Tools of the Future

Humanity is an amazing species. We have gained the ability to do so many things. But what differentiates us from all the other members of the animal kingdom is our ability to reason and consciously question our surroundings. We have an imagination that allows us to project and plan out the future. And, our evolved brain has given us the ability to adapt to inhabit every corner of the world, in all environments and conditions.

We just need to leverage all our gifts in a concerted way to move humanity towards the next stage of our civilization’s development. We have just scratched the surface of what humans are capable of. When we work together, we can accomplish anything.

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Goal Focused Long Term Planning

Profitable businesses rely on a clear mission and a well thought out strategy to flourish and prosper. They have measurable metrics and defined goals to meet. Then, they have regular “check up” meetings monthly, quarterly, and annually to see if they accomplish what they initially set out to do.

The most successful businesses also know they have to put money back into the business for R&D, acquiring new companies, or ideas if they want to stay relevant and not slowly fade away. Businesses with a long-term outlook tend to fair better than businesses with a one-off product. They need to build on that first success to continue to thrive.

We should apply this business model to our global civilization. We’ll need a plan if we want to meaningfully improve our way of living – both individually and collectively. We need to define a goal, understand how to get there, become aware of obstacles in the way, and have a strategy to get to our goal. Then, execute and make adjustments along the way.

As it stands right now, there are very few countries with long-term plans. As a species, we are just bumbling through time. There are only a few individuals, countries, and companies that are lighting the way toward progressing the future.

One of the most notable visionaries is Elon Musk, who has created at least two incredible forward-thinking companies. And as a the side effect, has become one of the richest people in the world.

Additionally, China has bootstrapped its way from an impoverished 3^rd world country to one of the leading world superpowers in less than 50 years with their incremental Five-year plans.

Great things can be accomplished with an end goal in mind, even on an individual level. For instance, many couples know and plan to have children when they are in a serious relationship; there is a direction and an end goal.

First, they prepare by making sure they are set financially in their careers. They get married and buy a house for their future family. Then, when all the pieces are in place, the couple will bring little ones into the best possible environment.

People don’t even question this type of planning. That’s just “what you do”. This is simply the act of executing on a plan to make it a reality.

We need to expand this concept to a global scale – for all of humanity. We need a ‘Blueprint’ to follow for the world’s future and then implement it!

If there is no vision or end goal to work towards, you might as well be on a boat, without a paddle. I can’t stress this enough, having a plan and goal setting is imperative to getting any objective accomplished, especially when it comes to improving the world as we know it today.

The long-term goal of A Grand Future is to make our vision for a better world a concrete reality, so that everyone can be part of a remarkable and reimagined world.

An Un-planned Case Study

When there’s a path to follow, any goal is achievable. If you consistently push towards an outcome, even slowly, it’s almost inevitable that some version of that goal will become a reality. However, people without a plan for their life are subject to the external forces that act on them. They don’t have much choice or control over the direction of their own future.

Cynthia was an old co-worker of mine. We were close and I kept in contact with her after I changed jobs. Young Cynthia was fun loving and lived in the moment; she was the life of the party even when I met her at 55. She earned and spent her money freely on mostly consumer goods. After all, “YOLO!” (you only live once) was her mantra even before the acronym was popularized.

She and her husband took extravagant vacations, had a nice house, clothing, cars, you name it. They both met and worked at different divisions in the same company for 30 years. We used to take walks together at lunch when the weather was nice, so we got to know each other pretty well. When the topic of her retirement plans came up, she told me that she didn’t really think that far ahead. She liked her job, so she’ll ‘probably work forever’. She told me she had a little savings, but nothing close to the money she’d need to cover the next 20 to 30 years of retirement. Unfortunately, she chose not to admit to herself that no one can work forever.

Cynthia was an individual without a real plan for her life. She never really made any big decisions and kind of coasted through life. And it worked out fine for a long time.

However, when 2020 rolled around, a lot of things changed at the company due to the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. Cynthia and her husband found themselves laid off. Cynthia was not able to find another job. It took her husband months to find another, lower paying job.

Forces outside of their control acted on Cynthia and her husband. They didn’t have a plan in place for when times got tough and didn’t have any real savings to fall back on. Because of the unfortunate financial upheaval in their lives, they had to downsize to a more affordable home and alter their lifestyle.

Cynthia was pretty distraught because of the changes she was forced to make. And the prospect of leaving her lovely home was really heartbreaking.

Countless people fall into this trap of just letting life happen to them. They don’t prepare for a rainy day.

If You Fail to Plan, You Are Planning to Fail.
Benjamin Franklin

Yes, Cynthia and her husband will probably make it through okay, but the stress and loss might have been averted if they just used a little more foresight in making decisions for their future along the way. External forces were able to effect Cynthia and her husband more drastically because they didn’t have an emergency plan in place.

Obviously, being present is important. But also, being prepared, with an eye towards the future, is equally as vital to insuring you live out your best life. Your current actions could have repercussions down the road. As Cynthia has to deal with now. If she saved a little more along the way, she could have weathered the early layoff easier, or maybe even retired on her own terms earlier.

Taken collectively, if everyone came together to realize a common constructive goal or even agreed on a direction to take humanity into the future, we could all benefit down the road. And maybe, the future might not be such a scary or unpredictable place to think about. People would be able to look forward to an inspiring and wonderful future.

When we have a plan and follow-through on the plan, we could make the world a much better place. If there are roadblocks in the way, we can pivot, adjust, and move on. We just need to keep heading toward that goal. Sometimes the journey is just as rewarding as getting to the finish line.

You wouldn’t go on a long hike without a plan, would you? People do it all the time and get lost in the woods fairly quickly. Preparing for the future is a lot like mapping out a hike. Then following through on the planned route.

Humanity currently doesn’t have a map. The future is presently uncharted. We need a BOLD Plan to create an amazing new world.

Simplicity

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.
Da Vinci

Have you ever really looked at your smartphone while it was turned off? (I know – a pretty foreign concept, right?) It’s basically just a screen with a case, that’s all it is.

But it’s also an instrument that brings all of humanity’s collective knowledge right to your fingertips. And yet, it has only one button (more or less). Definitely, a far cry from the old bulky computers and pay phones (if you remember what they are!).

Simplicity is a concept to embrace if you want something to be accessible to everyone. The user interface for your phone is very simple, but if you open it up to look at its ‘guts’, it’s an insanely complicated machine. Products should allow for easy end-user usability, simple construction, shipping, and repair.

I believe technology should be seamless and you should hardly notice it’s there. While we have a long way to go in a lot of arenas, that’s the direction we should be heading in.

Why can’t we take these simplicity ideals further and apply it to other fields for finding solutions to the biggest problems in the world?

Ever heard of the expression, the easiest way to get from point A to point B is a straight line? Why would you go a circuitous route to get to your destination? Let’s stop creating software that’s so bloated with garbage code that it can’t even operate properly. Why create a car radio interface with so many buttons, you don’t even know how to simply turn it on? You get the point.

People actually prefer simple technology. Historically, Apple has a more user-friendly interface than other smartphones. That’s one of the reasons why there are more apple users than android users.

The Tesla Model 3, hardly has any controls, it’s just one touch screen. They literally need one wire to connect the entire interface. Tesla engineers merely asked – what does the user need to do to adjust the heat, audio, etc.? Well, a tablet can do all that. Let’s just throw that in there and take away all the extraneous controls that other vehicles have. It’s a simple and elegant design solution.

Jeff Bezos did the same thing in Amazon’s early history. He was in a presentation with a group of programmers and they were going through the 5 checkout screens a customer needs to complete to purchase an item.

He said, “Let’s make it simpler. Let’s have the user input in all their information the first time they order. Then, the site will save their information. The next time they order, all the customer would have to do is click one button to buy – using the saved information.”

You could probably hear a pin drop. Why didn’t the programmers simply break the problem down using first principles thinking? Then, build up the simplistic buying model from there?

I feel like some of us over complicate things, unnecessarily. Instead, we just need to start out with a problem and ask ourselves what would a good solution to that problem look like? Then reverse engineer the easiest way to get to that ideal and simple solution. It might take a few failures along the way, but with each iteration, we learn a little bit more on how to make the solution better.

If something could be done simply, why over-complicate it? More parts to break, more parts to fix, and just overall, more of a headache.

I choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.
Bill Gates

If we want to tackle the big issues, we need to break down problems into their simplest building blocks to get them solved. The concept of constantly “asking why” something is the way it is, can be used to drill down to the root cause of a problem. This is the framework for first principles thinking. In other words, start with zero and work your way up from there.

Imagination and Creative Problem Solving

Do me a favor, take a look at the movies that were released over the last 6 months. I’ll give you a minute…

Notice anything?

Upwards of 75% of them are either sequels or reboots! There are hardly ever any new, original movies released. The big movie companies are scared to try new things because they already have a movie idea that sells. Why change it up and rock the boat? Those tried and true plots and characters make money.

Netflix studios and Pixar studios were notable exceptions to the rule in the last 15 years. They came to the table and provided fresh content at first, but now even they have fallen into the sequel trap.

Startups and new ideas can revitalize and revolutionize culture and society. Sometimes an idea can cause whole market disruptions – just take Uber and Airbnb as examples. We need to encourage an influx of new concepts that push and progress our civilization forward. We can’t afford to stay stagnant in our stodgy old ways if we hope to improve our world.

Being inventive and resourceful are very undervalued and overlooked tools in today’s fast-paced society. Most people have just enough mental bandwidth and time to get normal things accomplished throughout the day, let alone create anything new.

So, when we have a problem, we don’t really think about solving it ourselves. We just look for a solution online, maybe buy a product, or find an answer and then move on.

Why can’t humanity go back to its roots and rekindle our passion for problem-solving?

Could you create a solution with stuff that you already have? Can you design a better product/service than what’s currently on the market? What if you had no money or access to information, could you survive in another country with just your wits?

These are just some instances where we’ll have to use our creative juices.

Modern society is literally the product and application of human creativity built on the backs of past generations. The aggregation of billions of brains over thousands of years have brought us to where we are today. Each generation builds on top of previous generations by increasing human knowledge to try and make the world a better place.

The curiosity of the human species knows no bounds. We have tinkered and toiled with our surroundings since the dawn of time. Out of this trial and error, we’ve discovered much about the world around us. Fire was one of the earliest inventions that opened numerous doors for our ancestors to thrive.

Down through the ages we’ve also used our resourcefulness to create agriculture. Using our ingenuity, we were able to combine diverse systems together to make machines and ignite the industrial revolution. We applied our problem-solving capabilities to understand pretty much everything around us, including the very fabric of space and time.

Every day, humans are inventing and finding novel ways to solve problems and make life easier for others. We just need to make it easy for people to get their ideas visible to others. The world’s collective brainpower can’t be wasted. Even one seemingly throwaway concept could be the ticket to a new way of looking at a problem and its solution.

Our imagination and creativity could be humanity’s greatest asset. We have adapted our surroundings to survive in the freezing cold, the hottest of climates, and even the vacuum of space.

Unfortunately, in creating our present-day society, we have also inadvertently polluted our atmosphere and oceans. At first, we did not realize that our by-products were harmful to the environment.

Now, changing the course of the huge ship that is our fossil fuel powered civilization will be exceedingly difficult. Climate change will have sweeping ramifications if left unchecked. We need to completely reshape our civilization if we want to keep our way life. We will need to put both new and old ideas into bold action if we hope to save our planet.

But what about the problems that aren’t being solved? The future is full of uncertainty. We need to figure out how to become more in tune with our planet before we destroy it and ourselves in the process. The future needs problem-solvers!

The Golden Tool

When I was growing up, I always thought adults had it all figured out. I always trusted they had a plan and everything would end up okay. It seemed to me that my elders had so much wisdom and knew everything. After all, they were so old!

My friend told me once “that adults are just grown up children”. Now, that I am [somewhat] an adult, I can kind of see the truth in that statement. I realize I don’t have all the answers and neither did the adults in my life back then. The more people I interact with, the more I realize they don’t have it all figured out either. Most don’t have plans for what they’re doing next week, let alone ten or twenty years down the road.

When I started to enter adulthood, I realized while I knew more things, there is also an incredible amount of stuff I didn’t know. There is always more to learn and further to grow.

We need to keep our lives simple, focus on the big picture, and prioritize what’s important in life. Let’s get back to the basics and promise to take care of each other and the planet.

We’ll need to harness the knowledge of the world and use deductive reasoning to ‘level up’ our species and society. We have reached a crossroads in human evolution. Do we choose to be the master of our own destinies or do we let the chips fall as they may?

I know which side of the future I want to be on. Do you?

We’ll need to work together using all these ‘tools’ to achieve the next stage in our development as a species and protect the planet from its greatest threat: ourselves.

Even with all these ‘tools’ at our disposal, life would be meaningless without humanity’s greatest strength binding us together and guiding us toward building a brighter future: Compassion.

Let’s be the best people we can possibly be.