The year is 2050. Money as we know it has ended and Cryptocurrency has become the new form of currency. Every transaction, movement, and emotion is tracked. Crime is way down, but privacy is practically gone.
Law enforcement as we know it has been abolished. When you walk out of your nano apartment you see a highway of drones above your head. Tracking/tracing your every move/expression. Any chatter about the matter and you end up in a VR prison.
This sounds far-fetched and this could never happen, right? Well with the way things are going anything is possible. I try to call myself a free thinker and someone who tries to use empathy and logic to try to understand the world. I am still trying to process everything that has happened over the past 10 to 15 years, and how everything kind of happened at the exact moment in time that it was supposed to happen. All of this is not a coincidence.
The more the American dollar falls the higher BTC will go up. So anyone betting on Crypto at the moment will be very happy in a couple of years. It seems the price of luxury items and everyday essentials are going up, and things slowly keep disappearing out of stores. The system as we once knew is changing and all we can do is sit back and watch it all happen. This is a perfect time to start a journal because you are going to want to remember the remaining years of your so-called freedom.
What I want to know though is what will happen to the law as we know it? What will happen to jobs? What will happen to our system? Now do not get me wrong, I think a lot of things should change around the world but I am pretty sure that if Crypto ends up being the leader in currency and the tech elites get what they want then we little people are not going to like the outcome.
I love the idea of this technology and I believe that it could be used in the future as a form of currency. It could be used to change our financial system for the better. It could be used to connect all of us together. It could also be used to track everything you do, I mean EVERYTHING.
The only reason I am so invested in Crypto right now (and have been for years) is that our financial system has not done me any favors. It has actually put me farther and farther in debt. I was never taught how to take care of my money and invest. My parents did their best but they worked full-time jobs and I was stuck being taught through our warehouse and fast-food prepping schools. Our school system is a joke. We are programmed to do basic tasks and never taught how to be financially prepared because I believe that is what the corporate big wigs want.
I can see the hands of the government starting to clench down on Crypto. Which in a way, I know is needed. I also know that when the government gets involved in anything involving money it is never good for little people like myself. I have made a small amount from Crypto. If all of the rules and regulations go into effect they are going to try to make a lot of people who made a small life-changing amount and have them pay a tax on it. I do not believe this is fair, because the money I have made I made through my internet on my computer. Using my internet I pay for every month, which let me remind you, I pay taxes for that as well.
Crypto is an unstoppable machine. If you try to outlaw it and control it the prices are going to go even higher because it will turn into a hot black market commodity. I am still wondering how they are going to implement this. Things are getting interesting.
I was not taught how to invest, manage money, and anything about the credit system. I was never told that when I messed my credit up as a young man my life would be ruined. Talk of credit scores never happened in the schools I went to. I do not know what they teach now but I hope it involves some type of mandatory financial class.
Who am I though? Just some random guy who writes blogs on Crypto sites. I do not know anything. I am always told I think too much and I need to stop thinking too much. When did thinking too much become a bad thing? We used to gaze at the stars and wonder. Now all people do is stare at our phones consuming fear. We are headed to a sad and lonely place in the not-so-distant future if things do not change.
I am not saying investing in Crypto is wrong or a bad idea. I am just saying we need to be looking at the bigger picture here. I invest because I need money. I am almost positive a lot of other people have the same reason for investing. What are we bringing forth by backing this new form of currency? Also, I look and see how much good it has done in the world already. It has given countries better financial stability and caused poor countries to get out of the grasp of government control. This sounds good for the world right? It might be, It might not be.
Remember these are just my thoughts and if anything is wrong or you disagree please leave a comment. I love talking about stuff like this, so I would love to hear what others think as well.
Life as we know it will never be the same. I know people want it to be, but I know for a fact it will never be the same.
Things are getting out of control and people do not even see it. They are relying on this figment of their imagination to save them. What if that never happens. Are you prepared for the things that might be coming?
I hope you have enjoyed reading this article as much as I have had writing it. These are all just crazy thoughts of mine that I thought would be cool to share with everyone and maybe start a discussion in the comments. I am not sure if others think the same way as I do, but maybe by reading this others will start thinking outside of the box.
Lead image by Unsplash
Hello @HattyHats ! While reading your first sentence about cryptocurrencies I thought yes, that's great, but it quickly escalated in a totally dystopian future! 😸
Surely all the things you describe are in the sphere of possible, so is though the opposite. The reality in which we comprehend that we are not little people, we are able people.
My favorite concepts this period are personal and collective power, responsibility (with great power comes great responsibility), education, clearing our minds and souls, skills like critical thinking and processing any information, avoiding useless information overload, learning about and recognizing patterns of manipulation (both on our personal lives and on the world) and stop buying crap. Being re-connected (and respecting for that matter) with the environment, each other, beauty and humanity.
It doesn't require violence nor being a tycoon, just ability to visualize good things coming our way and will to walk our mile to achieve it (without action of course it's just wishful thinking).
The way I see it, both realities are possible. Which one prevails, surely is on our hands too! 🌞
Cryptocurrencies-wise there are many that provide anonymity and I think a whole lot are more to come. Blockchain technology and projects in general are going to enable people to bring really huge changes eventually for the good. The decentralization and the immutability that characterizes them are two extremely strong assets against people that like tempering with things to their benefit. It's a true revolution as I see it. One weakness that is still present is that the market can still be manipulated by "influencers" and fear instilled by governments and "specialists". As well as getting their hands on the information spread about them and creating their own digital currencies to fool people into using them instead of decentralized crypto. But we are going to overcome this too eventually.
Education-system-wise I really couldn't agree more. For the last decades there is a huge effort placed in crippling it as much as possible and creating simpletons, almost (or totally) silly and docile people or angry and violent ones. Completely incapable of having critical thought, research capabilities and to question what they are being told and taught to not care if the "fire" isn't at their own house. And if they have something to gain, they were taught to grab things from others, vote for politics and parties that didn't deserve to get elected and even harm their fellow people. Also complete lack of empathy and the rise of narcissists and sociopaths. The same with the art and "idols" / "influencers" industry.
My parents also never taught me how to be successful. In fact they divorced when I was five years old, they gave me a lot of emotional pain without wanting it of course with their ways of dealing with their own pain and the only thing they know is work hard, save money and survive. I really love them a lot, don't get me wrong, they are not bad people at all. They just weren't taught what they should have been, they're doing their best with what they've got and they have supported me in many ways through the years and through my own fuck-ups.
I used to complain a great deal about the education system. At some point I realized that the internet can be an amazing source and asset (as it can be an awful source of crap/ misinformation/ information overload and a prison where you learn how to be miserable - aka mainstream social media at their best performance).
If one wants to use it in the good way, they can learn almost everything through it. They just need to make a good mapping of the subject they want to learn (another skill that they never taught us and I had to be lost in chaos of information for an enormous amount of time to understand that I need it and acquire it) and find the best sources.
For web development there is FreeCodeCamp (freecodecamp.org/) and Udemy (http://udemy.org/) and a whole bunch of others.
For a vast variety of subjects there are Coursera (University courses and programs), also Udemy, edX, Lynda & Pluralsight.
For Math, Biology, Physics, Chemistry, Computer Science, Economics, History, Arts & Humanity, Reading & Language Arts, Life Skills (Social & Emotional Learning, Careers, Personal Finance, Growth Mindset, Entrepreneurship etc), Statistics and others I know https://www.khanacademy.org/
All of them are either free or with very small tuitions and some of them that have tuitions offer the chance to get most courses for free if you have financial difficulties. And I didn't mention the vast amount of youtube videos and blogs/ communities/ websites that analyze literally every subject someone wants to learn. It's all on the internet, we just have to find the right way through this ocean for us. So, we really have the way to learn the things we want.
Also, I don't have children of my own, but whenever I am in contact with any, I am being kind to them, trying to pass to their subconscious the information of love, empathy, logical thinking, ability to solve things on peaceful and calm manners and to be able to communicate effectively their thoughts, feelings and needs, as well as to respect those of other people.
Those -good life- skills that they never taught us and they will never want to teach to the new generations, it is our duty to learn and teach them. I also strongly believe that scolding and terrorizing kids in the name of our "authority" as parents or adults or "the ones that know better" not only has no results, but raises future adults that try to force their way into anything they want.
Believe it or not, if you talk to a child like you are talking to an adult and explain with reasoning (and listen if they have to say something on the matter, listening is a long lost skill that we should prioritize on re-acquiring), they will eventually understand. And they will have an educated opinion on why they should or shouldn't do something. Not because we told them so, not because we are the adults. It may take two or three or twenty times of explaining, depending to the child, but they will get it and they won't be full of shame and guilt and other complexes like all of the previous generations, ours included.
Solidarity, social justice and respect to all forms of life is another thing we need to learn as a species. We need to start seeing beyond our routine, our comfort zone and our own (short-term at the most occasions) interest.
We have the power. Let's not keep giving it away. 🌞