Podcast 581-Disruption

Podcast 581-Disruption. The 1950’s and 60’s Are Never Coming Back. Disruption is Radical Change with profound effects, usually Permanent.   I’ve tried to determine the root of the feeling we all seem to have that something is wrong. It comes down to a major disruption of our business, industrial, governmental and cultural processes.Podcast 581-Disruption started out to be a podcast about the industrial revolution and the 1950’s in the United States. It’s a theme I return to regularly, especially when I talk about technology.

The Industrial Revolution caused disruptions from the time it began until it peaked in the 1950’s through the 1970’s. We’re in the early stages of a technology revolution on a scale the world has never experienced. I call it the second industrial revolution. It is a technology revolution and will cause profound disruptions.

Some call what we’re living through the fourth industrial revolution. I use the term second industrial revolution because I think breaking the Industrial Revolution into parts minimizes its impact. We’re in the early stages of a disruption as significant as the Industrial Revolution has been overall. What I call the Second Industrial Revolution will have more impact on humans and the planet than the first. The effect of both concepts should not be underestimated.

One of the cultural effects of the ‘turbo’ into the future is longing and nostalgia for the past. The Post World War II period in American History appears to be one of those times when the world could be easily explained, people understood their roles, people of different races didn’t mingle and The United States was number one with a bullet. The problem with this idea is, the late 1940’s, 1950’s and 1960’s only exist in perfection in dreamy memories and pictures of Marilyn Monroe. Pretty pictures, faded with time. A time when ‘everyone’ was working. When small towns were strong, and big cities were booming. Yet even then, the beginning of the decline of one age and the dawn of a new were in the making.

Not all the gifts of the technology revolution are good. The gifts of technology can be used for dark purposes as well. Religions that spread like viruses. ‘Conventional’ war on an unprecedented scale. Surveillance and mind control of populations that are supposed to be free, to the point where they ask for laws to control speech. What seems like a dream to some, will be a nightmare to others.

This revolution will not be stopped though. It will flow around any obstacles put in its path. Much of the texture of the sense some have that ‘something’ is wrong can be expressed in fear and hate. ‘Fixing’ whatever is wrong, means going back to a world 60 or 70 years ago? A world that no longer exists. Much of the industrial revolution is based on centralization. Today centralization is being disrupted to the point of destruction by decentralizing technologies. What do we need to prevail, given these challenges?

Dealing with this change is a question of how we conduct our own lives and ensure our own happiness and freedom.  We’re living through the beginning of the greatest disruption in human history. It might be the greatest age of human beings and this country yet. Saying things change isn’t descriptive enough. Disruption means radical change. In Podcast 581-Disruption-The 1950’s aren’t coming back, when are we going to stop complaining about what is being done to us, and start taking charge of our lives and our world. When are we going to start looking forward and not backward.

Sponsored by Hydrus Performance and X Government Cars.

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Podcast 540-The Bob Davis Podcasts Radio Show-40

Podcast 540-The Bob Davis Podcasts Radio Show-40. This week’s radio show addresses some questions about my assertions this election season is a bust. If I’ve learned one thing in years of talk radio, it’s that people want radio hosts and politicians to tell them what they want to hear. That all is well. That the new president inaugurated in January of 2017 will be the one they voted for, and that everything is going to get ‘fixed’ the way they want it. That’s not going to happen. Someone needs to say it, and often. In an election season characterized by the ‘lesser of two evils’ argument, if that is an argument, what if the lesser of two evils is a mistake. What if either choice takes us down a road we may not be able to come back from? That is why we all need to start thinking about building new political movements. The American political system is not working. I am not talking about the Republic, or the constitution. I’m talking about primary elections, controlled by the parties and mandated by state law. I’m talking about the way we choose our leaders. Changing that and putting pressure on political leaders is going to take organization and movements. No, making a few calls and knocking on doors, and going to meetings on Tuesday night once a month isn’t an organization. Why do we need to do this? In Podcast 540-The Bob Davis Podcasts Radio Show-40 I review again my fascination with western history, this week specifically my trip out to western Minnesota, and the deprivations of the settlers from the struggle with the American Indian to infestations of locusts of biblical proportions. Those people embraced the latest technology to handle a far greater challenge than anything we face. Our fear of new technology and obsession with recreating the 1950’s in this country, prevent us from ushering in a new age of opportunity and growth.  Finally, a review of some of the rants this week about the election and the candidates. Sponsored by X Government Cars and Hydrus Performance.

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Podcast 538

Western Minnesota Road Trip. Freestyle talk about my travel in the last last 6 weeks. My reflections on a weekend jaunt to Western Minnesota’s New Ulm and Walnut Grove, tying in the talk about technology threatening jobs in the future. Recent road trips have intensified my interest in the history of the Western United States. There is a lot of significant western history in Minnesota. We often think of historic topics like Indian Wars and Pioneers has happening further west, but one of the bloodiest clashes between settlers and American Indians happened in New Ulm in 1862, when the mostly German townspeople had to barricade the streets of their town to fight off attacks by the Dakota. Further west is Walnut Grove, the home of Laura Ingalls Wilder and the famous ‘Little House On The Prairie’. While the museum in Walnut Grove could use a little bit better curation, some of the artifacts in the museum are interesting, especially grasshoppers or Locusts the size of a man’s hand, which plagued the settlers of Walnut Grove. When you examine items in a museum, it’s easy to think about how old they are. For the people of the time though, it was new technology. It’s fun to flip the script and wonder what our descendants will think of the artifacts of our time in a museum at some point a hundred years from now. Today, supposedly new tech like robotics and autonomous machines and software threatens millions of jobs. Proposed ‘solutions’ to this ‘threat’, like guaranteed minimum incomes and job retraining programs don’t make much sense. When people came west for opportunity, 140 years ago, they didn’t have job retraining programs. They couldn’t have known they’d be plagued by grasshoppers the size of a man’s hand. Yet they came anyway. We need to start thinking about the opportunity new technology provides us in building a new world, and stop being so negative all the time. Sponsored by Karow Contracting and Hydrus Performance.

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