar to when commercial planes and ships carried people across oceans in mass. Or, when the internet allowed business plans, agreements and factories to ship products globally.
It will create a new world. A more connected world. A more global world that offers more opportunities.
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