Technology and Communication

It is now two decades since the dotcom boom of the late ’90s. Our lives have changed in many different ways while staying the same in other ways.  

The critical way that technology has changed our lives, in my view, is through communication.

How?

Let’s find out.

Communication

Communication is probably top on my list and yours. We can now find out whatever we want to find out by not just going to a library or asking a local teacher, mentor, or coach. 

No, things seem much more strealmined as you can find answers with Google and connect and communicate with Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, and Instagram. This medium should create vast opportunities for pushing knowledge and even wealth creation. 

I mean, think about it, we don’t have to recreate the wheel anymore, you can tap into the collective hivemind that is the internet and the world wide web. 

You should be able to find ways to learn, connect, and create opportunities by learning what is already present and pushing knowledge forward by learning and testing.

But the trick these days is to communicate the right amount and then focus on work. We have too many ways to communicate, from text to video and various chat apps. 

The challenge in this day and age is to practice self-control in an onslaught of information, to stop yourself from plunging into the abyss of endless content feeds. To prevent yourself from gorging on the addictive content and getting stuck in a swiping loop.

You can trick yourself into thinking that you are productive by consuming endless podcasts or vlogs and merely be frittering the time away.

The challenging is being conscious in an era where it easy to mindless.  

These different modes of communication are exciting because it makes you think that you can do anything and everything all at the same time. But, as everyone knows, concentration is what brings the most value.

Communication allows you to learn actively, but it’s so much easier to tap into streams of entertainment passively.

In summary, with effective communication, you have the opportunity to connect, create, build, and grow. Conversely, applications such as TikTok can eat blocks of time for the majority of users.

Communication and The Post-Truth World

Many also point to the other drawback of social media and large scale communication. Examples include false political ads distributed through Facebook with the help of specialized firms such as Cambridge Analytica.  

The issue is not merely the distribution of fake facts, information, and news but also the effect that it has on the end audience.

Investors such as Josh Wolfe talk about the manipulation of videos and images that seem to be very real that can create long-lasting impressions that alter perception. Perception becomes a reality and distorts the fundamentals. 

When the fundamentals begin to break down, you get misallocation of energy and resources.

You get something similar to what Mordo was saying “temporal manipulations can create branches in time. Unstable dimensional openings. Spatial paradoxes! Time loops! You want to get stuck reliving the same moment over and over forever or never having existed at all?”

Well, not time loops, per se, but some sort of regression that robs collective wealth.

We would be well if we were to heed to words of Wong from Doctor Strange, to not “manipulate the space-time continuum, or break it. We do not tamper with natural law, we defend it.”

 Mordo brings the point home when he asks Strange about the manipulation of the natural laws, “you still think there will be no consequences, Strange? No price to pay? We broke our rules, just like her. The bill comes due. Always! A reckoning. I will follow this path no longer.”

We can harness our technology to break laws that surpass mere creative destruction in a post-truth world, or we can use it to conduct amazing feats like terraforming Mars. The former approach seems profitable in the short term, while the latter brings about leaps and bounds of innovation and real economic growth.

Finally, blockchain and other “truth machine” technologies can bring about verifiability and transparency. The challenge is to integrate these technologies into communication and other parts of life properly in a world where it is profitable to distort.