Planet Earth, a (Mostly) Harmless Object in a Gigantic Universe?

I have just finished reading the book “The hitchhiker´s guide to the galaxy” [1] by Douglas Adam, a rather mind-blowing experience if you ask me. In this book we get to follow Arthur Dent, who manages to escape planet Earth right before it is destroyed in order to make way for an intergalactic freeway. The book has irony written all over it, and makes fun of the human race and our big thoughts about ourselves. What Arthur Dent gets to learn on his journey through space is that planet Earth, which he is very fond of, is in fact a meaningless object in space. Or as the Earth is described in the Hitchhiker´s guide; “Mostly harmless”.

The book really makes you realize how big the Universe is, and what endless possibilities there are for other living creatures to exist out there. We see ourselves as very intelligent individuals just because we happen to be the most intelligent life form on our planet (despite the Hitchhiker´s guide telling us that mice and dolphins actually are smarter than us). However, there might be life out there somewhere in the Universe, compared to which we are indeed intelligent inferior. We are just not developed enough to find them.

Via superior technology the different creatures in the book have the possibility to interact with each other. In the absence of this technology we, the inhabitants of the Earth, are unaware of the life forms that might be out there somewhere in the Universe. They might not look like the aliens that Hollywood has managed to create, but some kind of organism in any kind of appearance is probably out there. We have so far only been able to transport ourselves to the closest celestial bodies in our solar system. If we would be able to search other solar systems, surely we would be able to find other habitable planets. That is at least what I think. And maybe we would find that our planet Earth is in fact harmless.

The fact that planet Earth is just a very small object in the gigantic Universe is not only a theme in the book “The hitchhiker´s guide to the galaxy”, but also a common theme in the entire science fiction genre. I think many of us enjoy the thought of us not being the most superior creatures in the Universe, or at least find the concept fascinating. The book gives the reader a more humorous insight in what life in outer space could be like. To illustrate the smallness of our planet, I will end this post by a quotation from the classic science fiction movie “Beneath the Planet of the Apes" from 1970, a more dramatic one which arises when the Earth is destroyed:

In one of the countless billions of galaxies in the Universe lies a medium sized star, and one of its satellites, a green and insignificant planet, is now dead

(Frees, Paul, (1970) [2]

References

[1]  Adams, Douglas (2002). The hitchhiker´s guide to the galaxy. Ballantine Books, New York.

[2]  Frees, Paul, perf. (1970). Beneath the Planet of the Apes. Dir. Ted Post.

Are droids taking our jobs?

I have just witnessed a lecture that Andrew McAfee has given about how the gap between the number of potential employees and the number of jobs is growing bigger and bigger. You can blame a part of this on the recession, but according to Andrew the new technologies plays a huge part of why the number of jobs do not reach its full potential. The importance of the technological development can be seen when taking a look at how the world population and the social development index have increased over time. The past 200 years has been historical in the sense of population growth and the increase of GDP in the world. The technological development is of course the source of this. The fact that the droids are taking our jobs is however not something that should make as angry or afraid, the point that Andrew is trying to make is that this decreasing need for employees will create extra time for us to make the world a better place to live in.

This entire story reminds me of the futuristic cartoon series “The Jetsons”. In this cartoon the husband George only has one job; to press a button to get the working robots going. After pressing this button he calls it a day and can go home and rest after a hard day´s work. The question is if we are not moving towards this “Jetsons”-future in a rapid pace. I have previously worked as an auditor, and I know for sure that the IT-development the past 20 years have made my work a lot easier. I started to work only 4 years ago, and by then all bookkeeping had been digitalized, which made it easier for us to track the financial transactions. The seniors at my job told me about how it was when they first started to work as auditors. Back then they had to look into actual books in order to track the transactions, which took a lot of time. In this example you can tell the technology has managed to reduce the need of work force working with both bookkeeping and auditing. However, in the future I do not see it as impossible that the computers have taken over ALL of the jobs, that all of the bookkeeping is made automatically by every transaction made. In this case the future auditor will just be one engineer controlling the robot which is keeping track of the financial transactions.

I do not know if the technology will development will increase in the same speed as in recent years, however it might do. And if it does, then we will probably look into a future with much spare time on our hands, for better and for worse.

References

[1] Andrew Mcafee, "Are Androids taking our jobs?"

http://www.ted.com/talks/andrew_mcafee_are_droids_taking_our_jobs

Retrieved: 2014-03-19

Taking advantage of the digital opportunities

I would like to give my reflections concerning an article I just took part of, called “The Year of the Paywall”[1] by Edmund Lee. The article focuses on how the newspaper industry finally is figuring out how to make a profit on the world wide web-phenomenon that has become a great part of in the everyday life for all of us. For the first time since 2003 the newspaper is increasing its revenue, thanks to the so called paywalls, which prevents the internet users to get access to certain articles without paying.

Seeing this development of paywalls from my perspective as a student, of course I somehow find it sad that the newspapers finally have figured out that it is a good idea to get paid not only from the declining numbers of printed copies of the newspapers, but also the digital versions, in order to create a profitable organization. However, above all I find it favorable that journalists can gain revenue on the intangible assets they manage to create. I have myself the last year paid a couple of newspaper sites in order to gain access to all of their digitally distributed articles. As long as the money I spend is used to create more and better articles in the future I am more than happy to pay. I rather have this development in the newspaper industry than a future with fewer articles with lacking quality distributed online.

Another thought of mine on the same subject goes to the music industry, another industry with mainly intangible assets, which also have had declining sales the past 15 years related to the inability to adjust to the changed market the digital era has created. I admit that it is tricky to gain money when practically every teenager is familiar with the concept of downloading, and have knowledge of different ways to listen to the music for free over internet. There have been created laws against downloading music, however I see a possibility for the industry to raise its revenue by using internet as an asset rather than seeing it as a threat.

In recent years we have observed possibilities for the music industry to in an effective way reach the costumer by offering services that will make the music more accessible and have better quality than any other option available. An example of a company that has managed to create an opportunity for the music industry to take advantage of the web is Spotify. By making the music more accessible to the user, the costumer has been given an alternative for downloading, and thereby created a way for the music industry to increase its declining revenue. The costumer can choose to pay to get rid of advertisement or to have access to the service on their mobile devices. This way Spotify has created a need for a product that the costumer previously did not know they had, which according to me is a great way to act in the business world. Because that is, after all, what the industry is all about; business. The leading forces of the industry just need some time to develop their way to think, in order to adjust and take advantage of the new possibilities the digital era creates.

References

[1] “The Year of the Paywall” by Edmund Lee. 

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-11-14/2014-outlook-online-publishers-paywall-strategy

Retrieved 2014-02-05.