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  • How will we pay for the third industrial revolution?

In 1712, Thomas Newcomen developed the first commercially successful piston steam engine. Mechanical work created from steam---what a game changer. This event kicked off a snowball of new innovations over the next century; the first industrial revolution. Steam powered boats and trains made it cheaper to transport people and goods. Factories sprung up, steam powered factories; food, clothes, and books became accessible. Populations boomed, and we became more urbanised and educated. Money has existed for a long time; but, before the first industrial revolution, many people still bartered with their land, livestock, and labour---a local response to a local marketplace.

The first industrial revolution was fuelled by coal, but the second industrial revolution was powered by oil. The great electrification, the internal combustion engine---my oh my, how exciting! The assembly line made goods even cheaper to produce. Health standards improved, and populations continued to grow. Cities expanded further; we had to learn how to build steel skyscrapers---vertical streets! Cars were invented; suburbs sprung up around urban populations, and big roads connected cities. People and goods weren't dependent on trains anymore, they could move further and faster, and whenever they wanted. We moved off of the gold standard after the second industrial revolution, new money facilitated quicker and more sustainable economic growth---all that wasted productivity mining gold when we could have been drilling for oil! This was/is a nation-orientated monetary solution, it tolerates globalisation rather than facilitating it.

How will we pay for the third industrial revolution? A computer age---powered by nuclear, gas, and solar energy. This emerging Internet-driven economic space is incredibly global. Money is a mechanism for facilitating transactions; transactions are ever more international. Our current solution to money isn't an international one, this is a problem. The steady state solution will be globally orientated, and digital---why should someone have to pay large fees to send, save, and receive money? I'm excited that people are working on solving this problem. Stellar, as a platform, makes a lot of sense.

    garyjok It's interesting that those developing countries who were left behind in the previous revolution may be at a competitive advantage in this one. The rate that they can adapt to blockchain would be at a much faster rate than developed countries which will have barriers due to existing traditional systems.

        mpokeeffe88 Technology adoption in the developing world is a fascinating subject. A lot of developing countries skipped the landline phone---the infrastructure wasn't there, but are now adopting the mobile phone. I think I agree with you about blockchain in principle; the less that developing countries have to invest, the faster their citizens can adopt. Printing money is ironically expensive---distributed ledger systems are safer and cheaper. But, I don't know how much of a regulatory backlash there will be from pre-existing financial systems in developed countries, distributed ledger systems will be safer and cheaper for them too!

          8 days later

          @bkolobara, I believe you may have erroneously overlooked this content I created for the 'content creators challenge'.

          I understand that it must have been a difficult task to filter through fake posts; however, this was a genuine and original opinion piece. I am not a stellar guru; I am starting out. My post wasn't meant to be technical in nature; it was designed to get people excited about stellar. I submitted it as a catalyst for community discussion, and I did my utmost to engage in the subsequent forum. It is well written, well researched, and certainly falls under the 'Be creative!' category you detailed in your original challenge.

          I'm sure you were quite busy over the week with the challenge, so I am just bringing this to your attention. I can appreciate that it was not an easy competition to manage and moderate. This forum is great, thank you for taking the time to help grow and steer our community!

            Hi garyjok,
            after re-evaluating your post I have decided to reward you as a participant. First time I was reading the post it didn't seem related to stellar, because you only mentioned stellar in the last sentence. However, it is well written and falls into the "be creative" category.