Events are overtaking us at breakneck speed with the progress of technology. Stock and currency value gyrations are felt across the world and some are explained away as due to events in far away lands. Many do not make much sense to ordinary folks like “profit taking” when they are faced with all round gloom for years! Explanations are proffered too for immediate swings the other way. Good times and bad times seem to exist at the same time. These are the best of times and also the worst of times; it depends who you are! For investment bankers, anytime is filled with opportunities. When stock prices hit the pits, it is the best time to buy unless you are already hounded to pay margin calls for earlier follies made on their recommendations!
We are happily passing on lot of not only mundane jobs to machines. They are slowly taking over our lives ever slowly, but surely. We can feel it in our daily lives that we are giving way to the glitz of modernity. We have to adjust to daily changes in the name of progress; adjust we must, or be left in the dustbins of antiquity, ignored and neglected. Agreed, these give many the sparks in their lives to tout the features of the latest gadgets and get others into the bandwagon. Those left behind struggle to keep up, but they have to sooner or later.
Computing power increases on a regular basis and with that the power to create money out of thin air. If productivity does not increase, someone has to lose for others to gain. And when some are easily led the garden path to ruin, come a cropper and bite the dust, the losses linger and settle down on the unsuspecting common folks ultimately! It is easy to explain away the follies like when UBS trader lost over $2 billion through unauthorized trade. His loss does not matter, as it is someone else’s gain! If he had gained through his adventures all would have been happy and not have made news at all!
All these show the power of modern technology to move billions with a click of the button. Those behind the keys could well be still wet behind the ears geeks able to understand complex algorithms and nothing much else! If only we could solve our life and death issues of the day through some key strokes! Are these not some costly distractions from the harsh realities of life?
We should decide our destiny only on the basis of human empathy and cooperation to have lasting positive effect. The wisdom passed down the generations has been learned through harsh lessons of history. There are no shortcuts in life yet, when it comes to building a society that gels. All the supposed progress based on delegating important decisions to machines can doom us and set us back to the Stone Age. Already the fissures are apparent as no one trusts another.
We need wise counsels to prevail to lead us on the road ahead. Wealth creation is not the be all and end all for an enduring life especially when majority does not share in the process. It is through sharing and caring, and time given for such a lifestyle that makes life worth the while. We need to remain the final arbiter of our lives based on some old-fashioned but proven ideals than just get carried away by modernity and finding excuses for our mistakes that are getting costlier by the day. We are slowly being overtaken by events, and are on putting out the fires mode, most of the time. We still have time to pause and reflect but the time is running short!