The rules of the game are changing and shifting the way society operates.
The processes and procedures that define who gets ahead and who gets left behind are evolving. One consequence of these changes is that the world is forming a new class of elites.
In the long run, this means that power and influence will shift. New players will rise to the top. And incumbents will fall from grace.
But there will be a long transitional period between the old game and the new. This period will be characterized by a growing friction & conflict between these two groups.
As part of this game change, the rules that govern life are changing.
For example, have you stopped to think about the nature of the standard work week? Why do we need to work 40 hours and 5 days? Do standard work week policies still make sense in a digital world?
The point is that policies will shift as the nature of productive society changes.
The people and institutions that advocate for policies to stay the same and “go back to normal” are the immune system response of the elite players of the old game. The winners of the previous age protecting their status and influence.
We’re increasingly exposed to hostile messaging of the established system from the previous age. Intended to influence the world in order to reflect the old game at the cost of the new. Simultaneously, influencers of the new age attempt to wrestle control of public policies to reflect digital age needs.
This is a flash point, a tectonic fault line that causes friction along key areas of innovation.
In areas where the old system is overly defensive, the flash points are more severe. Making it likely that we see an acceleration of cognitive dissonance. Confusion for individuals struggling to decide what game to play. The old? Or the new?
This article will look closer at a few of these emerging flashpoints. With the intention of raising your awareness to what’s happening and why.
What’s Changing? And How It Creates a New Game
There are key changes taking place that change “the game” society plays. These changes alter the rules of how we interact with one another. Changing what we value. How we compare ourselves to our peers. And how we can individually rise above our peers.
Examples of key changes:
- Globally Ubiquitous and Quality Internet Access
- Decentralized Financial Infrastructure
- Remote Work
- No-Code & On-Demand Software
These trends by themselves are influential. But when combined, they place pressure on society to change.
When Combined:
An individual can now earn a digital age income anywhere in the world that has access to internet. Leveraging companies that adopt remote work policies and using crypto when local banking and government infrastructure is lacking. And because of the no-code technology revolution, individuals can now create limitless income opportunities for themselves without the need of large and expensive teams.
No-code provides an ability to create complex software on demand at an individual level. So there is no need to wait on others to build a product and sell it. Here’s an example of a powerful no-code tool.
And all these tools and trends allow individuals to earn income anywhere with limited education and limited startup resources.
So what?
The primary point is that power and influence are shifting from organizations of people to the individual person.
This is a massive paradigm shift from previous ages. Never before have so many people been able to change their income and social status. And they certainly haven’t had the tools and resources to impact their lives so quickly.
These trends are upsetting the balance of power that manifested throughout the industrial age. As more people make use of these trends, more conflict will emerge at specific areas of change.
Flash Points & Digital Fault Lines
These technological changes are advances that enable individual freedom like never before been possible. And that creates flash points and what I call digital fault lines. Emerging areas of society that combine and create conflicts with the previous social order.
Unfortunately, it’s common that these digital fault lines become zero-sum games. The people aligned to benefit from late industrial age policy gain from policies at the expense of individuals aligned with digital age policy. And vice versa. One side benefits at the cost of the other.
Using remote work as an example. The 40 hour, 5 day work week was a policy designed in the industrial age to prevent worker abuse. It’s morphed into the concept of salaried jobs with additional benefits. Over time, it has become a way to restrict worker productivity as exclusive to the company the individual contracts with.
What happens when a digital worker accomplishes their work in 20 hours instead of 40? They sit in the office and twiddle their thumbs, or they find other company work to complete. But with remote work, outside the gaze of management, digital workers are increasingly filling those excess hours with productivity that benefits themselves instead of the company.
This creates a potential conflict between worker and company. One sides opportunity cost is the others gain.
The revelation from these fault lines is that individual freedom was much more constrained in the previous ages. And in many cases, technology that provides freedom to the individual takes power and influence from somewhere else. It’s a zero sum game.
Hostile Messaging Forms Along These Fault Lines
The battle to benefit from these zero sum games is fought using hostile messaging.
The groups that are for change and those against change will use influential messaging designed to convert policy advocates. This type of propaganda is becoming a daily weapon used to pull us in different directions.
There is a fault line forming over the control over internet platforms.
Specifically, what an individual can and cannot say online. “Misinformation, disinformation, fake news”. These are all coordinated attempts to control how an individual can and cannot leverage the internet for personal benefit.
It’s also visible when governments control and influence content of the internet at the Internet Service Provider level. Examples include China, Russia, Belarus all of which have recently restricted information on the internet.
These examples reflect political factions attempting to maintain influence over the public discourse. And unfortunately, western democracies are also showing signs that rival political factions want to control one another.
Decentralized financial infrastructure is a fault line.
As DeFi becomes more valuable to the individual, it chips away at the power structure of the established order of the past age.
Should governments allow individuals to manage their assets without government oversite?
Advocates of the past age will increasingly say that DeFi is used for corrupt reasons. Drugs, terrorism, ransomware, and that restrictive policies need to be implemented to protect vulnerable people.
But these are the immune system responses from the establishment identifying a game changing threat. In this example: they identify that governments lose power and influence if society doesn’t rely on them for financial policy and financial protection.
Remote Work is a digital fault line.
Should companies allow their workers to work remote? Or is it “harmful to productivity”? What about the tax implications for state, local, and federal level governments that rely on oncome tax revenue? And how about the growing divide between the political needs of location-dependent and location-independent workers?
For the moment, remote work is driving a wedge through traditional political ideologies.
It’s no longer a right vs left or blue collar vs white collar divide. It’s now a location-dependent and location independent issue. And the consequences are that the digital fault line of remote work is considerably more complicated for politicians and governments to navigate. The messaging here is still developing.
Capitalizing on the Game Change
The transition to the Digital Age is a reminder of a universal rule of life. Change is a constant part of life and is inevitable.
If we know the nature of society will constantly change and we understand that many people will miss the key details – we can position ourselves at the front of new trends. And we can monetize the process of shepherding people through the change.
And we are seeing this shepherding take place on a large scale. It manifests as a wave of gurus teaching digital age skills online. These entrepreneurs have positioned themselves along the frontier of digital trends and sell the actionable lessons they’ve learned.
It’s all about providing “convenience”. Which is a dressed up way of saving people time by showing them the shortcuts for getting to where the world is going.
You don’t have to make money transitioning to the new game. But you do need to be aware of what’s happening.
And as the game changes – our preestablished biases will break down.
Like the notion that all western style democracy are bastions of freedom. But if you’ve watched the Covid-19 response in Australia, you now know this is wrong. Democracies stand for the will of the majority. That does not necessarily mean the majority want a more free society.
The point is not to attack you’re beliefs on Democracy. It’s to emphasize that our worldviews are rapidly changing as the rules of the game shift. By identifying these changes, we can be better positioned for the opportunities that become available.
And these opportunities will include education and advocacy within and around any digital fault line.
The Newsletter
I’m tracking a new narrative that makes sense of society’s shift to the Digital Age. The goal: documenting how to become a Sovereign Individual. Giving you the facts and tools to successfully navigate digital life. I cover topics you can’t fully appreciate because you’re in the thick of it. Everything you need to know is delivered in a weekly newsletter.
The form you have selected does not exist.
Photo by Bradyn Trollip on Unsplash
