It feels like spring and life reemerging from hibernation. Except life has been on pause for a whole year. People are finally coming out of their toilet paper forts (literally and figuratively). Some people will sigh and talk about how we are going back to normal. Then they will find that normal was a nice story that no longer holds true. Some of the old patterns are no longer practical. The pandemic and technology are pushing us in different directions now. The pandemic also magnified the unfairness in society and we could see that the United States has been living a fairy tale wrapped in “Freedom!”. You could also see how far we have declined as a nation and we couldn’t have a rational response to a crisis because people’s minds were too feeble to process it.

But we’ve had a change in direction and it’s time to adopt new patterns. Some of these new patterns will be created by technology and like a wave, it will just carry us along. For the technological workers, they found out they didn’t need to waste time commuting to some central building each day. Tech employers also found that productivity was about the same for their organizations when work was carried out remotely. We are no longer factory workers punching time clocks anymore. Much of society has been organized as a factory… from schools to healthcare to office work. That benefits the organization but almost always makes the individual an afterthought when assembling the world.

So I guess what I’m saying is that we have some work to do. Some people seem to think this is a liberal vs conservative problem but that is just about putting something in a box to marginalize it. We need to go back to the first principles of human flourishing and question the structures that prevent that flourishing. There are a lot of bad ideas that have been perpetuated for over a hundred years. Let the 2020’s be the spring cleaning of those bad ideas and to introduce better ideas. I’m tired of the future being held back by shitty dogmas.

#RethinkingHumanity

-GW

The post Here we are in 2021 first appeared on Glenn Wehmeyer.

In past few years, people have found success being a Youtube star (think MKBHD), playing esports professionally, streaming video games on Twitch/Mixer or creating a new Kickstarter for some new device/film/game, etc. There are so many ways to live without working a normal job. As Tim Ferris and Elon Musk says, What’s the worst that can happen? You go back to working a steady but unfulfilling job? Ready to live a little in 2020?

Look in this space for updates on Project Technomage.

The post Project Technomage first appeared on Glenn Wehmeyer.

I’ve been thinking about the nature of work in the 21st century. The biggest headlines usually revolve around how automation is going to take away jobs and we need something like a universal basic income. While might be the case for helping with the technological impact of automation I think there are other areas that aren’t talked about very much. The nature of work is changing and new types of work are appearing like Youtube personality or Esports player. There are new opportunities to take something that might be of personal interest and actually share it with a wider community (& make money at it).

It also gives me the idea that people might want somebody to coach them on taking advantage of these new areas. Also, there might be people who are tech-savvy and might have a scratch they want to itch. They just need advice on getting a side-hustle going and then pursuing it to a logical conclusion. Right now I freelance consult for software & system projects via many great platforms. I don’t think most people know about many platforms other than ride-share companies like Uber. Look in this space for my new “platform”.

The post Digital Workstyle in the 21st century first appeared on Glenn Wehmeyer.