Chapter 19 Conclusion - Four Characteristics of Digital Survival in an Optimistic Era

I am optimistic by nature.However, every technological or scientific gift has a dark side.Digital living is no exception. In the next 10 years, we will see the abuse of intellectual property rights and the violation of privacy rights.We experience first-hand the cultural devastation of our digital existence, as well as phenomena such as software piracy and data theft.Worst of all, we will see fully automated systems taking jobs away from many people, just as factories were transformed in the past, and very soon, the workplace of the white collar class will be completely transformed.The notion of lifetime employment at work has begun to fade.

As we use less atoms and more bits, the nature of the job market will change dramatically.The timing of this change coincided (literally) with the fact that India and China's workforce of more than two billion people came online.An individual software designer in Peoria, USA, may face competitors in Pohang, South Korea.Madrid's digital typesetters will also face direct competition from Madras, India.U.S. companies have begun to "outsource" hardware development and software production to Russia and India, not to find cheap labor, but to recruit people who are willing to work harder, more efficiently, and better than their own. Disciplined senior technical personnel.

As business becomes more globalized and the Internet grows, fully digital offices will emerge, long before political harmony, GATT negotiations and atomic tariffs and trade (selling Avita mineral water in California) Before reaching an agreement, Bit has become borderless, and the storage and use of Bit are completely free from geographical restrictions.In fact, time zones may play a more important role than trade zones in the digital future.I can imagine that some software projects will be relayed around the world 24 hours a day, from East to West, uploaded from one person to another, or handed off from one group to another, when others enter When you are dreaming, someone will continue to do it.Microsoft will need to set up offices in London and Tokyo to speed up software development in three shifts.

As we increasingly move into a digital world, there will be a group of people who are disenfranchised, or feel disenfranchised.If a 50-year-old steelworker loses his job, unlike his 25-year-old son, he may be completely incapable of adapting to the digital world.Today, if a secretary loses his job, at least he is still familiar with the digital world, so he has transferable job skills. Bits cannot be eaten, in the sense that bits cannot satisfy hunger.Computers have no morals, and therefore cannot resolve intricate issues like the right to life and death.But in any case, digital survival does give us reason for optimism.We cannot deny the existence of the digital age, nor can we stop the advancement of the digital age, just as we cannot fight against the power of nature.Digital existence has four thousand powerful qualities that will bring it final victory.

These four qualities are: decentralization, globalization, pursuit of harmony and empowerment.The abdication of the tsar and the rise of individuals have brought about the decentralization effect of digital survival. Nothing is more deeply felt than the business and computer industry itself.The so-called "management information system" tsar, who used to sit high in an air-conditioned, glass-enclosed gloomy room and give orders, has now put on the emperor's new clothes and has almost disappeared.The reason why a few people can survive is often because their rank is too high, no one can fire their Ouyu, and the company's board of directors is either out of touch with the outside world, or sleeping, or both.

Take the example of Thinking Machines Inc.This great and imaginative supercomputer company, founded by the electronic engineering genius Danny Hillis, only existed for 10 years before it came to an end.In just 10 years, Thinking Machines introduced the world to a computer architecture for massively parallel processing.Its decline is not due to its so-called "connection machine" (ConnectionMachine) caused by improper management and engineering errors.Thinking Machines came to naught because parallel processing could be done separately; the same architecture for massively parallel processing was suddenly made possible by the interconnection of low-cost, mass-produced personal computers.

While this is not good news for Thinking Machines, it is an important message for all of us, both superficially and profoundly, because it means that the future of business Popularize personal computers internally, and when needed, connect these computers together to deal with the problem of high computing consumption, so that it can meet its own computer needs in a new and scalable way.Computers can indeed serve individuals as well as groups.I see the same decentralization pervading society as a whole, due to the influence of young citizens of the digital world.The traditional centralized concept of life will be a thing of the past.

Nation-states themselves will also take a huge hit and move toward globalization. Fifty years later, the government is bigger on the one hand and smaller on the other.Europe found itself disintegrating into smaller ethnic entities while at the same time trying to unite economically.The power of nationalism can easily make us sneer at any great effort at world integration.However, in the digital world, solutions that were impossible in the past will become possible. Today, when 20% of the world's people consume 80% of resources, when 1/4 of human beings can enjoy a good standard of living, while the remaining 3/4 of people are still living in poverty, how can we easily eliminate these problems? What about the huge divide?While politicians are still carrying the burden of the past, a new generation is emerging from the digital environment, completely free of many traditional prejudices.Whereas in the past geographical proximity was the basis for everything from friendship, cooperation, play and neighborliness, today's kids are completely unbound by geography.Digital technology can become a natural force that draws people into a more harmonious world.The harmonious effect of new hope and dignified digital existence has become evident: Disciplines that used to be distinct and businesses that competed with each other are beginning to replace competition with cooperation.A common language never seen before was born, allowing people to understand each other across borders.

Children in school today have the opportunity to see the same thing from many different angles.For example, you can think of a computer program as a set of computer instructions, and at the same time as a poem indented from the program's words. These kids quickly learn that understanding a program means looking at it from many different angles, not just one. But my optimism stems more from the "empowering" nature of digital existence.Digital existence can make our future different from the present simply because of its ease of access, mobility, and ability to induce change. The information superhighway may be mostly hype today, but it's too weak to paint a picture of tomorrow.The digital future will surpass even the wildest predictions.As children hog the world's information resources and discover that only adults need a trainee's license, we must find new hope and dignity where we have never been before.

I am not inspiring optimism by foreseeing a new invention or discovery.Discovering cures for cancer and AIDS, finding viable ways to control population growth, and even building a robot that sucks in our air, drinks in our seawater, and pushes it and water out in a non-polluting way. They are all our dreams, which may be realized or dissipated with the wind. However, digital survival is quite different.We don't have to wait for any inventions.It's here, right now.It's almost hereditary, as each generation of humans becomes more digital than the last.