Change down the road – Page 2

The long, deadly, anti-human shadow of Malthusian thinking. A 200 year trail of evil.

In my reading and thinking over the years, I have learned anytime Malthusian ideas surface in a discussion those ideas will inevitably be wrong. More often than not, they are immoral as well.

After considering Matt Ridley’s discussion of The Long Shadow of Malthus, I now realize that Malthusian ideas are often evil as well.

This post is a review of Prof. Ridley’s published article. If you want a longer version that shows in more detail the suffering, misery, and needless deaths caused by followers of Malthus, check out chapter 11 of his book, The Evolution of Everything.

The core of this school of thought holds that the planet will not be able to sustain whatever growth in population is taking place at the moment. As a result, it is mandatory that us bright people (that’s you and me) limit the increasing population of those people. As the professor says:

It centres on the question of how to control human population growth and it answers that question by saying we must be cruel to be kind, that ends justify means. It is still around today; and it could not be more wrong.

Thomas Malthus wrote An Essay on the Principle of Population in 1798.

The consequences of his ideas were extended until they

…inadvertently gave birth to a series of heartless policies — the poor laws, the British government’s approach to famine in Ireland and India, social Darwinism, eugenics, the Holocaust, India’s forced sterilisations and China’s one-child policy.

Check out the article for the long shadow.

Here are a few shameful examples of the harm and suffering intentionally created by Malthusian disciples: Continue reading “The long, deadly, anti-human shadow of Malthusian thinking. A 200 year trail of evil.”

The overwhelming change you feel today is going to increase. Engage the change.

Image courtesy of DollarPhotoClub.com before they closed their doors.

The massive volumes of change you see surrounding you everywhere you look isn’t going to stop. In fact the pace of change is going to increase.

Each of us have a choice. Either figure out how to cope with and embrace the change or ignore it.

The cost of ignoring massive change is that you and your organization will get left behind. That doesn’t just mean you will be a laggard as you continue doing next month what you did last year. Instead that means your organization will radically shrink and before you know it, will disappear.

The downsides are serious. There is an upside and it is exciting.

Four articles I’ve seen lately focus the mind. While these articles are written in either the accounting or church context, they also fully apply in the church and accounting context. They also apply to every individual and organization.

This article will be posted across all my blogs because it applies to all of them.

7/7 – Bill Sheridan at LinkedIn – Embrace change or resist it: Only one option is viable.

The odds are really high that tax preparation will be completely automated in the next two decades. Estimated odds are almost as high that both accounting and auditing will be fully automated.

Consider my business and my core tasks of auditing charities. There is a real possibility those types of audits could be heavily automated in 10 or 15 or 20 years. I am not old enough to bank on retiring before that massive change starts eating away the entire audit profession.

Automation will take over an increasing number of tasks. The world of tax, accounting, and audit will be affected. Mr. Sheridan explains the shelf life of education and experience we have is shrinking.

As the Maryland Association of CPAs routinely points out our learning needs to be greater than the rate of change; L>C is their formula.

Continue reading “The overwhelming change you feel today is going to increase. Engage the change.”

On learning to surf the waves of change

We need to figure out how to ‘surf’ the massive waves of changes surrounding us.

This discussion, cross-posted from my other blog Attestation Update, helps all of us get a picture of the massive amounts of change surrounding us and the huge waves of change that are getting closer.

3/24 – Tom Hood on LinkedIn – Why Accountants Must Learn How to Ride These Big Waves of Change – There are massive waves of change on the horizon. Risks of getting drowned are high for accountants and auditors.

We need to understand what those two comments mean and how to cope with the implications. Tom Hood’s article points toward those waves that are soon to crash down on our heads.

It’s a VUCA world

Major changes we are in can be summarized by that phrase: Continue reading “On learning to surf the waves of change”

Stretching my brain on the commercial space launch business

Ariane 5 liftoff for VA227 launch. Credit: Arianespace.

One of the major reasons I blog is to learn. Nothing stretches me more than reading a fascinating article and commenting in public on it. Putting my thoughts out on the never-to-go-away Internet requires a very careful reading of articles.

So if you want to stretch your brain too, stay tuned while I comment on Space News’s coverage on January 6 of a press conference: Arianespace Surpassed SpaceX in Commercial Launch Orders in 2015.

Launch rates

The organization’s CEO provided the following count of commercial orders for 2014. I think this is the count of launches into geo-stationary transfer orbit:

9 – Arianespace
9 – SpaceX

Article says that reflects Arianespace catching up with SpaceX.

Here is the count of 2015 contracts for geostationary launches: Continue reading “Stretching my brain on the commercial space launch business”

Why I am so optimistic – 3

The future is so bright we need sunglasses. Image courtesy of DollarPhotoClub.com

The number of people working in manufacturing has been declining for many years. Those job losses will continue at the same time as technology disrupts other industries causing the loss of more jobs.

This is not a new concept. Technological advances have devastated farm employment over the last 150 years.

(Cross-post from my other blog, Nonprofit Update.)

Prof. Thomas Tunstall pondered Where the New Jobs Will Come From. Sub headline on his 11/4/15 article said:

In 2007 iPhone application developers didn’t exist. By 2011 Apple had $15 billion in mobile-app revenues.

Consider the percentage of the population employed in agriculture over time: Continue reading “Why I am so optimistic – 3”

Diverging opinions on the U.S. bill to allow asteroid mining.

Image of asteroid courtesy of DollarPhotoClub.com

I previously mentioned the U.S. House and Senate had passed a bill which would allow private mining of asteroids. Ownership of the asteroids wouldn’t be allowed but a company extracting resources from asteroids would have lawful property rights to the material.

The law was signed – 11/26 – Space Daily – Pres. Obama signs bill recognizing asteroid resource property rights into law – The President signed the bill to allow companies to have ownership interest in resources mined from asteroids. Ownership of asteroids is not allowed, but what you mine you own.

Now for a completely different perspective:

11/27 – Gbenga Oduntan at Space Daily – Who owns space? US asteroid-mining act is dangerous and potentially illegal – Author asserts that activity in space “requires international regulation” which means the US Congress has no authority except to ratify international treaties.

Continue reading “Diverging opinions on the U.S. bill to allow asteroid mining.”

Delightful news on the wide open frontier of private space exploration shows why I am so optimistic about the future

Recovered first stage, which landed a mere 4 1/2 feet from where planned. Photo courtesy of Blue Origin. Used with permission. — Recovered first stage, which landed a mere 4 1/2 feet away from planned impact point. Photo courtesy of Blue Origin. Used with permission.

Lots of fun news in the past week about the wide open frontier of space exploration. Three huge developments are:

SpaceX landed a contract for a manned flight,
Blue Origin successfully recovered a first stage, and
Japan successfully launched a commercial satellite.

What I describe in this post is the reason I am so wildly optimistic about the future. The astounding progress here stands in stark contrast to the foolishness and ridiculousness we see dominate the news every hour of every day.

The absolute best news:

11/24 – New York Post – The new space race is a private-sector affair – Editorial celebrates Blue Origin successfully recovering a first stage, SpaceX has already flown several resupply missions to the International Space Station, and Boeing & Virgin Galactic are also in the game.

The more competitors, the better.

First stages can be recovered after launch:

Blue Origin launch. Photo courtesy of Blue Origin. Used with permission.

Continue reading “Delightful news on the wide open frontier of private space exploration shows why I am so optimistic about the future”

Updates on open frontier of private space exploration

Private space launch of privately developed rocket. Photo courtesy of SpaceX.

I am fascinated by the wide open frontiers in so many areas of life. We’re at the point where private enterprises are taking the lead in space exploration.

Here are several fascinating articles I’ve read recently on legislation to legalize space mining, how to colonize Mars, thumbsats (which are smaller than cubesats), and competition for launching GPS satellites.

Asteriod mining

11/13 – Jurist – Senate approved the bill to legalize space mining – Bill would be huge step in providing a legal framework for mining asteroids. This would not allow for ownership of asteroids, but would give a clear title to anyone who mined resources and removed them from the asteroid.

Continue reading “Updates on open frontier of private space exploration”

What “we” have been doing to reduce poverty for the last fifty years doesn’t seem to have done much good.

If you want to know why I’ve been reading a lot on developmental economics in the last few years, check out these amazingly depressing statistics –

Poverty in the United States:

14.7% – portion of Americans living below the official poverty in 1966, right after our “war on poverty” started
14.5% – portion of Americans living below the poverty level in 2013

Poverty around the world:

2.6 billion – number of people living on less than two dollars a day in 1981
2.2 billion – number of people living below that level in 2011

Continue reading “What “we” have been doing to reduce poverty for the last fifty years doesn’t seem to have done much good.”

Primer on Bitcoins and Cryptocurrencies

The Wall Street Journal features a brief debate today asking Do Cryptocurrencies Such as Bitcoin Have a Future?

If you haven’t thought about the idea of Bitcoins much and don’t know what cryptocurrencies are, the Yes and No positions will provide a lot of brain expanding ideas. If you have pondered the issue enough to sorta’ kinda’ have an answer to the question, you may still find the article to be worth a read. If you already have a position, check out the arguments from the other side.

The change from Apps is just getting started. (Radical change #3)

Another part of my effort to explain that while I see radical change on the horizon in other areas, I have a blind spot how those things will affect auditing.

1/19 – Mark Mills at Forbes – The Mobile Revolution Has Only Just Begun – Look again at the radical change in the last century:

Not only have radios become cheap but they’ve collapsed in size while rising in capability. A trailer-pulled radio that weighed one ton in WWI is now a chipset weighing a fraction of an ounce buried inside a smartphone that can handle one million-fold more traffic than those first Marconis.

Combine that with a computer the size of a phone and you have a smart phone.

Continue reading “The change from Apps is just getting started. (Radical change #3)”

Digital currencies are radical change on the horizon for banking and credit cards. (Radical change #2)

There is radical change all around us and more on the way. I know that. My blind spot is figuring out how that will affect my audit firm.

Here’s one part of radical change I can see on the horizon:

1-24 – Wall Street Journal – Bitcoin and the Digital-Currency Revolution / For all bitcoin’s growing pains, it represents the future of money and global finance.– For a brain stretcher on digital currency, check out the article. Focus is on Bitcoin, which is merely the starting point in a revolution of disintermediation.

Just like money funds disintermediated (that means cut out of the picture) bank deposits in the distant ‘80s, bitcoin and other yet-to-be-invented digital currencies will disintermediate a huge portion of the financial system.

Picture the long series of transactions when you buy a cup of coffee at the corner shop with your credit card (this is a long quote cited under fair use, oh, also to promote the book it is extracted from): Continue reading “Digital currencies are radical change on the horizon for banking and credit cards. (Radical change #2)”

I get the concept of radical changes in our near future. I am blind to see how it will affect my business. (Radical change #1)

We are in the midst of radical change. I’m writing this blog (Outrun Change) to sort out the change around us.

I get it in terms of tech change obliterating newspaper want ads, count of first class mail pieces for the Post Office, and devastation to bookstores (remember Borders?).

I totally get the concept that you can be your own book publisher with a cost of under $200 per title if you have the skill to use Adobe Acrobat along with Microsoft Excel and Word. Major publishers are dinosaurs.

Running your own digital publishing company? Been there. Done that. Three times. And publishing the Nook version is literally one extra click, one click, in the on-line production cycle.

Continue reading “I get the concept of radical changes in our near future. I am blind to see how it will affect my business. (Radical change #1)”

More good stuff on the open frontiers – 1/6

More articles on the open frontiers of technology and private space flight. But first, some downsides of tech misuse and letting the world pass you by.

Downside of tech revolution and change

Not everything is getting better. There is abuse of technology along with quantitative and qualitative decay:

1/2 – Schneier on Security – Doxing as an Attack – New terms you didn’t want to know, but really ought to: doxing –

Continue reading “More good stuff on the open frontiers – 1/6”

More good stuff on the Bakken – 11/8

Here are a few articles of what’s going on in North Dakota. Focus for this post is infrastructure and employment.

11/7 – Al Jazeera – From the wars of West Africa to the oil boom of North Dakota – Yes, my first link to Al Jazeera.

This is a superb story – in-depth view of the life of two immigrants from Africa (him Sierra Leone, her Liberia) who are making a combined $30 an hour Continue reading “More good stuff on the Bakken – 11/8”