A Frictionless Economy = Holy War. Part I Of A Few Parts.

The Industrial Revolution set in motion events and human/machine processes that have brought us to this critical point in human evolution. It could only end in a holy war, a war now well underway.

Let's break this down a bit.

First: the endgame of the Industrial Revolution and the subsequent digitizing of everything on the planet -- which is where we are now, digitizing all kinds of data, sublime data to ridiculous data, from human DNA to The Girls Next Door , a TV program featuring Playboy geezer Hugh Hefner and three blonde, blue-eyed Playboy bunnies [Goddess help us in this hour of need] -- the endgame toward which we're moving is to create an efficient, friction-free economy for the planet, with everything running smoothly, predictably, with a minimum of human effort. In fact, a frictionless economy would involve no human intervention or activity. We're out of work. But somebody has to click the mouse to start the process, don't they?  

What Is Friction
Friction is the factor that generates profit for humans. Automation reduces the need for human intervention ("Sorry, George, we're cutting staff. The computer is doing the work now. We just load the data in and walk away.")

Digitizing business processes establishes an inevitable trajectory toward a zero-friction economy, a wholly efficient system. Like a machine whirring in an empty room which requires no maintenance, and which runs forever.

A  concrete example: Meet Joe Gamma. Joe has an idea and starts a business, say, Gammagrabber Toy Company, built around a single cool toy, the GammaGlobe. Joes' invention twirls around on its axis and makes a neat little humming sound as it does, and you can quickly spin the globe and go to any location on the planet. But it's not the same old globe that used to gather dust in the corner of your fourth grade classroom. It's  loaded with chips and sensors and is brilliantly lit, like an iPhone on Human Growth Hormone, and is WiFi-friendly as well. When you touch the globe, it "voices" the location. For example, "...mid-Pacific Ocean, 20 degrees North, 155 degrees West. Welcome to Hawaii! It  is sunny, and the temperature is 81 degrees. Come and visit! Call Pacific Rim Travel for more information!" And of course it gives you the telephone number and  the email address. Cool!

Joe Gamma Goes Digital
Joe's Chief Financial Officer digitizes and automates payables and receivables, so most of his bean counters are laid off. Saving money like crazy, Joe then outsources his marketing to a company that sells the GammaGlobe all over the planet for 80% of the cost of his old in-house marketing department, Harry, Merlene and Margo. Bingo! His marketing team goes bye-bye and his business costs decrease some more. Joe is getting rich, saving money!

Finally, he has a consulting team put the Gammaglobe on the web -- that's right, Gammaglobe.com!* -- so people can visit the website and take a virtual tour of the planet just as they did with the fabulous GammaGlobe. He charges a modest subscription fee for access to the site, Google advertisers jump on it like white on rice, and his profit jumps again as he begins to phase out his manufacturing arm. The business is web-based. Who needs a big old fat globe in the corner? He sells the last 100 of them as a "keepsake" at highly inflated prices.

GammaGlobes R Us
Joe's cool globe is a metaphor for the world economy. International currency transfer is all digits now, 1s and 0s whistling over the wires. Anything that saves money and increases efficiency is seen as a good thing. And the middle layers of every process are being whittled away. Outsourcing saves money. Goodbye, USA, hello, India, China. O Canada! 

Next: Part II. What Does The Economy Have To Do With Spiritual Stuff?