Digital Environmental Automated Luxury

Direct Democracy comes with a deal. The DEAL is Digital, Environmental, Automated and Luxurious. If Direct Democracy is to decide what is to be done, the DEAL will be the means by which it is done. The DEAL, its modes of production, care for the environment and increased automation of mundane labour, will - if democratised directly - lead to lives of increased luxury for all.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution

A great disruption is underway right now across the world. It will change our lives more than the revolutions that preceded it: Agricultural, Industrial, Technological. It is the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The term was first introduced by Klaus Schwab, the executive chairman of the World Economic Forum, in a 2015 article in Foreign Affairs. 

We stand on the brink of a technological revolution that will fundamentally alter the way we live, work, and relate to one another. In its scale, scope, and complexity, the transformation will be unlike anything humankind has experienced before. We do not yet know just how it will unfold, but one thing is clear: the response to it must be integrated and comprehensive, involving all stakeholders of the global polity, from the public and private sectors to academia and civil society.

The First Industrial Revolution used water and steam power to mechanise production. The Second used electric power to create mass production. The Third used electronics and information technology to automate production. Now a Fourth Industrial Revolution is building on the Third, the digital revolution that has been occurring since the middle of the last century. It is characterised by a fusion of technologies that is blurring the lines between the physical, digital, and biological spheres.

Supercomputers in our pockets. Intelligent robots in factories. Self-driving cars on our roads. Neuro-tech brain enhancements in our heads. Genetic editing in utero. Even the ordering screens in the local McDonalds. The evidence of dramatic change to every facet of our lives is all around us and the change it is bringing is happening at exponential speed.

Previous industrial revolutions liberated humankind from animal power, made mass production possible and brought digital capabilities to billions of people. This Fourth Industrial Revolution is, however, fundamentally different. It is characterised by a range of new technologies that are fusing the physical, digital and biological worlds, impacting all disciplines, economies and industries and even challenging ideas about what it means to be human.

The resulting shifts and disruptions mean that we live in a time of great promise and great peril. The world has the potential to connect billions more people to digital networks, dramatically improve the efficiency of organisations and even manage assets in ways that can help regenerate the natural environment, potentially undoing the damage of previous industrial revolutions.

However, Schwab also has grave concerns: that organisations might be unable to adapt; governments could fail to employ and regulate new technologies to capture their benefits; shifting power will create important new security concerns; inequality may grow; and societies fragment. We must democratise this latest technological revolution.

Schwab puts the most recent changes into historical context, outlines the key technologies driving this revolution, discusses the major impacts on governments, businesses, civil society and individuals, and suggests ways to respond. At the heart of his analysis is the conviction that the Fourth Industrial Revolution is within the control of all of us as long as we are able to collaborate across geographies, sectors and disciplines to grasp the opportunities it presents.

In particular, Schwab calls for leaders and citizens to 'together shape a future that works for all by putting people first, empowering them and constantly reminding ourselves that all of these new technologies are first and foremost tools made by people for people.'

Coming soon... the future