Thoughts on Trends
Urban Exodus
What do drone taxis, the increasing pandemic frequency, improving internet coverage and the home office trend have in common?
They are the driving forces behind deurbanization and its ramifications: except for the acceleration of the physical store extinction, and the hence increased demand for shopping deliveries, a fall of urban real estate prices in favour of properties in more rural areas.
Besides the softened ecological impact of such a trend, it represents a great opportunity to rearrange real estate portfolios by investing in low population density area. Other winners of this trend will be the construction industry, as well as the new homeowners, who will finally find themselves with larger homes and finally space for new furniture, which will make furniture manufacturers happy too.
Smart lenses and the disruptive power of ad-hoc insurance
Several tech companies are working on smart lenses with augmented reality potential. They are the next natural evolution step (TV > laptop > mobile > smart glasses) in miniaturization and combined with computer vision represent a huge potential to disrupt the insurance industry.
Microsoft’s seeing AI, that is running on sunglasses is already able to describe things while they happen. Imagine using this technology to prompt smart lens users with ad hoc insurance offers based on the danger level of their current situation, offering coverage at a fraction of the usual premium, and only when it is needed.
Of course, in the future the ad hoc insurance could be improved by integrating guardian angel drones with a 360° view offering an even more accurate danger assessment.
Hemispheric Migration – a way to soften the Covid fallout.
Covid’s death toll is particularly harsh during the winter. While the generic approach for most countries was to shut down boarders to reduce the virus spread until a cure is found, considering the seasonal nature of the disease a joint forces tactic could (have) lead to a better outcome:
Hemispheric Migration. The idea is to have high risk groups (people 60+ or younger, if with pre-existing conditions) industrialized nations of the northern hemisphere, USA, Canada, EU, UK, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, Japan, Korea, seasonally migrate to the southern hemisphere (Australia, New Zealand, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil) and migrate back in late spring. Of course, the same rights would apply to the high risk groups from the allied southern hemisphere countries.
Such a solution would allow to reduce ICU bed occupancy, the overall mortality rate, thus giving scientists more time to find a safer and more efficient cure.
Additionally. it would also keep the economy running (which is crucial if we do not want our children and grand children to inherit a huge amount of debt, that will just disappear with a high tax burden or hyper inflation some years down the road, given the enormous financial aid injections created out of thin air by the European Central Bank and Federal Reserve.)
Air travel and tourism industry could take off again and the retail and gastronomy sector, as well as educational institutions reopen without the need for much contested health passports. On top it would vitalize the economy of the Southern Cone in particular.
Why have only industrialized nations join? Covid disproportionally hits the elderly, which represent the biggest share of the population there. For political and numerical reasons Russia and China (which could have qualified as developed enough) have been left out of the equation.
C/O2 converter farms
Studio Roosegaarde impressed a few years ago with his artistic installation extracting CO2 from the air and condensing it to diamonds. While jewels represent a delightful luxury, conceiving a machine that transforms CO2 to O2 would be a paramount achievement in the battle against climate change, especially considering the ongoing deforestation, and global population growth.
Companies, universities, and institutions driving the research in this field are both publicly and privately funded, as once the technology is functional and scalable it sure could be beneficial for all mankind. But, as with all scarce resources, huge profits could be made by selling high quality air: Oxygen bars, O2 wellness oases, personal portable oxy tanks, private and public transport vehicle O2 optimizers, building integrated air systems, O2 domes encapsulating entire villages – there is a multitude of profit possibilities!
Biohacking and Genetic Literacy
Driven by the unaffordable drug prices imposed by big pharma, more and more individuals are embracing the community of bio hackers and started to experiment with CRISPR. Even on themselves, and often with a lack of the necessary knowledge.
Ethicists, religious groups as well as big pharma corporations frown upon this trend, the former out of moral “superiority”, the latter for the potential profit loss it would imply, if such individuals are successful. Even some governmental organizations now have bio hackers on the radar for the potential terrorism threat they could pose.
But what would stricter gene editing laws achieve? Like with all laws, those with evil intentions do not care about them. Thus, the only result would be to prevent curious minds from creating cures or improving organisms in a beneficial way for society.
The legalization of gene modifications, even on humans, allows a higher degree of transparency, increases safety standards, could lead to a booming start-up scene, and pave the way for an education system ready to shape a generation of genetic literate minds. And having an entire army of experts instead of a handful would just prepare us better to tackle challenges such as climate change (by strengthening crop resistance, or accelerating CO2 absorption of trees), more frequent pandemics, and bio terrorism threats.
Coming up next:
Geo Engineering and Stock Market Manipulation.
Stay tuned!