The Fourth Industrial Revolution E-Book

Catherine Dumont

• Herausgeber: BookThug
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 34

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

What will happen when technology begins to operate from within the body? What are smart houses and smart cities, and what limit will genetic manipulation have? Beyond agreeing or not with the guidelines of "the Great Reset" proposed by Klaus Schwab and the World Economic Forum (WEF), there are some aspects that we must debate as soon as possible, because they already affect us (such as privacy, information management and cybersecurity) and because we need a clear regulatory framework about the limits that we will put on the manipulation of bodies, either by incorporating chips or devices or by the so-called "perfective improvement".

Leseprobe

1. The Fusion of the Biological and the Digital

It is an irrefutable fact that technology is increasingly present in our lives. Digitization is everywhere, artificial intelligence begins to infiltrate the different areas of daily life and our dependence on devices, networks and systems is inevitable. Cell phones at first served just the same function as home telephones, only that they could be used anywhere, but today they allow to broadcast live to potentially huge audiences, do all kinds of transactions and even control some aspects of our health. Without a doubt, we are increasingly immersed in a digital and intelligent world.

But there is a group of power and influence that proposes the advent of a “fourth industrial revolution” and suggests that this is where we are heading. It is not about further digitization, or about technology invading more areas, it is about a new paradigm. In addition, this elite group raises the foundations on which that near future will be built, and they even propose to accelerate and organize the transition. This revolution would be, according to its main promoters Klaus Schwab and the World Economic Forum, a fusion of the biological, digital and physical spheres. So far, industrial revolutions implied certain innovations that allowed new productive models (and everything that entailed), but this revolution would also imply a new way of conceiving the “human”.

Any technology and everything that is usually called “progress”, generally comes along with promises of greater equality and greater freedom, promises of a more comfortable and simple life, promises of improvements in all possible aspects of life, from our health to the air we breathe. In short, promises of a better world. The fourth industrial revolution is also presented with promises, but if we take a better look at the whole plan, the chilling sensation is inevitable.

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2. Welcome to the Matrix

To understand the nature and scope of the so-called “fourth industrial revolution”, it is necessary to first define who is behind this concept. The idea of a “fourth” industrial revolution was first proposed in 2013 by a group of specialists who were developing technological guidelines for the government of Germany. But it was undoubtedly Klaus Schwab and the World Economic Forum (WEF) that he chairs, who took the term to another level when talking about it from their platforms: in 2015 they brought it up an article in the influential magazine Foreign Affairs (published by the Council on Foreign Relations), then they fully presented the subject in the 2016 World Economic Forum meeting in Davos called Mastering the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and also addressed it in a book by Schwab published that same year, simply titled The Fourth Industrial Revolution. Also in 2016, the first Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution was inaugurated in San Francisco. That center was followed by others in different cities in the United States, India and Japan.

It is important to note that these are not mere observers forecasting a certain future. They are the most powerful, influential and wealthiest elite who seek to impose that paradigm as part of a global plan. This non-profit organization (such its status) was founded in 1971 by engineer and economist Klaus Schwab (who continues to lead the organization) and is based in Switzerland. It has approximately 1,000 members and their mission, as they describe it, is to improve “the state of the world by engaging business, political, academic, and other leaders of society to shape global, regional, and industry agendas”. We could say, then, that it is a group of leaders who shape the world’s agenda, with the alleged purpose of “improving” it. It is made up of banks, investment groups, transportation and pharmaceutical companies, the main Internet giants (Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft), the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, all of them industries and companies of great power and influence, with capital that exceed 5 billion dollars.