Mega-shift

Suppose we are in a once every few hundred years massive societal change driven by information technology. We have been thinking this for at least the last 20 years or so. We have already seen a few waves of job transfers from manual to knowledge workers and of white collar repetitive jobs becoming automated.

Are the latest waves of financial crises exacerbated by the speed of information travel? What will that mean as the speed of information travel continues to go faster and include more dimensions? The stock market graphs of the last 10 years look remarkably different than all that came before with huge, spikey mountains and valleys. Seems that someone says something on one side of the world and a stock market on the other side of the world reacts within minutes... or seconds.

And have a somewhat permanent 10% of the US work force been cut. "Permanent" at least in the sense of until enough time passes for lots of re-training and re-education. Is the volatility of world financial markets another symptom of the kind of stress seen around major societal shifts?

If we are in fact accelerating our progression toward a time where everything that an be automated will be automated and our value is much more determined by how creative we are rather than how much quantity of work we can do, what does that mean for most of today's current work force?

Will we evolve into a more highly conscious, creative species overall? Will there be more separation between the haves and have nots, where the haves are represented by those who learn to be artists?

Fast forward 50, 100 years and how will we expect the societal landscape to change analagous to the changes we saw over 200 years ago from a monarchical, agricultural, rural society into a relatively democratic, industrial and urban society? What are the parallels and differences both in how we live physically, how we think and how we behave?

Deja Vu

I visited my undergrad college town a couple of weeks ago. I had only been there for one or two very brief passing-through visits in the last 32 years or so. Whenever I've been back, I am surprised at the intensity of feelings and memories that surface. This time was no different.

It's interesting that after living some place for a long time how we appear to absorb a collective consciousness for that place. Or, maybe we call it a "vibe". This vibe is multi-dimensional and perhaps beyond words. Music probably expresses it best.

This vibe certainly came rushing back. Part of it was the climate. Summer afternoons in Hattiesburg are warm and slightly humid. In the center of the summer, afternoon showers are regular, short and refreshing. That particular day was cooler and less humid, but I remembered, felt and practically saw many of the wonderful people I played, laughed, worked, learned and grew up with for the 4-5 years spent in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. I miss all of you.

Financial Risk

It's always interesting to me that many people tend to have an inverted sense of actions to take when the stock market drops. The knee jerk reaction seems to be sell low and buy high. Instead of buying on major drops, we tend to sell out of fear. Now, sometimes past scars can be a reason for being cautious, but once the drop has happened, selling does not make sense unless we think that the investments held are bad investments. Moving money from less promising to more promising investments is always a good transfer to make.

Getting to White Rock Trail

I discovered how to get to White Rock Trail from Preston Ridge Trail on my bike. Going South on Preston Ridge Trail get to Beltline. Once you get to Beltline, keep going on Meandering Way until Peyton Street. Take a right on Peyton. You will ride through a nice neighborhood crossing over Alpha Road. Peyton runs directly into Valley View Park. Go to the right of the park and you will see the trail.

I rode as far as LBJ Freeway. The trail was nice and shady with some bridges and trees. I want to explore it further South of LBJ soon.