As the last post before my Christmas vacation, I thought to reflect with you on 2018. Despite all the apocaholics, the political turmoil in several countries in the Western hemisphere and the stock market tanking like it’s going out of style, I want to remind everyone that we are living in the best time in the entire history of mankind. Every metric that one cares to look at, including war deaths, extreme poverty, child mortality, life expectancy and equality, is improving (for example, see here).
It’s easy to forget about the progress that the world is making as every journalist, politician and social justice warrior continues to shout at the top of their lungs that the world is going to hell in a hand-basket. The fact is that humans are genetically wired to be much more sensitive to bad news, risks and fear than to anything positive. This tendency served us well for all the past millennia and one can easily argue that those predecessors that were most inclined to focus on risks and fear were the most likely to survive and hence our genes and memes are formed this way.
For those of you that read my blog posts on a regular basis, may feel that I also am one of those apocaholics as many of my posts have (click bait) negative titles that play on fear. However, I am a hard-core modernist and, as I shared in a recent post, I believe that the sooner we can bring all the benefits of digitalization (software, data and AI) into reality, the better our quality of life be.
Recently, I received the link to an interview that I did in combination with the FedCSIS conference in Poznan (Poland). Towards the end of the interview (around 19:00), you’ll hear me speak about the same message as above and the first part of the interview is concerned with my view on the key challenges on that industry is experiencing in response to digitalization.
Finally, at the beginning of this year I wrote a blog post with the, admittedly provocative, title “Why Your Job Will Also Suck In 2018”. If you happen to read that post last January, then please reflect on what you want 2019 to be like. The world is getting better and we’ve never had a better time as mankind. If we don’t experience life in the same, positive way, it might be that it’s because what’s happening inside our head rather than because of external factors. As we all take some time off during Christmas and New Year, let’s work towards 2019 even better than 2018!
Because of the holiday season, I’m taking a few weeks off from blogging and spend time with family. Back in January!
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