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Why are Industrial Revolutions important? How do they work? What is happening now and what is the future? What does Africa have to do with it?
I wish you a pleasant lecture.
The Industrial Revolutions
Widely known concept of technological revolutions marked by huge advancements across certain branches of industries is known to many.
The shift from a non-computer world to a computerized world is visible to the naked eye, the result is that access to digital technology is one of the indicators of how modern and developed a country is.
Industrial Revolutions usually take place across the whole world in approximately 60 years separated by approximately 50 years of industry cooldown.
Those revolutions are commonly started by important innovations which dramatically change the quality and speed of how people do things.
Starting with the Industrial Revolution of 1760 to 1820/40 began in Great Britain, resulting in it becoming a world trade hegemon.
The difference between handwork and steam machine power was astonishing. It allowed people more automated work and made lives easier and cheaper for many.
The Second Industrial Revolution of 1870-1914 gave birth to many outstanding innovations such as the gas engine, dynamite, and radio.
Many of the advancements were born in the USA leading it to climb up the ladder of world economical powers.
What followed was worldwide wars, which resulted in a process of wealth redistribution generated by the technological advancement of humanity.
This transports us to the Third Industrial Revolution, which started directly after the Second World War. The number of advancements made across the timespan of World Wars was humongous and led to further evolution of technology.
War is undoubtedly never good and I wish there were none. But wars also accelerate science, research, and industry and the World Wars are parents of modern computers, satellites, and many others.
The world in 1950 and today is incomparable. The way we live and think is drastically different.
So why do we keep telling ourselves that we are in Third Industrial Revolution?
I hypothesize that we already "finished" it.
Today and Fourth Industrial Revolution
After the dot-com bubble in the 2000s, when the concept of the internet became widespread but also the expectations became irrational the bubble exploded. Not only stocks but also humanity's constant need for an upgrade. This resulted in a cooled-down but still advancement.
The introduction of Bitcoin in 2009 is what I want to call "The Beginning of the Fourth Industrial Revolution", or "Start of the Age of Decentralization".
Not only Bitcoin but Bitcoins idea, technological advancement in space travel with SpaceX rockets, AI's Chat GPT, medicines mRNA vaccines, and robotics such as the wide use of drones in the Ukraine-Russia War. All of those advancements are groundbreaking across their respective industries. They shatter the veil of what we as humans can or cannot do.
If u told me 8 years ago that I could use an AI to write an A+ essay I would laugh at you. 10 years ago, mechanized warfare with the usage of drones was incomprehensible. The idea of trustless, international safe money was a dream 15 years ago.
The trigger is already turned on and the world is picking up speed again.
But there is a small, but very important difference between previous industrial revolutions and the current one when it comes to the trigger point innovation.
It's the behavior of US lawmakers.
While the US was a King of innovative law that allowed its country to bloom in previous revolutions, today it's hindered.
Examples of US bad legislation and constant fight with blockchain allow certain other countries and unions to thrive and develop.
Who might turn out to be a winner in this race?
If the overall US regulatory system keeps "fighting Bitcoin" then it might lose its title of World Hegemon in a decade or less. There are many competitors, with worse or better results that keep waiting to grab it.
China does wrong when it comes to Blockchain stuff, but their current rate of technological advancement is absurd.
India is suffering from the same illness.
Europe is already exploited of resources and it keeps getting harder for European countries to advance.
But there is this one continent that is far behind when speaking of technology, it has abundant resources, and constantly developing academic, banking, law, and medicine communities. What this continent doesn't have to spar with other players is money. And this continent is Africa.
is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surface area. With 1.4 billion people as of 2021, it accounts for about 18% of the world's human population. Africa's population is the youngest amongst all the continents; age in 2012 was 19.7, when the worldwide median age was 30.4. Despite a wide range of natural resources, Africa is the least wealthy continent per capita and second-least wealthy by total wealth, behind . Scholars have attributed this to different factors including geography, climate, colonialismneocolonialism, lack of democracy, and corruption. Despite this low concentration of wealth, recent economic expansion and the large and young population make Africa an important economic market in the broader global context. ~Wikipedia
What makes a huge difference when adopting groundbreaking innovations is open-mindedness. There is a common belief that young people are more open-minded.
That is why Africa is a perfect place for the next kind of Industrial Revolution to start. Some people already invest colossal money in African countries.
What was the reason that brought us from semi-middle-aged Europe to the steam-powered age of machines was a need for improvement.
What may push Africa from its current state to Digitalized Decentralized Empire is the same. The need for improvement of quality of life is what increases people's productivity and creativity.
What is the biggest obstacle in other continents' evolution is established laws and habits. And African countries did not advance in this direction yet, and that's why they are ahead of others.
For a totally new infrastructure to work in the place of the previous one you need to destroy the previous one. For new internet usage to flourish, you need to abandon the old ones.
But in Africa, there is no need to destroy or abandon anything, there is plenty of space for the introduction of blockchain technology, AI, and robotization. You do not need to send people countless academic years to trash because of new groundbreaking discovery because there is plenty of young talented people that are waiting to be offered an education at all.
My thoughts
The near future of human civilization is a very hypothetical subject. I may be wrong but I do not need to. That's why I wanted my readers to share their point of view in the comments.
So what is your opinion?
None of the information in this article should be considered financial advice, it's my analysis and facts I wanted to share with this wonderful community.
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