The world as we know it is in the initial phases of immense change, never before witnessed in recorded history. Everything that we know and are familiar with will undergo a massive overhaul that will result in an exponentially more technologically advanced, intelligent, selfless, and spiritually-minded society — truly a new era.

One of the main catalysts contributing to this change is the freedom of information — the invention of the internet. The connectivity of the world has allowed the global population to share and build off each other ideas rather than evolving them separately in parallel. With increased usage and evolution of the internet, the pace of change continues to accelerate without end in sight. Recent developments have finally brought about the first indications of the type of society we will have in the not-too-distant future.

Where to start?

The Sharing Economy

Widely talked about, but critical to acknowledge. The advent of peer-to-peer services like AirBnb and Uber have shown that people can provide services directly to each other, without the need for large corporations and organizations. People already own cars — let them share rides or rent them out to each other. Tens of millions of people in cities already own homes — why build additional structures to house visitors, e.g. hotels? Providing services directly to each other removes many middlemen and other inefficiencies from the picture, including corruption oft found in large corporate structures. Corporations won’t necessarily go away, but sharing services will become at least as common and further incentivize companies to provide better service. Another company, EatWith, already takes a stab at restaurants, allowing chefs to cook right out of the homes — a much more intimate setting then a large dining hall. (Note: yes, AirBnb and Uber are large middlemen, with some bad practices coming to light, but nevertheless they are a massive step in the right direction for peer to peer services.)

The side effects of the sharing economy are massive. What used to required hundreds of dollars in startup fees can now be done with minimal costs from home. People will feel more connected by interacting with each other on a personal rather than a formal/professional basis. And most importantly, such an economy will offer the most freedom for people to follow their passions rather than working jobs they hate, as well as work on hours best suitable for them. It won’t be abnormal for someone to be a taxi-service in the morning and personal chef at night, with music as a side job. should they choose to do so. (Who’s going to create the next P2P app for local produce, featuring farmer profiles, food quality rating system, peer-verified growing techniques, built-in social network, and a free-market for deliveries? If interested, let’s talk! Contact info at the bottom.)

Personal Manufacturing

Manufacturing goods is becoming easier and easier. People can now create designs using SolidWorks and have them 3d printed right at home. People are sharing their work freely online, resulting in a large library of personally-manufacturable goods. The technology is advancing rapidly while dropping costs. 3D printers will become as common as the washing machine. The designs for most products will be available in online libraries, and people would either a) print them at home, b) visit their local print shop (as common as gas stations), or c) just have them delivered. Yes, even large items such as cars will have massive online libraries of available designs suited for specific purposes. And of course, many people will express their own creativity by creating personal designs for the items they need, whether from scratch or altering/augmenting existing models. Mass production will diminish, while personal creativity will flourish.

Decentralized Currency

People are slowly starting to realize that money is not “currency created by a government” — it is simply a medium of exchange. People will use currency that is backed by predefined, predictable arithmetic algorithms rather than manipulated and created from thin air at whim by governments or central bankers. Bitcoin is the first digital currency showing that decentralized, mathematical currency is possible. It allows for money to be freely sent all over the world — a person can just as easily pay his own grocery bill as a poor person’s somewhere in Kenya, instantaneously. Although Bitcoin itself may not be around 10 years from now, the ideas behind it are unstoppable. Sending money around the world easily and instantaneously will be a common occurrence as the economy becomes global and people become more connected.

Freedom of Speech and Information

The internet helps a great deal in sharing ideas, but it is still limited by its centralized and server-based structure. Large companies such as Facebook own personal data people post online and invade peoples’ privacy. They use their position of data ownership to censor or remove posts they deem unacceptable. And of course, wherever corporations have access to data, so do governments. Spying on citizens is already an accepted fact, making people think twice about how they communicate with each other, especially whistleblowers. No one should have to worry about whether someone is listening in on their conversations or mining private data. Many projects such as IPFS and MaidSafe are already in development that will make all data encrypted and censorship-resistant by default. Files, code, and media will be encrypted and redundantly distributed in a global, peer-to-peer network of computers, essentially ditching the current server-based model. Digital currencies could be intimately tied with such an autonomous network, automatically paying creators for the usage of their creations (which is MaidSafe’s plan.)

Crowdfunding

The ability to collectively fund innovative projects and businesses, as well as support people’s personal needs, will play a large role in the future economy. It will become far easier for individuals to fulfil their personal dreams by getting financial support from people all over the world who share the same vision, who want to see a useful product come to market faster, or who simply want to donate to a good cause. Equity-based crowdfunding will allow the general public to invest in startups in exchange for ownership, offering an additional approach to traditional venture capital.

Virtual Reality

Immersing yourself in a totally different environment than you’re currently in can impact virtually every industry. Besides immersive entertainment, VR offers 3D art; viewing and testing prototypes of new inventions before they are created in physical form (see and sit in your new car before having it 3D printed); visiting tourist attractions to determine whether you really want to spend time there; taking a tour of a house you’re interested in buying; immersive empathy to understand how other people live their lives; overcoming personal fears such as heights and flying; and much more.

Taking to the Skies and Spreading Out

Driving is inefficient, and roads are expensive to create and maintain. The use of roads severely constricts movement on indirect and limited sets of paths on a 2D plane, which create further inconveniences such as stop lights and traffic, the major contributors to long travel times and accidents. Since people want easy and fast access to everything around them (jobs, friends, shopping), people gravitate to living in very close proximities to each other, to large cities. The result is more noise, less privacy, and a total disregard of living in tune with nature.

Flying personal aircraft will solve most of these issues. Take a drive in a car for 10 minutes, and you’re not very far from where you started. Take a flight for 10 minutes, and any direction you choose will lead you to a totally different place. Communities will largely be based around private airstrips, and many will be based on people with common interests or similarly-themed businesses. Flying will cause communities to be more spread out in a decentralized manner, reducing congestion, and most importantly, allow for living in a natural environment, while still having quick, easy access to everything needed to enjoy life. There is much work to be done in the field of aviation to make aircraft more efficient, easier to fly and maintain, and of course, be as affordable for everyone as a car. I personally plan to play a role in this arena.

A lot of attention is now going towards self-driving cars, and while this is undoubtedly a promising and helpful venture, look to the skies for the future of transportation.

Alternative Energy

Fossil fuels are already on their way out. Solar will soon be cheaper than coal. Batteries are getting more efficient year by year, and combustion engines are being swapped out with electrical ones. Many people worry about issues such as energy source depletion, but with a focus on alternative solutions, we will find more than enough energy to go around.

Health

The worldwide healthcare system is predominantly based on profits, so it’s no surprise that they’ve figured out that keeping the population unhealthy is a surefire way to increase profits by selling solutions — solutions that patch the effects, not the causes of ailments. Thankfully, people are starting to look at the causes when looking for treatments (functional medicine, for example), and more importantly, use the preventative approach by right diet and daily exercise.

Higher Level of Consciousness

This section is conveniently situated in the middle of the others, but is by far the most important change of all. It is the internal shift in consciousness that ultimately leads to outward changes in the world. It is a totally new way of thinking that puts love, selflessness, compassion, creativity, self-expression, and desire for the good of All-That-Is first that will lead to a truly new era.

Up until a couple hundred years ago, life for most people was primarily focused on providing for basic needs necessary for living. With modern technology, people in first world countries now no longer worry about surviving, and the measuring stick for societal position is now largely the number of conveniences and luxuries we have. Over time, and especially in the last couple decades, as conveniences got better and better, people started realizing that the accumulation of things has not led to a higher level of happiness; on the contrary, it has lowered it. With the growing dissatisfaction over the broken promises of happiness in possessions, people have started to look for another source of joy by looking within.

There has been an explosion of spiritual self-help books/authors and teachers. The Power of Now (Eckhart Tolle), Conversations with God (Neale Donald Walsch), Autobiography of a Yogi (Paramahansa Yogananda), Ramana Maharshi, Mooji, James Allen, Thich Nhat Hanh, Alan Watts, to name a few. The spiritual paths vary, their styles differ, and each appeals to people of different cultures and religious backgrounds (or lack thereof); yet the goal of all of them are the same: to know your true nature, who you really are; as being one with everything, yet ultimately beyond all form; knowing that outer experience is merely a reflection of the inner world; that this life is merely a huge play (lila) with billions of actors that forgot that they are acting; that its true nature is maya, illusion; that there is an Infinite Intelligence, Love, and Power that governs all things; that being one with all, we are that Intelligence, Love, and Power. We have simply forgotten.

Throughout the world, we as people are starting to discover and feel these truths, whether by reading books or learning from our own life experiences. We are starting to realize how much power we wield, which is a sign of starting to wake up to who we really are. We are starting to realize that remembering our true nature while working outwardly for the benefit of all human kind is the only true way to lasting, ever-new joy and peace. This is the process of self-realization.

Meditation in all forms is growing leaps and bound. It is enabling us to consciously detach ourselves from the continuous stream of thoughts and sensory stimuli, putting us in touch with something beyond, something that abides in absolute stillness. From this stillness our intuition is developed, stress as a result of over-attachment to outer circumstances is eliminated, our creativity and inspiration leaps forth, layers of false personal beliefs are unravelled, and fathomless peace and joy, our true nature, is unleashed.

It is this inner rise in the level of self-awareness and the desire to do good for the world that is the leading cause of all our outward progress. People want to support each other directly by buying local produce or homemade goods, by crowdfunding each others’ creative projects, by using each others’ personal services through peer-to-peer services, by buying from for-benefit companies rather than for-profit. People want to connect with each other more on a personal level rather than a robotic corporate level (providing individualized support through social media and online forums is an example of this trend.) People realize that paying for a product or service is the same thing as voting for the people and practices behind it, and thus more conscientious purchasing decisions are made. People are starting to stand up to evil rather than being complacent to it. And when the people do all the above, they are ultimately helping themselves: the more an individual supports and spreads this new line of thinking, the more that kind of thinking from others will come back to them to aid the fulfilment of their own dreams. After all, seeking goodness for the whole world includes seeking goodness for yourself.

Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Governance

As people shift towards an “us” mentality rather than a “me” mentality, the structures of companies, organizations, and governments evolve. Companies are founded with mission-oriented goals for the betterment of the world rather than profits. The people working there all share the same drive and purpose, get paid sufficiently for their work, and enjoy themselves while at it. New ways of organizing companies will be increasingly experimented with. Transparency in all aspects of business will help keep it focused on its mission and curb corruption. Companies with similar visions will cooperate rather than adopt the selfish, competitive winner-takes-all mentality. Intellectual ideas will be shared rather than registered for the purpose of using force to prevent others from using them. And coincidentally, the use of this for-benefit mentality rather than the for-profit mentality will lead to higher profits. Leaders will use their position of fame to teach the world how to do the same.

Communities will spring up where various forms of government, or the lack of it, will be experimented with. Over the years of studying different political structures, from socialism to democracy to anarchism, I arrived at the conclusion that the success or failure of any civilization depends more on the people living within it rather than its structure. A civilization of saints will prosper with a communist, democratic, or anarchist society, whereas a civilization built on greed will self destruct no matter the setup. Hence the prerequisite for a better world is the evolution of individual consciousness, en masse. I do envision, however, that a large number of communities, no matter the political structure they choose, will be set up based on voluntary involvement and contribution, and mutual consent. Part of the strive towards selflessness involves not forcing personal moral beliefs on others through the use of aggression to enforce them.

Last Thoughts

My positive outlook on the future is often met with scepticism. I get comments along the line of, “are you aware of all the atrocities, all the war in the world? The depletion of natural resources? The rampant corruption in nearly every government in the world? The amount of selfishness in corporate environments? And you thinks we’re progressing?” To this I say yes, I am keenly aware. But never before have I seen such strong grass roots movements to overcome these issues. I consider the apparent rise of evil in parallel to the rise of good as a method for humanity to “get the rest of its shit out of its system” as quickly as possible. Just as the rise of conveniences and luxuries were a necessary step in our evolution to realize they’re not what make us happy, so is the rise of evil one of the last steps necessary to show everyone in the world what we don’t want, in order to know what we do want: peace and harmony.

Predicting timing that events will unfold is one of the hardest things to do, if at all possible. However, it feels right to say that all the above will have already come to fruition within thirty to fifty years.

Conclusion

I feel absolutely blessed to be born during a time where I can witness these changes. Technological and spiritual advances have been ramping up in recent years, seemingly starting an avalanche of exponential growth. With the amount of change we’ve seen over the last 10 years, I can’t even comprehend what the world will look like in just 20 years. My vision touches on many aspects, but only scratches the tip of the iceberg. The unknown holds many secrets. And that’s exciting.

Postulating about the future is nice, but the most important thing we can do is take action. What role are you playing to make the world a better place and to heighten the level of your consciousness? I want to know! Get in touch with me on social media (linked here), or send me an email at hello@blanshey.com, and let’s talk!