Generation Utopia

So far in this project I have shown how there are so many opportunities for innovation and improvements in the world that we could really build a Utopia in this coming generation. However, how that is to be achieved hinges on society: on people changing their habits and taking some key actions. I explained that in order to convince people to adapt their behavior (or actions) we need to educate them about the reasons why they should change their behavior, i.e. because life will be a lot better for everybody. In a nutshell, we have to shift attitudes towards making changes and therefore behavior – ideally making a habit out of making the world a better place (which I described in the innovation habit).

But what if people don’t care about my cheesy Utopian lines or not even about starving children or anything else rather than only what benefits them directly? I have a solution for this. The central and most important point to get across on that monumental mission of, if you will, the marketing of changing the world is the notion of the multiplier effect of innovation. That means that making changes for the sake of improvements pays off over-proportionally for individuals, especially when we look at the whole picture and know how to direct or allocate the value created.

Utter Selfishness

I argue that our first priority should be to focus on eradicating extreme poverty, especially helping the six million children who die of hunger or preventable diseases every year. Climate change should also be at the top of our list as it is often cited as humankind’s biggest and most threatening problem. But what if people just don’t give a f*ck about starving children or the climate? Evidently, most of us don’t as donations to help the poorest in the world are less than a percent of our income and only a tiny minority of us has given up their car or become vegetarian for the sake of the climate.

Quite likely, all that most people care about is to have a job with a decent income, paying low taxes and rent and overall cheap prices for food and the things they care about buying, like smartphones. The extreme case is that some people prefer their hamburger from a fast food chain to be a dollar cheaper rather than giving that dollar to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation that can then feed and vaccinate a child in a poor country.

All About Value

But no matter what people value, it’s still about value. As I explained in the multiplier effect article, the reason why we like money and work for it and whatever we purchase, it’s all because it gives us some sort of value or utility (which can technically be measured, i.e. in money/prices). In that sense, right now the entire value of what we all produce, and consume, is around $40,000 per person per year in developed countries (even $59,000 in the US).

If people care about whatever gives them value or benefits them, then let’s give it to them. In fact, if people really only want cheap burgers, or being able to create art, or live in a cottage in the woods, innovation is still the right path. The reason for that is the multiplier effect of innovation, that through innovating and doing better things better we create even more value. In the multiplier effect of innovation article I explained this in more detail, but here’s a visualization of this point:

The above graphic is powerful, because we could technically substitute anything that we value and the logic would still apply. I personally argue that we should automate as much as possible (a), because automation has the largest multiplier effect of any innovation. That is because when it works, output is no longer limited by linear human input (e.g. set work hours), but can grow exponentially (e.g. robots building robots building stuff).

In theory this logic should unite everybody and lead to greater motivation to change than anything else ever before, as I argue in my exponential innovation motivation argument. One of my favorite quotes of all time fits here perfectly: “It is efficient and functionally selfish to build a better world for everyone” (Jacque Fresco).

But again, this general innovation logic and the multiplier effect of automation on making the whole cake of the economy larger for everybody and thus also for people wanting cheaper burgers might not be convincing for people who just want cheaper burgers.

The issue is that shifting people’s attitudes and behavior more positively towards innovation is that it depends on a) educating them and b) incurring short-term costs. But what about people who are not receptive to information, like many of the tens of millions of Americans who get their world-view almost exclusively from Fox News? Therefore, for many people we need a strategy that makes it much simpler to get the point across and ultimately shift their behavior.

Making the Really Complex Really Simple

Here I’d like to tell you about another one of my favorite quotes of all time: “The most beautiful things are the simplest things. And the simplest things are really the culmination of the complexities of everything” (Cory Richards). So what about we turn the entire logic back completely to fit the most simplistic (two-dimensional) logic? We could do this by only telling people that their burgers will be 30% cheaper if the chef and waiters were automated. If you’re skeptical that such a price reduction would happen, read footnote b. Whereas before people would generally be against automation and wouldn’t listen to my whole multiplier effect stuff, I believe most people would now say yes to automation if their food became a third cheaper.

Immediate and Self-Centered Value Becomes the Starting Point

The same logic as above applies to automation in construction if rent prices drop; renewables if energy prices go down; public transport of even shared autonomous vehicles if they become attractive and cheap enough; and so on and so forth.

So while the basic idea of this project is to convey the vision of a Utopia (the optimum of what people value) and a common plan to align all our actions to innovate and improve whatever has the greatest multiplier effects in order to give everybody their ‘greatest personal value’, maybe just start with the simplest stuff.

Start with What People Want – A Win-Win

We have to start finding out what people want, in other words what gives them value, and then design our plan of action around that. That could mean that we communicate one simple message. Think of how politicians usually frame their messages – always relating back to what people value and pretty much whatever people want to hear.

Or, if people are not receptive to even one sentence, then actions could speak louder than words. That would imply that firms actually offer price reductions to substitute for value, i.e. allocating (future) cost savings to cheaper prices, in order to bring out behavioral change in people, i.e. consumer acceptance. An example of this would be Uber’s promotion codes and automations like supermarket self-checkouts and McDonald’s kiosks should also include a minor cost incentive. The reason is that this is likely the most effective way to speed up the acceptance and adoption of automation even further, which again, comes back full circle to the consumer (and firm) as the fastest way to increase value for people.

How exactly this should happen is subject of another article and in fact part of my academic research so there could even be a paper on this soon.

Governments should do something similar I believe. Instead of insisting on keeping jobs safe, it could offer substitute payments for people who lose their jobs to automation to make up for lost income (i.e. the difference between former salary and unemployment benefits) for a period of time and offer free and more attractive educational courses. I want to drive this point home and make you understand how the usual logic is what I call two-dimensional and how we have to think three-dimensionally. When we substitute a job it does not mean that we are substituting one job with another; or that it is a problem because taxpayers have to pay for unemployment benefits. That’s not wrong, but it’s not completely right when looking at the whole picture. Substituting a job almost always means we are making the cake bigger for everybody by a tiny bit, so the more we do it the better. And the main issue with it is loss of income and lack of education so the government should step in short-term.

People don’t want to incur any costs, they care about immediate benefits, so there is a market failure where the system stays locked-in. Governments can easily break this cycle. The additional social benefits will be dwarfed by the massive, exponential economic growth (and therefore much higher tax returns). Isn’t this just beautiful? We can probably put the progress and wealth creation of all of humankind on a completely different trajectory over the next generation simply by giving people cheaper burgers (figuratively speaking).

I say “probably” because I don’t know exactly what will work or how, but to find out how to relate innovation back to ordinary people and thus convince them to accept change is a trillion-dollar discipline. In order to do that we still need to understand the bigger picture though to draw up a great plan, which is what I am in the process of doing, and using as starting point whatever people value or want. In fact, I think we could actually create a sort of multiplier effect matrix like the graphic above where we can plug in whatever it is that people care about and calculate how to maximize innovation in the economy is still the best path to that. But more on that idea in another article.

To conclude, the better we relate innovation to whatever individuals value, even if it’s cheap burgers, the greater the alignment of all members of society can become for innovation. It’s a virtuous cycle that starts at what people want and ends at what people want. And in the process we change the world and create an exponentially growing cake (the economy) that allows us to help starving children even if we don’t care, but just as a side effect. Let this blow your mind.

Footnotes:
a) Emphasis on “possible”, many robots, online systems and AI applications still need to be improved, but that happens faster with increased consumer acceptance.
b) The 30% figure is an estimate based on the expense for personnel in restaurants or bars minus the marginal cost of robots (once they work well enough). The question is, of course, if burgers would really become cheaper or if large corporations would just sack more profits, but to a large extent the cheaper production costs will make some restaurants drop prices just slightly so they can say they are cheaper than competitors and this will continue until burgers really are significantly cheaper. This does not happen always, e.g. McDonald’s kiosks and supermarket’s self-checkouts did not lead to a price drop, but their cost saving were perhaps not significant enough. At the bottom line such instance of automation still save tremendous amount of costs and create new value. If the main challenge is that cost savings do not reach consumers there are a number of interventions that can solve this problem, which I will discuss in another article.”