Listen to the silence

July 10 2017 – Click here to listen

So, we went on a mini-vacation to the mountains of North Carolina with my son over the fourth. The weather was great, nice and crisp and cool, but there was no phone, text, e-mail, nothing in the guest house. Furthermore, I didn’t have a car due to riding up there with my son. I felt like one of those pioneers who settled those Blue Ridge Mountains.

Recently I received a copy of this interview with the Managing Director of Daimler Benz (Mercedes Benz).

• He said their competitors are no longer other car companies but Tesla (obvious), Google, Apple, Amazon ‘et al’
• Software will disrupt most traditional industries in the next 5-10 years
• Uber is just a software tool, they don’t own any cars, and are now the biggest taxi company in the world
• Airbnb is now the biggest hotel company in the world, although they don’t own any properties
• Artificial Intelligence: Computers become exponentially better in understanding the world. This year, a computer beat the best Go player in the world, 10 years earlier than expected
• In the US, young lawyers already don’t get jobs. Because of IBM Watson, you can get legal advice (so far for, more or less, basic stuff) within seconds, with 90% accuracy compared with 70% accuracy when done by humans. So if you study law, stop immediately. There will be 90% less lawyers in the future, only specialists will remain
• Watson already helps nurses diagnosing cancer, 4 times more accurate than human nurses.
• Facebook now has a pattern recognition software that can recognize faces better than humans.
• In 2030, computers will become more intelligent than humans
• Autonomous cars: In 2018 the first self-driving cars will appear for the public. Around 2020, the complete industry will start to be disrupted. You don’t want to own a car anymore. You will call a car with your phone, it will show up at your location and drive you to your destination. You will not need to park it, you only pay for the driven distance and can be productive while driving. Our kids will never get a driver’s license and will never own a car
• It will change the cities, because we will need 90-95% less cars for that
• We can transform former parking spaces into parks
• 2 million people die each year in car accidents worldwide. We now have one accident every 60,000 miles with autonomous driving that will drop to one accident in 6 million miles. That will save a million lives each year
• Most car companies will probably become bankrupt. Traditional car companies try the evolutionary approach and just build a better car, while tech companies (Tesla, Apple, Google) will do the revolutionary approach and build a computer on wheels
• Many engineers from Volkswagen and Audi; are completely terrified of Tesla
• Insurance companies will have massive trouble because without accidents, the insurance will become 100x cheaper. Their car insurance business model will disappear
• Real estate will change. Because if you can work while you commute, people will move further away to live in a more beautiful neighborhood
• Electric cars will become mainstream about 2020. Cities will be less noisy because all new cars will run on electricity.
• Electricity will become incredibly cheap and clean: Solar production has been on an exponential curve for 30 years, but you can now see the burgeoning impact
• Last year, more solar energy was installed worldwide than fossil. Energy companies are desperately trying to limit access to the grid to prevent competition from home solar installations, but that can’t last. Technology will take care of that strategy
• With cheap electricity comes cheap and abundant water. Desalination of salt water now only needs 2kWh per cubic meter (@ 0.25 cents). We don’t have scarce water in most places, we only have scarce drinking water. Imagine what will be possible if anyone can have as much clean water as he wants, for nearly no cost.
• Health: The Tricorder X price will be announced this year. There are companies who will build a medical device (called the “Tricorder” from Star Trek) that works with your phone, which takes your retina scan, your blood sample and you breathe into it. It then analyses 54 biomarkers that will identify nearly any disease. It will be cheap, so in a few years everyone on this planet will have access to world class medical analysis, nearly for free. Goodbye, medical establishment.
• 3D printing: The price of the cheapest 3D printer came down from $18,000 to $400 within 10 years. In the same time, it became 100 times faster. All major shoe companies have already started 3D printing shoes. Some spare airplane parts are already 3D printed in remote airports. The space station now has a printer that eliminates the need for the large amount of spare parts they used to have in the past. At the end of this year, new smart phones will have 3D scanning possibilities. You can then 3D scan your feet and print your perfect shoe at home
• In China, they already 3D printed and built a complete 6-story office building. By 2027, 10% of everything that’s being produced will be 3D printed
• Business opportunities: If you think of a niche you want to go in, ask yourself: “in the future, do you think we will have that?” and if the answer is yes, how can you make that happen sooner? If it doesn’t work with your phone, forget the idea. And any idea designed for success in the 20th century is doomed to failure in the 21st century
• Work: 70-80% of jobs will disappear in the next 20 years. There will be a lot of new jobs, but it is not clear if there will be enough new jobs in such a small time
• Agriculture: There will be a $100 agricultural robot in the future. Farmers in 3rd world countries can then become managers of their field instead of working all day on their fields
• Aeroponics will need much less water. The first Petri dish produced veal, is now available and will be cheaper than cow produced veal in 2018. Right now, 30% of all agricultural surfaces is used for cows. Imagine if we don’t need that space anymore.
• There are several startups who will bring insect protein to the market shortly. It contains more protein than meat. It will be labelled as “alternative protein source” (because most people still reject the idea of eating insects)
• There is an app called “moodies” which can already tell in which mood you’re in. By 2020 there will be apps that can tell by your facial expressions, if you are lying. Imagine a political debate where it’s being displayed when they’re telling the truth and when they’re not
• Bitcoin may even become the default reserve currency . . . Of the world!
• Longevity: Right now, the average life span increases by 3 months per year. Four years ago, the life span used to be 79 years, now it’s 80 years. The increase itself is increasing and by 2036, there will be more than one year increase per year. So, we all might live for a long, long, time, probably way more than 100
• Education: The cheapest smart phones are already at $10 in Africa and Asia. By 2020, 70% of all humans will own a smart phone. That means, everyone has the same access to world class education
• Every child can use Khan academy for everything a child needs to learn at school in First World countries. There have already been releases of software in Indonesia and soon there will be releases in Arabic, Suaheli and Chinese this summer. I can see enormous potential if we give the English app for free, so that children in Africa and everywhere else can become fluent in English and that could happen within half a year.

Wow this all sounds kind of weird. Some of it may come true. My son has a Tesla and it has an option to drive itself which he demonstrated. He told me he reads the news and his e-mail on the way to work. UGH! I guess I’m old fashioned, but I don’t trust it.

I also question the timing of when exactly all these amazing things will happen. I own a cell phone and couldn’t use it or my laptop in the mountains of North Carolina or at my Honey Lake Plantation in Greenville Florida when I returned there. Maybe Verizon didn’t get this memo. It appears we have a long way to go to me.

However, I would be quick to point out that I have lived through all kinds of “progress” in my life including the invention and widespread use of fax machines, computers, Internet, cell phones, moon landings, satellite television, and so on. Much of it improved our lives and it also damaged our lives. The Internet for example has become a necessity of life and helps billions of people all over the world. It is also very destructive as in the widespread use of pornography, and hacking into systems to steal money or steal government secrets.

While in the mountains I was kind of frantic the first couple of days without an effective way to communicate, but got used to it faster than I thought I would. I long for a simpler life without daily facing hundreds and hundreds of e-mails, texts, and phone calls. It’s kind of nice to listen to the silence.

I think those people in biblical times who could live simply and look at God’s creation and at night stare at the heavens and stars without the lights, noise, hustle and bustle created by people in our modern civilization had an easier time enjoying time with God.

Take some time today and look around at what God has created versus man-made chaos. In North Carolina I was fly fishing a little stream and came up on a waterfall and just sat on a rock in the middle of the stream and listened. The air was crisp and the water was crystal clear. When I went to Honey Lake I saw a hen turkey with a bunch of pint sized babies crossing the road. She all but ignored me as she managed to get her brood into the cover. I glanced in the side mirror and I was grinning like a mule eating briars.

The wife of the person whom I admire the most in life, Bill Glass, passed away over the weekend. Mavis is in heaven and I have no doubt she is enjoying those sights and more with Jesus right at this moment. No threats of nuclear war from anyone, no child rape for profit, no terrorism, no tears, sickness, pain; instead joy, peace, and resting in our Savior. Her fight is finished and she fought the good fight.

God is the future my friends, don’t be deceived.

Jer. 2:13

 . . . for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.