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Point of Singularity

When you look up “singularity” on Wikipedia you’ll probably hit the page where people try to explain that Artificial Intelligence is developing so fast that it will take over from humankind. MY definition of the point of singularity is different:

“The point of singularity is that moment of instant chaos and collapse caused by the inability of humankind to keep organizational and moral pace with its own (technological) developments.”

This does not mean that robots take over, it means that we grow so stupid that it seems as we have been taken over. In fact this already has occurred. Think of our education system. We are educated right from day one in our life to become an active part of a system. We are not asked to question that system or to create another one. We are simply educated to perform, full stop. Look at money! It is a human invention, a robot, which we worship and cherish even knowing that it represents nothing more than the value we attribute to it.

Now consider our political & social systems. We think that we live in a democracy when we can vote every so often. But we created systems of welfare and social security that only allow us to vote for maintenance of the system, never for change. We have no choice! And when one cannot choose there is no democracy. Choose for what? One who can best maintain a system that has proven to be corrupt and obsolete?

Artificial intelligence already dominates our lives but it does not contribute to stability or positive evolution. It just grows and grows until it collapses. That is what is happening right now. The banking systems collapsed in 2008. The economic systems on which country expenditure is based are collapsing. Billions are injected by governments in a robotic system that is outdated and cripple. World leaders invest in keeping up artificial bubbles that keep bursting in our faces. We have collectively grown more stupid than the systems that we created ourselves.

Time has come that the robots (money, politics, hierarchies, power systems) collapse. The chaos is one for our own. We have forgotten to live a life without these artificial intelligence that turned out to be human stupidity. We are facing the crude reality that we will have to learn again to think for our selves! We are facing the point of singularity that true intelligence is called for, human intelligence, to assure a sustainable future for us and our children.

Artificial intelligence will always serve humankind until humankind gets lazy again, just to fall back in collapse and painful chaos again in order to rediscover again and again the unique, irreplaceable capabilities of our species. That point is about to come.

Letting go

About 150.000 years ago human beings started to realize that they were different, special. We were not like animals! We could manage nature to our benefit. We learned to manage fire, grow crops and keep animals. We could reason and communicate among each other.

Typical animal genes however still motivated us in our decisions. It was difficult to understand our speciality, confusing even. If you have the gift of reasoning in the competitive aninal life one develops first of all a talent to serve oneself. In times of dinosaurs the one who is small needs to be smart to survive.

For many millenia we have tried to understand how to control more and more our environment for self preservation. As we developed our knowledge we never let go of our competitive, animal like behavior of gathering more than we need for survival. In fact we pictured our personal safety on our level of possessions  and created societies around it.

Current human societies are still based on this ancient attitude of “having”, ie the control by possessing. We have created countries, corporate organizations and communities around this mentality and behaviour. We even created hierarchies among our fellow beings to possess and use mankind to keep it that way. Intellect was used to create slaves among equals for the benefit of a few. We created herritage to ensure that our offspring would continue our quest of possessing more and more.

What we forget is that everyting that one possesses materially  will be lost eventually. Matter may be controlable but is never possessed but it is used. Even our own carnal  lifetime, our physical body, will die, no matter the wealth we accumulated along the way. We go as we came: naked. The only thing that remains is what people may remember of us.

We always will HAVE TO LET GO!

“Matter is an energetic carrier, not a foundation”

This lesson is the one we are learning now. For the first time ever a combination of factors have come together to go beyond a historical lesson, we may make a quantum jump in our human evolution. Here is the combination:

  • Scientific knowledge on matter has reached a point of detail that it can now understand and serve “the whole”.
  • Global industrialization has reached a point that now understands that matter is finite, so material growth can not be infinite.
  • Borders have been abolished to sustain capitalistic growth and created the very first basis for global welbeing.
  • Everything is already transforming, reluctant and with opposition but without escape.
  • We discover a new field for human development and welbeing: interpersonal relationships and energy.
  • This field has endless potential.
  • Economies based on material possessions need to transform into economies based on the wealth of interhuman relationships, interaction and energetic, intellectual progress. 

Letting go of our material dependence is key to gain sustainable balance and a sustainable future. Matter can be used cyclically for ever. Our energy for positive interaction can hence create true progress: we become what we are and contribute, not what we have.

Clockwise business prophecies?

One of the most horrible personalities is one with a maths and international business degree after a severe culture shock. Well, that is me. Why would this be horrible? The culture shock put my live up side down. It got me into a deep, black personal problem. My marriage broke up, I was left to take care of my two small children, got all kinds of problems with local government authorities, lost my job, my house and was left with a huge debt. Mmmm, that is horrible, but what does it have to do with math or business, for that matter?

When dramatics things occur in ones life we either look for answers or hang our selves. In my case I just wanted to know what the hell had happened? But who cares? Pick up your life, lick you wounds and focus on the future! No big deal. Yeah, but this was different. I had traveled the whole world and lived/worked in many places, including 25 years in Spain! Adn the culture shock happened in my own country of birth! Can you believe it? Holland had changed so much in 27 years that it struck me and my family like lightning. What on earth could make a country go from a warm, social community into a cold, individualistic, complaining, materialistic society? In such a small time frame? I did not feel at home at home!

A mathmetician wants to find logic behind it and an international business man wants to know what risks and opportunities arise. Well first things first. Why did Holland cool down?

I developed a thought, spiritually. I woke up on morning with two lines in my head: a line for the material complexity of our lives, governed by systems, knowledge, organizations and above all: money. The second line refered to the moral complexity, governed by our self conscience of identity, equality, emancipation, trust and higher values. Of course I had to get this insight because I was asked to lecture for Prof. Paul de Blot, university teacher on Business Spirituality. I quickly wrote a book on it and started a new life letting people know what happens to them as it had happened to me. With my model I could predict the course of any organization. Wow, I had become a prophet.

Normal business analyst take key figures and by looking back they try to determine the future. Well, if the future is highly unstable as it is, you can look back as much as you want but your company will go down the drain. Looking at figures is safe for analysts, of course. They are correct, already past and cannot be disputed, just analyzed. Predicting the future means that you have to have knowledge of the outside world, what happens and how you can connect your competences to it. Or find out that you need to change business all together.

My model looks like this:

Human complexities

The interesting part of this model is that societies and businesses move always clockwise through the four quadrants! Never anti clockwise. Interesting. So one needs chaos to start a deepening process for awarenes. This is pure spiritual and a search for new truth but not yet developed materially. Hence people consider it little realistic, highly floating in the air, untouchable and non economic. But you need to go through it to get to the next phase.

At the end of 2008 I pushed  three little booklets based on my theory and positioned companies along this axes and inside the quadrants. I used 120 different measurement points that I could simply find on internet. With the score on 10 different subitems (s.a. positioning, added value for customers, market definition, etc) and one total score in my hands I could predict the course of the organization by just continuing the clockwork lines of the cycle.

My predictions came true after already one year.

But I am a mathmetician too. What does that have to do with all this? Well, I listenend to Dr Bartlett and his excellent exposee on exponentials, captured on YouTube. His truth is a simple but a generally denied given. If I apply his maths to the same cyclic picture of mine I can prodict the level of sustainability of a multinational, a country or a region. In fact I predict (know for sure) that we are all structurally vulnerable right now and enter crisis after crisis as different sectors move from greed to chaos.

Try to figger it out by yourselves by applying my model to your country or company, using Dr. Bartlett. If you can not do it, ask me, I’ll do it for you.