The 4th Industrial Revolution (IR4) has started. It will be more comprehensive than the previous 3. We learned a lot about their effects, - and the do's and don'ts. Still, the overall outcomes of IRs are positive. The peoples appreciate the industrial innovations and most could not live without them. However, there were destructive political Games causing unnecessary unrest, unjust and destructions. Such are called Pyramid Games. The ongoing 5th Pyramid Game started in parallel to the ongoing 4th industrial Revolution. This time, the negative sides can be minimized – dependent on how well this 5th Pyramid Game is handled. This blog is made to uncover some issues concerning this, - and the start of a new sub-theme about ‘IR4 P5GO’.
First of all, there are some technologically introduction to the 4 industrial revolutions in the Wikipedia:
(IR1) “The First Industrial Revolution took place from the 18th to 19th centuries in Europe and America. It was a period when mostly agrarian, rural societies became industrial and urban. The iron and textile industries, along with the development of the steam engine, played central roles in the Industrial Revolution.”
(IR2) “The Second Industrial Revolution took place between 1870 and 1914, just before World War I. It was a period of growth for pre-existing industries and expansion of new ones, such as steel, oil and electricity, and used electric power to create mass production. Major technological advances during this period included the telephone, light bulb, phonograph and the internal combustion engine.”
(IR3) “The Third Industrial Revolution, or the Digital Revolution, refers to the advancement of technology from analog electronic and mechanical devices to the digital technology available today. The era started during the 1980s and is ongoing. Advancements during the Third Industrial Revolution include the personal computer, the internet, and information and communications technology (ICT).”
(IR4) “The Fourth Industrial Revolution builds on the Digital Revolution, representing new ways in which technology becomes embedded within societies and even the human body. The Fourth Industrial Revolution is marked by emerging technology breakthroughs in a number of fields, including robotics, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, biotechnology, The Internet of Things, 3D printing and autonomous vehicles. (Klaus Schwab, says that the technologies have great potential to continue to connect billions more people to the web, drastically improve the efficiency of business and organizations and help regenerate the natural environment through better asset management.)”
‘Industrie 4.0’ is the term from a German governmental high-tech strategy to promote the computerization of manufacturing. The strategy concerns; the current trend of automation and data exchange in manufacturing technologies that includes cyber-physical systems; the Internet of things; and cloud computing. Some major challenges were identified as: IT security issues, which are greatly aggravated by the inherent need to open up those previously closed production shops. Reliability and stability needed for critical machine-to-machine communication (M2M), including very short and stable latency times. Need to maintain the integrity of production processes. Need to avoid any IT complications, as those would cause expensive production outages. Need to protect industrial knowhow (contained also in the control files for the industrial automation gear). Lack of adequate skill-sets to expedite the march towards fourth industrial revolution. Threat of redundancy of the corporate IT department. General reluctance to change by stakeholders. Loss of many jobs to automatic processes and IT-controlled processes, especially for lower educated parts of society.
The Chinese government’s strategy for IR4 is called ‘Made in China 2025’ (MIC2025). The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) writes: "MIC2025 is an initiative to comprehensively upgrade Chinese industry direct inspiration from Germany's ‘Industry 4.0’ plan. The Chinese effort is far broader and more challenging. MIC2025 has clear principles, goals, tools, and sector focus. Its guiding principles are to have manufacturing be innovation-driven, emphasize quality over quantity, achieve green development, optimize the structure of Chinese industry, and nurture human talent. Although the goal is to upgrade industry writ large, the plan highlights 10 priority sectors: 1) New advanced information technology; 2) Automated machine tools & robotics; 3) Aerospace and aeronautical equipment; 4) Maritime equipment and high-tech shipping; 5) Modern rail transport equipment; 6) New-energy vehicles and equipment; 7) Power equipment; 8) Agricultural equipment; 9) New materials; and 10) Biopharma and advanced medical products.”
The ‘Nova-Russia’ (SU2) do not seem to be able handle the challenges that the IR4 brings. Apparently, it has not handled any IR well. In fact, the IR2 caused the so-called SU revolution and consequently the world wars. (UU 2016.juni.03) They gained some major technological advantages due to espionage in the IR3, though. However, the rest of the world is rather aware of such organized piracies now – and do counter moves. An ironic example is the SU copy of the US Space Shuttle ‘Buran’, that was grounded from the start due to deliberate design faults for SU spies to take. Now, SU cannot catch up on European, American and Asian creativity and mass-production. The main strategy is apparently cyber sabotage on rivals in order to not fall too far behind. Such a devolution has become a hazardous mental case to humanity and might cause global havoc in this century too. This will certainly be issues in future blogs.
The US is now in a very hazardous state due to the PPT (Puppet President Trump). No doubt that the US has been the technological leader in the IR3. There are also some indications that the trends are continuing. However, there are considerable warnings about economic deficits, brain drain and political dilutions. This year’s handling the President Trump case will determine how the US develops in this century. There is an ongoing 5D shift with uncertain outcomes. The US might as well go through the same processes in this century as SU did the previous century. The US will still be in focus during this 1 year of the ‘P5GO’ theme.
AU, the African Union, is the most unpredictable continent of all (UU 2013.Juli.26). AU is not a main concern in this UU theme. However, it might be more in focus, since its development concerns all neighboring continents, - which simply is the whole world. Africa was not that involved in the previous Industrial Revolutions. However, it seems that the Chinese are exporting their ‘Made in China 2025’ projects to AU at large scale. This might become a social and technological shock with several fatal outcomes. AU might be the arena for IR4 proxy wars. This might be issues in later blogs.
The EU’s political handling of IR4 issues is the most interesting and relevant for this theme P5GO. The EU LEJD (Legal, Executive, Judicial and Democratic) powers are established now and should be able to handle this IR4 better than its 2 predecessors handled the IR2 and IR3. The EU Parliament is mature now, the EU Commission delegates its powers and focus on new initiatives, and the EU Council’s states leaders are becoming aware of some the threats of the 5th Pyramid Games. ‘The cradle of democracy’, Europe, do take the concerns most seriously. The European Treaties become more inclusive to European Human rights. This might be the one issue that prevents Europe in being lured into Pyramids Games - like in the of the past century.
- A European Parliament briefing ‘Industry 4.0, Digitalisation for productivity and growth’, says: “Industry 4.0 is expected to have a major effect on global economies. Industry 4.0 can deliver estimated annual efficiency gains in manufacturing of between 6% and 8%. The Boston Consulting Group predicts that in Germany alone, Industry 4.0 will contribute 1% per year to GDP over ten years, creating up to 390 000 jobs. Globally, one expert estimates that investment on the Industrial Internet will grow from US$20 billion in 2012 to more than US$500 billion in 2020 (albeit with slower growth after that date), and that value added will surge from $US23 billion in 2012 to US$1.3 trillion in 2020.”
- A EU Commission document ‘Industry 4.0’ analysis thoroughly issues like: CURRENT POLICIES; Rationale for intervention, EU level, Member State level, Gaps in policy. ASSESSMENT; Key benefits and drawbacks, Business results and expected impacts – will it work?, Where public sector support could add value The type of support. RECOMMENDATIONS; Refined policies, New policies, in addition to providing Case Studies and Overview of Digital Manufacturing Initiatives. The EU handling of the IR4 will be a main issue in these blogs.
‘Basic income’ is a contraversive and pressing political issue these days. It is necessary to prevent desperations, uprising and civil war. Such misseries was abused in IR2 and IR3 by what is now known as ‘the Red Mafia’ (UU 2017.feb.24). However, basic income is a 200-year-old political issue in ‘the West’. (See the Ted Talk ‘Why we should give everyone a basic income’ in this Extra UU.) It is not like the extreme isms abused to cause CCD and CdE as in the previous Pyramid Games. Even major high-tech celebrities says it has to be done. Elon Musk (Tesla) says that automation will force governments to Introduce Universal Basic Income (UBI). Bill Gates (Microsoft) says that the productions’ robots should pay tax like the workers they replaced to finance the required re-schooling and LifeQuality. There are 3 traditional claims against Basic Income. 1) That it is too expensive. Yet the social costs of poverty are higher. 2) People will not work if not forced to. On the contrary, most people want to self-realize, be social and contribute. 3) It is politically too complicated. True, this is most certainly serious a challenge, since UBI has actually has been a legal Human Rights obligation for all United Nations for 50 years - and in the EU for 20 years due to competition rules of State Aid. (See UU 2014.okt.17 about LQ, UN, EU, HR)
“All we need to agree on - is where we do not want to end” is a rather wise conclusion by a Dane minister. As a European, looking back at the previous century, most answers are in the previous century’s 3rd and 4th Pyramid Games. Most agree on not repeating that, being intelligent and learn by those mistakes. However, still, there are Pyramid Games. The anti-thesis for this century is the P5GO (5th Pyramid Game Over) and the related models described in UU 2015.mars.13. This is the start of a new sub-theme ‘IR4 P5GO’ that will continue in the following blogs.
Links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industry_4.0
https://www.csis.org/analysis/made-china-2025
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buran_%28spacecraft%29
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2015/568337/EPRS_BRI(2015)568337_EN.pdf
https://www.csis.org/analysis/made-china-2025
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income
Music:
‘Mr. Robot’ is an American drama–thriller television series. The series follows Elliot Alderson, a young man living in New York City, who works at the cyber security company Allsafe as a security engineer. Constantly struggling with social anxiety disorder, dissociative identity disorder and clinical depression, Elliot's thought process seems heavily influenced by paranoia and delusion. He connects to people by hacking them, which often leads him to act as a cyber-vigilante. He is recruited by a mysterious insurrectionary anarchist known as Mr. Robot and joins his team of hacktivists known as fsociety. One of their missions is to cancel all consumer debt by destroying the data of one of the largest corporations in the world, E Corp (which Elliot perceives as Evil Corp), which also happens to be Allsafe's biggest client.
The pilot premiered on multiple online and video on demand services and the series was renewed for a second season before the first season premiered on USA Network. Mr. Robot has received critical acclaim and has been nominated for and won multiple awards, including the Golden Globe for Best Television Drama Series and was recognized with a Peabody Award, received six Emmy nominations and Malek winning for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series.
The association to this blog about IR4, is the abuse of unfortunate youngsters by all means to cause CCD (Colony Collapse Disorder).
Music is used extensively in the Mr. Robot TV series.
Here is a playlist of:
"Where is My Mind?" by Telepathic Teddy Bear
https://youtu.be/UYfh9YhUVdE
Mr. Robot Soundtrack - Season 1 & Season 2 Best Songs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAqEdpWxRTk&list=RDSAqEdpWxRTk
Here are some videos about the IR4:
“IR4 (The Fourth Industrial Revolution) builds on the Digital Revolution, representing new ways in which technology becomes embedded within societies and even the human body. IR4 is marked by emerging technology breakthroughs in a number of fields, including robotics, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, biotechnology, The Internet of Things, 3D printing and autonomous vehicles.”
Documentary | The Fourth Industrial Revolution
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpW9JcWxKq0
IR4 - play list at Youtube
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=fourth+industrial+revolution
Why we should give everyone a basic income | Rutger Bregman | TEDxMaastricht
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIL_Y9g7Tg0
Dane Tech TV series – So ein Ding.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=so+ein+ding
https://www.dr.dk/tv/se/so-ein-ding/so-ein-ding-tv/so-ein-ding-54