Investing in the Transformation

Standards of living are about to skyrocket due to the implementation of advanced robotics and AI. They will grow 12 to 15 fold over the next thirty years, so that median household income, in constant dollars, will be around 500K and about 25% of households will have annual incomes in excess of one million dollars. The age of profound affluence will also spread to the developing regions of the world. Consequently, with rather stagnant population growth, Gross World Product (GWP) will increase 35 to 40 times. This massive increase in consumption will create, at a minimum, $4,000 trillion of additional market value in investments. Somebody is going to own all that debt and equity that does not exist today. So, not only will incomes explode, wealth will, as well.

One of the basic rules of the stock market is that the sooner you get in on a deal, the more you are likely to make. Consequently, Venture Capitalists typically expect a 60% return on investment, but those who enter at the IPO level, the first point at which most people can enter, capital appreciation has probably cooled off to under 25% per year. By the time the company hits your 401(k), a 10% growth is counted as a win. Interestingly, the system is rigged to keep all but the wealthiest from the early rounds of funding. In other words, in order to get rich, first you must be rich.

In the U.S., as in most countries, there are a series of securities laws designed to keep the unsophisticated investor from getting fleeced. However, the definition of a sophisticated investor, what in the law is generally designated as an accredited investor, except in a few limited cases, has nothing to do with intelligence or knowledge. You are an accredited investor, and thus by SEC law exempt for these protections, solely based upon your net worth or income. If you have a net worth over $1,000,000 or have had income in excess of $200K for the past two years and can reasonably be expected to continue to earn at that level, you are, no matter how unsophisticated in reality, an accredited investor. Rule 506 requires other measures of sophistication, however, they are in addition to, not instead of, the definition of an accredited investor. Consequently, if you are accredited, you can be approached with impunity, albeit privately, by Investment Bankers and principals of the business. Otherwise, except in very limited cases, you cannot.

The smaller, non-accredited investor, is also constrained by two other critical factors. First, the sooner you get in, the greater the risk. Consequently, more diversification will be essential. This increases the size of your required risk portfolio as a multiple of your average investment. Second, generally the sooner you get in, the more the minimum investment required will be by the issuer. In other words, you can invest $1,000 in an IPO, but in a PPO you may be required to invest $10,000 or more. Since the issuer is limited in the number of non-accredited investors it may involve and they can't make public offerings or solicitations, that is only natural. However, in combination, and in light of the securities laws, all but the wealthy and professional Venture Capitalists are excluded from the high return opportunities. For their own protection, of course.

The preceding is a significant element in the explanation for the current concentration of wealth. The middle and lower classes are allowed to fritter away their money on lotteries and casinos where the games are rigged against them, but they are excluded from investing in business start-ups, where the odds are their favor, for their own protection. These protections were put in place with the best of intentions to assure that the excesses of the 1920's could never recur. However, this is a classic case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

The state of affairs presents significant problems for the start-up entrepreneur, as well. Venture Capitalists and Angels finance very few start-ups. When they do, they almost invariably demand a very large percentage of the enterprise as well as significant control. They can do so because the supply of high risk capital is artificially constrained by the restrictions discussed above. In addition to taking a large chunk of the company, they also generally invest in start-ups only if they have a strong management teams with a proven history of success. This means that the more interested they are in you, the less likely you will need them. So, for the start-up entrepreneur interested in involving Angels and Venture Capitalists, the odds are poor and the terms are usually onerous. Wise entrepreneurs steer away from them until they are in a much better bargaining position.

Because of this, the start-up round of funding is often referred to as the 'Family and Friends Round.' Of course, one of the problems with this is that an entrepreneur with a great idea, huge energy, not much practical experience, but willing to learn, may not have friends and family with sufficient income and wealth to prudently meet the needs of the start-up. Clearly, there are long term risks, many non-financial, in enticing family and friends to take imprudent risks on your behalf.

Friends and family can invest in an entrepreneur's start-up because of exemptions that were provided in Rules 504 & 505 of Regulation D. When a private placement is made, shares may be issued to up to 35 non-accredited investors. In Rule 504 placements, disclosure requirements, such as audited financial statements are not required. However, the key word here is 'private.' The issuer is not allowed to make public offerings. In other words, they cannot advertise for investors and they may not advertise a meeting for the purposes of finding investors. Consequently, entrepreneurs and small investors, even if they would like to transact an investment, can't find each other.

The Income Explosion will result in an explosion of multi-millionaires and billionaires. Not in inflated dollars, but in today's dollars. However, as we see, unless you are already rich or are well connected to affluent people or visionary entrepreneurs who will capitalize upon the Transformation, the way things stand right now, you, almost surely, aren't going to be one of them. That, however, is based upon how things are right now. Things can be changed. If you reflect for a moment, you will undoubtedly see how.

Basically, you need to develop a larger, more entrepreneurial, affluent and risk tolerant set of 'friends.' You must create a private environment where the offering of start up and early round securities will be unambiguously 'private.' That is one of the primary benefits of Polymathica Institute Membership. You will gain access to a very private Internet locus of extraordinary individuals and opportunities. As we discuss on our Welcome page, there are many other benefits, but this one is quite tangible and very significant, because of its potential scope.

The Polymathic Institute, among other things, is a collaboration between polymathic intellectuals, visionary entrepreneurs and risk tolerant investors. Each role will play an essential part in the strategy to capitalize upon the emerging global, Information Age civilization and to participate in those trillions of dollars of economic growth. You may find that you will be able to fill more than one role. However, except for a few amazing individuals, people need to collaborate with people who complement their strengths and overcome their weakness. Each of these three roles have characteristic strengths and weaknesses. However, combined, they have none.


Polymathic Intellectuals:
Great ideas disproportionately come to people of intelligence, erudition, curiosity and imagination. For a handful, an excess of these traits can lead to a lifelong battle with focus. Before they can do much of anything with one brilliant idea, another one grabs their attention and diffuses their energy. The successful entrepreneur is a person with enormous drive and one great idea. More ideas constitute a distraction. At present, there are no job descriptions or career opportunities for the person who is an idea generator but not an idea implementer. Clearly, in order to be productive, they need to form a series of collaborations with implementers or what we generally refer to as entrepreneurs.

Visionary Entrepreneurs:
Entrepreneur is a term that encompasses a broad range of activities. A dog groomer who notes that there aren't any dog grooming businesses in a particular area and starts one there is an entrepreneur. The person who anticipates the next great Internet phenomenon and builds a site with 10 million unique visitors per month is also an entrepreneur. However, except for drive and the desire to succeed, they have very little else in common. One is duplicating a well known business model. They will require little in the way of outside funding, sophisticated marketing or organizational development. The other will need all of these plus the trait of vision. Consequently, we discriminate between the entrepreneur and the visionary entrepreneur. The latter can benefit greatly from an environment rich in polymathic intellectuals that in aggregate create an explosion of ideas from which to choose. They will benefit from a deep understanding of the Transformation and ready access to a large community of risk tolerant investors.

Risk Tolerant Investors:
A collaboration between a polymathic intellectual and a visionary entrepreneur will result in a wonderful business plan and little else. Capital must still be applied to the idea. As we see, relying upon family and friends for start-up capital, while common, is less than ideal. Searching for Venture Capitalists and Angels has a low success rate and dilutes ownership significantly from the beginning. What is needed is a community of seed money investors that are tolerant of the inherently large risks that such investments entail and with sufficient intelligence and vision to comprehend and appreciate the opportunities of the Transformation.

We have now provided the basic framework necessary to understand how The Polymathic Institute will function as a collaboration of polymathic intellectuals, visionary entrepreneurs and risk tolerant investors. As we describe it, it is important to understand that the Institute is not programmatic. We are discussing a conceptual interaction, fully aware that variations on the theme will be common. For example, some visionary entrepreneurs may come to the Institute with their idea and not require a collaboration with a polymathic intellectual. They may only need to build and utilize a private network facilitative of building a management team and acquiring funding.

At the outset, a polymathic intellectual will publish an idea. Since the purpose of the Institute is more than simply a venue for entrepreneurial collaboration, it may or may not be formulated as a business idea. However, visionary entrepreneurs will see the potential. Either the intellectual will solicit entrepreneurial involvement or the entrepreneur will contact the intellectual to offer a collaboration. They may build a management team from other members or acquire additional expertise in a consultative basis. Either way, a convincing business plan and, perhaps, some initial proof of concept activities must be undertaken. At some point, they will be ready for their start-up funding activities.

Here each project will vary to some degree based upon its nature, potential and constraints. Most will likely begin with a Rule 504 offering because of the very lax requirements this exemption has. The offering may be just large enough to finance the requirements for a Rule 505 offering or it may be a true first round. The two principals, the polymathic intellectual and the visionary entrepreneur, plus any participants identified as initial officers and principals will contribute some funds. The remainder will be solicited from other Institute Members. It should be mentioned that the polymathic intellectual will probably take a smaller share than the entrepreneur. A passive role may give the intellectual a 10% share, while a more active role may be as much as 30% or 40%.

A Rule 505 private offering generally requires between $20K and 50K to finance the process of meeting the legal, accounting and registration requirements of the offering. This means that they could go out as low as $20,000/35 = $600. This allows smaller risk tolerant investors to become involved at the very outset. Commonly, however, they will recognize that in order to fully subscribe a Rule 505 on favorable terms, they may need to undertake some actual business development and have some sales to show to the larger, accredited investors. Also, to get there, it is common for one or more participant to need some salary.

This, however, does not really present much of an obstacle. A Rule 504 offering with an average investment of $3,000 can still raise $105,000 from 35 non-accredited investors. Of course, it would be incorrect to assume that no Members are accredited. Some may be and will increase the number of investors that can be accepted. While Rule 504 does not have any investor sophistication requirements, Rule 505 does and if a 505 offering is made within 12 months, the Rule 504 offering will likely be integrated and included in the Rule 505 offering. Consequently, the limitation of 35 non-accredited investors should be observed.

The next step is most likely to move on to a Rule 505 offering that can raise up to $5,000,000. The offering can be made privately through the officers of the company and registered securities agents. Except in high demand offerings, agents will sell on a 'best efforts' basis and will take a commission, typically 10%. Again, unless there is extraordinary sizzle, Rule 505 offerings to accredited investors will require a strong management team with solid resumes and an existing income stream.

The determination of how much equity should be given to investors is a complicated matter. However, essentially, enough equity must be given that it is reasonable that the investors desired risk adjusted rate of return can be met. For example, if the amount to be raised is $5,000,000 and a strong case can be made that the market capitalization of the company, if successful, with no additional equity funds could be $100,000,000 within 5 years and the required risk adjusted rate of return is 60% per year, the equation can be worked backward to determine the current value of the company and what percentage would be worth $5,000,000 today. In this example, the current value of the business is $9,536,743 and the offering should be made for 52.4% of the company. These calculations often become contentious between entrepreneurs who tend to value their idea highly and those who must market the security who naturally wish to make it an 'easy sale.'

The Polymathic Institute is an organization with many functions and benefits. Certainly the recreation of the Republic of Letters and The Great Discussion, as exemplified by our Polymathic Roundtable, is one. The development of a certification for Polymaths is another. The exploration and discussion of the Transformation, through The Future 101 is yet another. However, they are all intended to function synergistically with its resulting practical expression in the Enterprise Lounge and the collaboration we explore here.

The Polymathic Institute is an idea created by polymathic intellectuals. It will not achieve its goals without the involvement of visionary entrepreneurs and risk tolerant investors. As we see, the path to commercialization, for the entrepreneur, is greatly simplified by the existence of a vibrant Polymathic Institute. Those who would like to take risks and build significant wealth from the Transformation, can gain access to many opportunities without being an accredited investor and, often, with relatively small investments. We critically need the involvement of visionary entrepreneurs, especially those who are interested in building the Polymathic Institute, itself. Without the Institute, none of the rest happens.

Please sign up for our mailing list if you are interested in pursuing Membership or Fellowship in the Polymathic Institute. As you make the decision, consider that this is more a decision based upon your own self-confidence and what you think you can accomplish with access to the environment we describe, than it is in a belief in anyone else. Our goal is to attract 25,000 Members and Fellows with the expected distribution of primary functions, polymathic intellectuals - 1,000, visionary entrepreneurs - 4,000, risk tolerant investors - 20,000. We anticipate that most investment opportunities for start-up financing will require no more than $1,000 to $5,000.

Polymathica.com and Internet News and Entertainment

Because of ratings requirements, radio and television news and entertainment options for the upper 5% of the population in intellectual and cultural sophistication have historically been quite limited. With the emergence of Internet delivery of streaming audio and video, small audiences can be profitably served.

Internet News and Entertainment is a production enterprise that will target this market. It will be a corporation that will provide production and financing expertise to a series of limited partnerships that will produce specific programming and content. It will market its content through boutique websites such as Polymathica.com.

Polymathica.com is a boutique homepage for people of refinement and erudition. In formulation, it is a blend of Yahoo! or MSN.com and Facebook or MySpace. Our estimate is that it will ultimately have approximately 2.5 million unique visitors. Based upon the combined current market value of Yahoo! and Facebook per unique visitor of approximately $400, market value is estimated at $1.0 billion.

As radio and television migrate to Internet delivery, Polymathica.com will offer a selection of content for streaming and/or download specifically tailored to its refined, erudite audience. This will initially be primarily more sophisticated news presentations, but will quickly expand to entertainment programming. With these additional revenue sources, market value could exceed $2.0 billion.

This is the beginning of a series of potential projects enabled by The Polymathic Institute involved in content production and distribution as well as businesses that will be enabled by ready access to newly defined markets.

The Practical Implications of the Transformation

The World is about to fundamentally, radically and rapidly change. We call it The Transformation. It actually began around 1980, however, it will reach its peak rate of change between 2010 and 2030. Here, we will primarily discuss the impending Income Explosion. Between 1875 and 2010, what we refer to as the High Industrial Age, GDP per capita in constant dollars increased between twelve and fifteen times throughout most of the developed world. Over the next few decades, through the implementation of robotics and artificial intelligence, the same will take place during the early Information Age. Because of accelerating change, it will require thirty to forty years, instead of 135 years. Because of globalization, the income explosion will encompass the whole world, not just a portion of it. Consequently, Gross World Product will likely increase thirty to forty fold, from $70 trillion to between $2,100 and $2,800 trillion.

One measure used to gauge the degree of automation is Robot Density or the number of installed robots per 10,000 workers. This measure is currently between 150 and 300 throughout most of the developed world. It has not been growing quickly, but rather at a very lackadaisical rate of 5%-10% per year. This has more to do with cultural inertia and restricted R&D funding than any underlying technological or economic limitations. As the cost of computing power has been halving every three years or so, the gap between automation and AI capability and implementation has been growing. Soon, we will reach a critical differential and a kind of ‘Moore’s Law of Robotics’ will take hold. If we experience a doubling every two years in Robot Density, within twelve years, there will be more robots in the workplace than people. Within twenty years, there will be twenty robots for every human worker.

Actually, by that time, the concept of Human Productive Equivalent (HPE) will probably replace Robot Density. The reason is that not all robots are equal and the disparity between a simple housecleaning robot and a complex surgical robot or bespoke auto making robot will be immense. We would interpret HPE to be a rather hypothetical quantity of ‘value added’ based upon late high Industrial Age machine multipliers. We would expect it to be approximately equal to current Robot Density measures, but substantially more accurate. As such, by 2030 or 2035 the world economy could have 20 HPE’s for every person on the planet.

This is all very fascinating, as are many of the other ideas put forth in the The Future 101 and on the Institute site. However, it really seems that it should be more much than just a provocative idea. Clearly, two quadrillion dollars is a lot of Gross World Product to be created and it sure would be nice to get a piece of it. It would be particularly nice if we did so doing something worthwhile. While hardly the only function of The Polymathic Institute, one of our objectives is to bring together extraordinary polymathic intellectuals, visionary entrepreneurs and aggressive, risk tolerant investors to do just that. You are cordially invited to consider such an involvement to your personal benefit.

Membership is similar to 'talk and blog' sites at $54.95 per year or $6.95 per month. Membership is a true bargain. It is a meaningful opportunity for early entrance into what we refer to as the ‘Knowledge Class’ and the characteristic Information Age lifestyles and incomes. What does that mean? A $50K per year Industrial Age professional will earn between $600K and $750K in the Information Age. They will be engaged primarily in gathering information, processing into knowledge and/or disseminating the result.

However, this transformation to Information Age income levels will not happen by all of us, lockstep, getting raises of 10% per year plus inflation. Rather some people will move to highly compensated Knowledge Professions quickly. We recently learned that when NPR analyst, Juan Williams was fired, he signed on to Fox News for around $650K per year. He is a typical Knowledge Professional. Not someday, but now. The number of people so engaged has been increasing rapidly and will continue to do so.

Most people, however, will follow a less positive path. They will be victims of technological unemployment, move to another Industrial Age profession. Find that, again, their job disappears as well. Eventually, they will understand that they need to become a Knowledge Professional. By becoming a Member of The Polymathic Institute, you are choosing to be in the first group, not the latter.

Your Membership will also provide you with access to a growing global community of extraordinary people. Our goal is to have 25,000 Members and Fellows within two or three years. In addition to benefiting you professionally, it will also benefit you intellectually and socially.

Please visit the Institute site or The Future 101. If, upon reflection, you think you may be interested in becoming a Member, simply press the 'Subscribe' button. If you are interested in exploring Institute Fellowship or certification as a Polymath, contact your sponsor or e-mail Fellows@polymathica.com.

Residential Lease Buyback Pools

Nearly 25% of the occupant mortgaged residential real estate in the U.S. has pay-off principals that are in excess of expected proceeds of sale based upon current market value. In the venacular, they are 'under water.' Few of these situations will be resolved without resorting to a short sale or foreclosure. What this means is that the five million families who have owned homes and currently, due to damaged credit, cannot get financing are likely to grow over the next five years to over twenty million. This creates an opportunity for alternative financing mechanisms.

RLBF enables credit damaged families to enter into long term occupancy arrangements that offer a blend of owner and renter features. The family will be able to consider homes that are currently for sale but not available for rent. Clearly, this could begin to heal the severely bruised existing home market. Based upon the family's preferences, they may participate, to a greater or lesser degree, in potential capital appreciation of the property. Additionally, unlike traditional rental arrangements, the occupant can control and benefit from property improvement projects.

RLBF will allow real estate professionals to productively expand their property search on behalf of families who are currently restricted to the rental market. It will provide loan originators with a powerful new tool to get the credit damaged family into a home. It will provide to the bond market an investment product that is real estate backed, not mortgaged backed and that, with the generally depressed housing prices, represents a significant decrease in risk.

Because the three separate functions of home ownership, occupancy, investment and property control are severable through RLBF, housing budgets, depending upon the decisions made, may prudently be increased to as much as 4.5X annual income. Because of this, over time, this home financing option may expand to credit healthy families.

The Information Age Income Explosion

From 1875 to 2010 U.S. GDP per capita increased 13.67 times. If the same growth happens during the Information Age, median household income will increase to about $760,000 per year . The good news is that it most likely will happen and this time it will take about 35 years not 135. The bad news is that there will be no jobs in the traditional sense of the word. You will not be able to go to a ‘Help Wanted’ site and get ‘hired’ by a ‘company’. These terms will all be casualties of the Transformation. Consequently, wise and clever people should immediately begin planning how they, personally, will become an Information Age entrepreneur.

In our writings on the Transformation, we state that prevailing standards of living in the developed world will double in ten years and quadruple in twenty years. At this rate, the 13.67 multiple will be reached in 2048. This is a prediction we are willing to endorse. It will be the result of the implementation of state-of-the-art robotics and artificial intelligence deployed within the agricultural and industrial sectors. The inescapable corollary to this is that few jobs will remain untouched and most will simply disappear. In fact, for most people, their whole job category will be eliminated and most likely sooner rather than later. So, it seems, you will need to find something else to do. What you are doing now won't be an option. Even if your job category remains, your employer will not. You will need to find somewhere else and some other way to do it.

With regard to occupation and income, we expect that the population will experience a socio-economic trifurcation. In fact, this is happening already. At the bottom will be people who will receive a supplemental stipend that will assure some minimum standard of living. In the middle will be people who engage in productive activities within semi-automated service industries and will enjoy incomes substantially in excess of the established minimum income. At the top will be the entrepreneurial knowledge workers. This is description, of course, is a vast oversimplification. However, it is a wonderful starting point as you become familiar with and conversant in the economics of the Information Age.

In a civilization where nearly half the households will have annual incomes in the millions, it is unlikely that political sentiment will countenance any penury whatsoever. Consequently, we suspect that there will be a stipend for those without sufficient self generated income. It most likely will meet or exceed a level of income that, today, would be considered middle class income. We can imagine that what will be considered the poverty level in twenty years will have quadrupled right along with the quadrupling of average and median incomes. In other words, one person will be guaranteed $40,830 per year, a couple or a custodial parent and child will be guaranteed $72,840 per year and the classic ‘family of four’ will be guaranteed $136,200 per year.

These rates, however, would be subject to some adjustment in order to assist in balancing the labor supply and demand. When the number of people searching for work is less than is required, the level of support provided to those who do not work will decrease, thus encouraging to supplement their income. When the number of people searching for work exceeds what is needed, the level of support will increase.

The middle socioeconomic level will be engaged in service activities that, while automated, retain a human function primarily because humans wish to interact with humans when they are consuming them. Take for example, a fast food restaurant. Even now, we could probably build a restaurant that, through automation and AI, could function without human intervention. However, generally, people would prefer to interact with a person during the ordering, delivering and paying process. The price differential between a $4.00 hamburger in a human mediated fast food restaurant and a $2.65 hamburger at a totally automated restaurant, in a very affluent society, is going to be insufficient to cause the majority of people to frequent the totally automated one

Of course, with a median household income of $760K per year, one may assume that, over time, even a $4.00 personally delivered hamburger is likely to be an endangered species. It will be replaced in most settings with a more leisurely fine dining experience. A $15 fast food bill for an average family today will be proportionately the same as a $190 restaurant tab in 2048. Consequently, we will expect that frequently the purchased meal will involve a chef and maitre d’ overseeing an automated fine dining experience.

From landscaping to interior design to medicine, even if AI programs can perform as well or better than humans, the customer will still want to interact with a person. For example, a landscaper may interview a customer and then go back to his office and create a computer assisted design. The computer did much of the work, but he will present it and, if the customer accepts the design and price, he will arrive with landscaping robots and oversee the work while interacting, again, with the customer.

An AI diagnostic software program may provide the doctor with a list of diagnoses in descending order of probability and suggest further diagnostic tests. Already these programs outperform most doctors. Another AI program may give the doctors a comprehensive list of treatment options with the likely probability of success and suggest possible combinations of treatments. However, no matter how AI assisted, the patient will want to talk to the doctor, ask questions of the doctor and feel reassured by a person, not an AI program.

At the highest socio-economic level will be knowledge professionals, for the most part Polymaths, who will create and communicate visions and apply volition to the social, cultural and economic systems. They will engage in activities that, even if a computer could do them, humans will prefer to retain as their prerogative. This will include great thinkers, pundits and leaders who will teach, present and discuss. It will include great designers who, with the assistance of AI programs, will create new products, new services, comprehensively designed communities, etc. It will include scientists, artists, composers who will drive human progress in a uniquely human way. It will include entrepreneurs who will oversee the automated production processes.

These three categories are arbitrary. Many people will spend portions of their lives in different ones. A person may be on stipend during periods of intense learning, in service activities early in their life and then, over time, find that their productive activities evolve into one or more of the knowledge professions. Additionally, some activities are actually a spectrum that bridges the service sector and the knowledge professions. Many people will engage in both. For example, a person may design clothes but also oversee their robotic manufacture. So, while the trifurcated socio-economic description is basically correct, it is not exactly correct and should not be interpreted too rigidly.

It is manifestly clear, however, that there is not a category designated as ‘employee’, professional level or otherwise. As we all are very aware, manufacturing jobs left developed countries to chase cheap labor in low labor rate locations. Today, we now find that professional jobs are chasing cheap labor in underdeveloped countries. These activities will be returning, but they will not reemploy the previously displaced workers. Rather, they will be automated.

to happen very rapidly. Right now at the larger companies, automated AR and AP software is being installed. From the time of order to receipt to payment, human hands will not touch the process. It is important that everyone Google ‘DARPA 2007 Urban Challenge’ and see what was possible three years ago. Today, the technologies have progressed and the results are amazing. By 2020, anyone who currently makes a living by driving a vehicle will most likely be out of a job. Nearly half the jobs done on a residential new construction site are well within the current robotic technology. Clothing will be custom tailored by robot. We could go on and on, and we will. You may be skeptical. We understand and we will address those reservations as we continue.

Very quickly, because we deal with it elsewhere, we do not expect that there will be an unabated geometric explosion past our income levels due to a 'Singularity'. We believe that the rate of growth in computer technology is abating already. Clock rates on retail computers are not going up. Rather than more powerful CPU's, multi-core computers are being built. While Kurzweil, et al, are their pinning hopes upon carbon nanotube circuitry, the pace of technological development there is already falling behind where it needs to be to continue the geometric progression. It is beginning to appear that computers are reaching technological maturity, at least for now. However, much of what is already possible is not implemented. Consequently, robotics and applied AI will not reach economic maturity at least until 2050.

So, for those who would not only like to learn more about this, but also affiliate, associate and collaborate to take advantage of the opportunities presented by the emerging global, Information Age civilization, we are providing the Polymathica Fellowship. If you are ready to consider developing an entrepreneurial and polymathic knowledge career, your first step is to join the facebook group, Polymathica Entrepreneurs.

More on the Transformation

Several interesting comments have been made recently as one of the messages of Polymathica, that of the imminent Transformation, begins to sink in. These comments, both agreeing and disagreeing, can be summarized by the basic question, ‘How will this all happen?’ We have dedicated an enormous amount of energy in trying to understand how the Industrial Age civilizations will turn into the Information Age civilization – The Transformation. So, although, we don't have a crystal ball, we do have a deep, perhaps the deepest, understanding of the forces and mechanisms at work.

If we are to learn anything from the prior transformations, it is that they are messy, often violent, affairs that really are not under anyone's control. As we have stated on a number of occasions, the recent string of crises, of which the financial crisis was one and the current nation state credit crises are the latest, are directly related to The Transformation. Here in the U.S. we have Herculean efforts of sweeping reform which are exactly ‘the status quo’ attempting to reassert itself.’ These efforts, like those of the European Royal families in the previous Transformation, will ultimately fail.

The Transformation is an extremely complex phenomenon that cannot be adequately explained in an article or, most likely, even in a book. Understanding The Transformation is more a matter of a dedicated, ongoing course of study. However, there are three major factors that we attempt to emphasize.

First, we are entering a period of unprecedented occupational displacement. Nearly all clerical, and many entry level professional, jobs are at risk to AI applications. The current AI state of the art can duplicate most clerical functions cost effectively. It’s really a matter of product design and marketing. It is happening right now, actually, with large corporations, such as Target and Wal-Mart, that are promulgating electronic invoicing and payments in their formats upon their vendors. We need a data interchange format for business paper with translators. Then, all clerks are basically out of a job.

The DARPA 2007 Urban Challenge, and the work of Stanford/Audi since then, has demonstrated that millions of jobs in the transportation industries are terminal and have years, not decades, to live. Audi has the stated goal of fully automated vehicles by 2028. Given the state of the art as demonstrated to date we conclude that, if they take that long, someone will beat them to it. It seems unlikely that the other manufacturers will not respond and instigate a technology race. Consequently, it is unlikely that this technology is no more than a decade or so from commercial applications.

There are few, if any, construction jobs that cannot be cost effectively replaced by robots with current technologies. Again, they will be gone in our twenty year time frame. There are even AI programs being marketed today that threaten the jobs of classical K-12 teachers and replace most of the diagnostic functions of physicians.

So, Factor One, is the emergence of huge worker displacements with no straightforward road to a replacement career. As we have often stated, paradoxically, all of the implemented robotics and AI will cause an explosion in GDP per capita. When we say that it will double in ten years and quadruple in twenty, we are actually being very conservative. The elimination of labor cost constraints to production results in no definite limit to incomes. Many people are beginning to understand that something very fundamental is going to need to change in the economic mechanisms of society in order to get all of the income of production into the hands of the consumer.

Second, the emergence of cable and satellite television created a situation where a few of the major cultural perspectives are now living in totally separate and robust memic universes. In other words, people who watch MSNBC for their news, analysis and commentary are being immersed in a culturally comfortable world view that is quite different from the one received by people who watch Fox News. Essentially, the Public Discourse is being undertaken by groups with different sets of 'facts'. There are no significant homogenizing forces and those that do exist are becoming progressively more overwhelmed by the forces of fragmentation.

Furthermore, as radio and television move to the Internet small print/audio/video enterprises, targeted at markets with total customer bases in the hundreds of thousands or several millions, rather than tens or even hundreds of millions, will become viable. Polymathica, a global community of refinement and erudition, Project Venus, Gaians, New Agers, Polyamorists, and many, many more will float their own news outlets and television networks. Some will undoubtedly fail. However, many will succeed and the march toward a massively heterogeneous, multicultural world will continue.

As ‘live anywhere’ economics take hold, combined with the Information Age Income Explosion of Factor One, an increasing percentage of the population will move to comprehensively designed communities that are facilitative of a specific set of values and lifestyle preferences. Because, at the time, the major nation states will be desperately trying to maintain a semblance of cultural homogeneity, many of these communities will be found in smaller nations who are welcoming the economic benefits of the new communities. The notion of cultural sovereignty will emerge. Along with it will come the concept of Market Based Governance.

So, Factor Two, the emergence of memic propagators that will cause the currently fragmenting cultures of the Industrial Age to coalesce around a relatively large number of new and old memically isolated global communities that will begin to express themselves in a growing number of culturally homogenous ‘bricks and mortar’ communities.

In economics and business there is a perverse, inverse relationship between industry stability and barriers to market entry. This is critical to the nature of The Transformation. The Internet is currently completely disorganized. Small businesses that are primarily information enterprises have as their primary barrier to success, the inability to efficiently find their customers. Polymathica has as affiliates some magnificent blogs that have readers numbering in the hundreds rather than hundreds of thousands, primarily, because they can’t efficiently find their readership. The very large information brokers such as NewsCorp and NBC like it this way. However, it will not last. As Internet television and radio create targeted networks, barriers to market entry will fall and, as the saying goes, ‘all Hell will break loose.’

So, Factor Three, the Mega corporations will experience increasing competition from networks of small enterprises that have affiliated in a non-corporate, non-hierarchical fashion. The large corporations of the Industrial Age will fight the process, of course. However, in the end, they will lose. The world economy will become far more organic.

Unlike The Singularity and other Transhumanist movements, The Transformation is not a vague, ‘someday this will happen’, kind of story. These three factors are all emerging today. They will accelerate over the next ten years and by 2030, the global Information Age civilization will be here. It will look far different than the world of today. The differences will be 'in kind' not degree.

It will most likely be a rough ride. The large, multinational corporations and institutions of geographic governance will not ‘go quietly into that dark night.’ National governments will attempt, as China and some of the more fundamentalist Islamic states are doing now, to build information barriers that will protect their citizens from the onslaught of myriad memic propagators of other cultural viewpoints. Mega corporations, which are generally proscribed from overtly predatory practices in most nations, will attempt to create multinational strategies to fend off the attack of the hordes of small, niche creating Information Age enterprises. They will search for, and most likely find, corporate havens where the local governments will turn a blind eye to these tactics.

For many the large, Industrial Age institutions seem too powerful to be displaced. However, as the feudalism and Nobility of the Agricultural Age gave way to the new institutions of the Industrial Age, the Nation State and Multinational corporations of the Industrial Age will succumb to new Information Age institutions. Ten years ago when some of us began telling this story, it seemed unrealistic and distant to most people. They believed that they had some time to watch how it all unfolded. They were correct. However, now, more people accept the story and time has run out. The Transformation is happening right now. Historians will view the U.S. taxation of worldwide income and the 2008 ‘Exit Tax’ legislation as important early salvos in the Industrial Age/Information Age conflict.

So, this is not going to be pretty. The people who have the easiest time with it will be the people who are anticipating it and acting upon it in real time. The person who sits back, feeling secure in their job as, for example, a clerk in a public library, will find themselves totally unprepared when public libraries become a virtual, Internet based affair, delivering their ‘borrowed books’ to people’s Kindles, Ipads, etc. They will lose their jobs and find that everyone with their skill set and occupational expectations are in the same boat. They will ultimately adjust, but it will be an uncomfortable time. Those, however, who begin now to craft a new Information Age career, will have a much easier transition.

People who are vested in the Industrial Age fiction of a bipolar political universe will find the new Information Age realities confusing. Republicans/Democrats, Conservative/Labour, et al will become false dichotomies. The new realities of ‘voting with your feet’ will completely confound Industrial Age thinkers. Liberal Democracies that have become comfortable in the political strategy of making promises to the majority, financed by the affluent minority, will find that the affluent minority is gone and no longer taxable. We suspect that the reaction will not be pleasant.

In conclusion, the greater your involvement in Polymathica, the more comprehensive will be your understanding of The Transformation. We are searching for all the refined, erudite people on the Internet. For the most part, it is an effort to create an audience and customer base for refined, erudite content, networks, products and services. However, the process of educating its Membership about the Transformation and mobilizing them to create Information Age strategies to address the problems and capitalize upon the opportunities is a non-trivial pursuit, as well.

Energy Futures: The CTL/EOR Couplet

There has been much commentary on peak oil and rising crude oil costs in the near future. In fact, there seems to be a general anxieity about the future supply of energy. For the Polymath, the consideration of Energy Futures will at a minimum, involve demographics, Economics, technology and energy resources. Peak oil alarmists, such as Matt Simmons, are not wrong in their analytical techniques. They are wrong in their scope of considerations. Matt Simmons draws the very correct conclusion that if oil consumption patterns continue and no ‘unconventional’ oil or fuel switching opportunities present themselves, we are headed toward a persistent and economically devastating oil crisis.

However, a Polymath, asking the general question, ‘What will energy supply and demand look like in the future’ ignores subject and industriy boundaries to pursue a comprehensive answer. Because of this, when Matt Simmons was predicting $500 oil, we were predicting $85 oil. As oil prices ran up to nearly $150 per barrel subsequent to the predictions of Simmons, et al, we stuck to our guns and continued to state without equivocation that oil would oscillate around an $80 to $85 per barrel price. The more polymathic approach proved to be correct. It generally will.

A full consideration of Energy Futures is well beyond the scope of this article. However, because of its pervasive effects on the shape of future world economies, it is considered by the Polymathica Academy within the course work of The Future 101. Put simply, a superior knowledge of futurity is one of the benefits of Polymathica Institute Fellowship. Here we will consider the twin opportunities of Coal to Liquid (CTL) and Enhanced (tertiary) Oil Recovery (EOR) Technologies. We will do so, because its impact is imminent and the technologies are fairly well developed. It shapes the near future in several ways and is not particularly susceptible to claims of unwarranted and overly optimistic speculation.

Coal Liquefaction has an estmated cost between $30 and $45 per barrel. Its first use was by Nazi Germany when the Allied Forces interfered with their access to petroleum. It is currently implemented in commercial scale operations in South Africa. Because China has large coal reserves and very little oil, it is under active development there. The potential supplies of CTL oil equivalents are huge. U.S. Coal reserves are equivalent to approximately 4,116 billion barrels of oil. This compares to world oil reserves of approximately 1,365 billion barrels. Consequently, the U.S. alone has more than three times the oil reserves of the world with this technology.

The criticism of CLT has been that it produces approximately twice the CO2 as conventional oil production. Environmental interests are insisting that if this technology is deployed, it must be done with CO2 sequestering. The sequestering process adds to the cost and reduces industry and investment interest in the technologies. There is, however, a much better and undoubtedly feasible solution.

This brings us to CO2 Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR), a method by which up to an additional 50% of the oil recovered through primary and secondary oil recovery methods can be recovered. A DOE review of just six regions concluded that they contained 43.3 billion barrels of additional reserves utilizing this method. From this, it is estimated that the onshore reserves of the U.S. are 89 billion barrels. The upside estimates are as high as 240 billion barrels of stranded oil that can be recovered in the U.S. alone by this method. Costs vary, however, the DOE funded study, dated February 7, 2008, estimated typical costs in the $45 - $55 per barrel range. Again, we emphasize that this is not speculative technology. It has been used on a limited basis since the 1960’s.

There are a couple of important considerations in determining the practical impact of the CTL/EOR couplet. One is the issue of how many barrels of oil can be gotten in EOR from a barrel of CTL. The answer limits the total production by this method that does not require CO2 sequestering of CTL production. Estimates vary between two and three barrels of EOR that can be produced from the CO2 created by liquifying coal to produce one barrel of oil. What this means is that, by the upside estimate, we have 80 to 120 billion barrels of CTL and that this will recover 240 billion barrels of EOR. The additional 320 to 360 billion barrels of U.S. oil is more than the oil reserves of Saudi Arabia and would make the U.S. the number one oil producer in the world. Even by the estimate of 89 billion barrels, based upon no technological advancements in the processes, the CTL/EOR couplet increases U.S. oil reserves from 21 billion barrels to 140 to 155 billion barrels. This would place it behind only Saudi Arabia and Canada in oil reserves.

While the U.S. has, by far, the greatest potential for increased reserves through CTL/EOR, other regions, most notably Russia and Venezuela also have significant exploitable reserves. Consequently, rather than a impending oil crisis and price run-up, in reality, the world oil market has a massive supply overhang below $100 per barrel, and probably below $80 per barrel. In other words, if the price of oil remains above $80 per barrel for a sustained period of time, the CTL/EOR Couplet will become progressively more commercialized, placing downward pressure on oil prices. In this way, the conventional oil supply and the CTL/EOR oil supply will find a dynamic equilibrium between $75 to $85 per barrel. We emphasize that there will be price shocks both above and below this price range as markets speculate in advance of short term supply/demand disequalibria. From there, the price will fall to around $55 to $65 per barrel over the next twenty years as consumption per GDP dollar decreases, demographic shifts impact consumption and other oil supply and fuel switching opportunities become economically and technologically feasible.

This is just one small example of how practiced Polymathy leads one, over time, to a different and more informed world view. None of the preceding is unavailable to the mainstream media. Its significance, however, is not properly appreciated and communicated because it runs counter to a world view fabricated from compartmentalized pieces of information. This is a temporary situation and recent publications, such as the 2008 DOE piece will allow the opportunity to slowly diffuse into the public awareness. We strongly encourage the serious Polymath to follow the links in this article, especially the 2008 DOE study, to gain a more complete understanding of this issue.

Polymathicans as Transformationalists

In a prior post we touched upon our skepticism with regard to ‘The Singularity.’ Since the purpose of the post was to introduce the idea of the Information Age Income Explosion, we did not deal comprehensively with the problems inherent in Singularitarianism. We will discuss The Singularity in more detail in future posts. Again, it is only tangentially related to this post. Presently, we will discuss Information Age Transformationalism. In other words, because we believe that the near future will be characterized by a cascade of endogenously related S-Curves, we incorporate into our vision of Polymathica the notion that a transformational global Information Age civilization is emerging.

Polymathica is about creating a global community of refinement and erudition. Our analysis suggests that a universal awareness of Polymathica and a robust selection of refined and/or erudite content, networks, products and services, will result in between 2.0 and 3.0 million Polymathicans. So, while a small percentage of the population from which it is drawn, Polymathica is potentially significant in absolute terms. However, its growth and development needs to be considered within the context of the profound global transformation that will reach its greatest rate of change between today and 2030. In this article we will summarize the major points of that transformation and its significance to Polymathicans.

As we discussed in our prior post, implementation of state of the art robotics and business related AI software will lead, over the next twenty years, to an explosion in incomes. At a minimum the GDP per capita in the developed world will double by 2020 and quadruple by 2030. At the same time, the majority of current job descriptions will disappear. We will likely find ourselves in the peculiar situation where income will be increasing at an unprecedented rate while, simultaneously, unemployment will be skyrocketing. We cannot overemphasize the importance of our constituency staying ahead of this curve by entering an Information Age knowledge profession as soon as possible.

As incomes explode, work weeks will shorten. This will happen because nearly all jobs will become robotically or AI assisted. At the same time domestic chores will become robotically or AI assisted as well. Robots will clean our house, wash our clothes, tend our yards and cook our meals. This dramatic increase in leisure time will precipitate an existential crisis for many people. However, for Polymathicans, it will enable their pursuit of refinement and erudition – what we refer to as A Finely Crafted Life. We have likened the sociology of the coming age of automation to the Antebellum South of the U.S. What we mean by this is that the cultural emphasis will move away from productivity and toward self-actualization. We understand that many will consider the Antebellum culture to have been effete and we don't disagree that it was immediately prior to the Civil War. However, it also spawned Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.

Aubrey de Grey has been soundly, and unfairly, criticized for his SENS.org. While detractors are correct that he is not engaging in science, they are incorrect in using the pejorative, pseudoscience. He is engaging in a systematic metascientific inquiry into the essential nature of the problem of aging and death. He is rejecting the fantastical claims of simple solutions in favor of the more realistic expectations of incremental improvements in life expectancy. Over the next twenty years society will be fundamentally transformed by the growing expectations that life spans will routinely exceed one hundred years. We can expect that people will more readily accept the notion of evolving careers. The portion of life dedicated to rearing children will dramatically decrease. Preparation for retirement will be de-emphasized. Continuing adult education will become normative and, parenthetically, one of the lifestyle changes enabled by the increase in leisure time inherent in The Transformation.

The transformation of the Internet into a multi-media, global communication system that will support the market demands of smaller, more diffuse communities will also transform civilization. From a theoretical viewpoint, memic propagators are decoupling from geographically defined communities and thereby decoupling culture from geography in general. In other words, in the past people absorbed their culture from local sources such as schools, churches, parents, neighbors, etc. Now, culture is being absorbed from remote, often globally distributed sources. We discussed a theoretical structure of analysis in our article, ‘The Cultural Calculus.’ Because culture informs one as to morality and morality informs one as to the justness of laws, we are entering a period when geographically defined institutions of governance will become progressively less effective. A full exploration of what will replace them is beyond the scope of this article and will be addressed in future articles. However, generally, governance will be bicameral, with one legislative institution granted geographic sovereignty and the other cultural sovereignty.

Each year, approximately ½ of 1% of the population finds that they can live anywhere. In tandem with the decoupling of culture from geography, this will dramatically transform the demographics of civilization. New, culturally defined, communities will form in locales chosen for purely environmental and lifestyle reasons. Each ‘live anywhere’ person who chooses to move to such a community will create five or six other residents, primarily by creating demand in the service sector. It appears that this process will take place over about one generation and follow an S-Curve development. Over the next 30 years, we expect that Industrial Age cities will lose approximately 30% of their population to new communities comprehensively designed to facilitate the lifestyles idiosyncratic to specific values and cultures. EcoVillages and CoHousing are the beginning, not the culmination, of this process.

This blog is currently being read by people in over 40 countries. When we described Polymathica as a global community, we chose the words carefully. Polymathica is part of an overall trend toward a growing transnational intellectual elite. We are seeing in Polymathican profiles many people who are currently living far from where they were born and raised. Polymathicans are not only polymathic, they are, of necessity, polyglots. Assuming that future communities facilitative of polymathic values and lifestyles mirror the Membership in Polymathica, we can expect that these communities will have a distinctly international flavor. This is part of an overall process by which cultural and community identification slowly supplants national identity.

The next twenty years are best considered using the analogical model of a system of endogenously related time series equations where the individual equations without the effects of other equations would describe S-Curves. Each of the transformations described here would be one of those equations. However, because they are endogenously related, the system, as a whole, can experience periods of profound discontinuity. For those readers who prefer non-mathematical analogies, we would simply state that these imminent transformations will result in what historians will consider to be the core of the Information Revolution. While we believe that The Singularity is a flawed prediction, we do believe in The Transformation.

The observation made on the pages of Project Polymath that we may be entering a second Renaissance is not without validity. However, it is not a renaissance; it is a nascence. The emergence of an international community of polymaths, will be similar to the Renaissance in its intellectual energy. However, it will be unlike anything that preceded it in fundamental ways. In the Industrial Age, the civilization did not well utilize its most exceptional members. This was partially due to the social dynamics of organizational structures and partially due to the rejection of the Polymath model that we discuss in our articles, ‘The Polymathic Method and the Research Polymath’ and ‘The Enterprise Polymath.’ One of the characteristics of the Transformation will be the emergence of polymathic knowledge professions. While a footnote for future historians, this eventuality portends profound intellectual, social and lifestyle transformations for Polymathicans.

Consequently, the concept of Polymathica as a global community, is inextricably entwined with the considerations of the emergent knowledge professions, a rigorous development of a superior understanding of futurity and the Transformation that we believe is far more likely than the Singularity. We understand that for most Polymathicans, the fraternal associations and the intellectual stimulation derived through Member interaction is a sufficient level of involvement for them at this time. However, for some, the pursuit of polymathic research, education, enterprise and/or lifestyles are matters of significant, if not primary, lifestyle concern. Consequently, we have, on several occasions attempted to bifurcate the organization into two levels of interest. To this end, we will be establishing a Polymathica Institute that will have among its parts, an Academy, a professional network similar to LinkedIn.com and an enterprise development and financing organization. At its core, its purpose is to participate, on behalf of Polymaths, in the imminent Transformation.

A Finely Crafted Life

In our previous post we spoke about the Information Age Income Explosion that is being instigated by the implementation of advanced robotics and artificial intelligence technologies. Not only will this cause incomes to, at least, quadruple over the next twenty years, it also will take much of the drudgery out of the work experience. We expect that the typical work week for the knowledge class may fall to between 25 to 30 hours. The combination of affluence and leisure will cause members of the knowledge class to progress through Maslow’s hierarchy and, over time, develop a culture of self-actualization. From this, we introduce the idea of ‘A Finely Crafted Life’.

The analysis and pursuit of a finely crafted life is a distinctly Information Age way of thinking and, as such, is far from fully developed or even well explored. We begin with the concept that life is experienced through various modalities. Each person, based upon their unique character, has a specific preference as to the degree to which they want to experience life through each modality. When a modality is under-experienced a person feels unfulfilled. When a modality is over-experienced a person feels harried. A balance between actual and preferred modalities creates a sense of self-actualization.

We propose a preliminary list of life experience modalities, in alphabetical order, as follows: Aesthetic, Creative, Intellectual, Kinesthetic, Procreative, Productive, Sensual, Social, Spiritual and Status. A Finely Crafted Life is a highly personalized thing. One person may need a very high expression of the Aesthetic in order to be fulfilled, while a different person may need little there but will need a significant expression of the Intellectual. Therefore, A Finely Crafted Life begins with self knowledge. Which modalities are personally the most important and which need only be experienced to a minor degree? From this self knowledge, one can consider how appropriately each is currently being expressed and what strategies may facilitate a more accurate expression.

You will note that we do not refer to balancing work and personal life. These are activities that, to varying degrees, provide opportunities to experience one or more modality. In other words, a well selected job can fulfill Intellectual, Productive, Social, Status and Creative modality needs. We readily admit that, in the Industrial Age, work was an especially important activity, since it enabled or limited one’s ability to engage in other activities that satisfied various modalities. However, if a job is highly enabling (pays well) one can come to ‘need’ their job. However, if one like’s one’s job, it is because it satisfies the modalities that are important to the individual. While work will be essential to membership in the knowledge classes, its emphasis will decrease for most people.

As the profoundly affluent knowledge class emerges, their members will begin to focus more directly upon how to craft a life that provides them with their unique distribution of modality desires. Those with a strong productive need will find productive activities. Those with a strong intellectual need will spend time learning. Because Polymathica is defined as a global community of refinement and erudition, there will be a distinctive slant to what most of its Members consider to be a finely crafted life. Certainly we would expect a greater emphasis on the modalities of Intellectual, Creative, Aesthetic, Spiritual and Status than the general population. In one interpretation, we would expect to be able to define the culture of Polymathica, using the cultural calculus, as a generalized factor within the definition of a finely crafted life.

Because we all will live the rest of our lives in the future and Members of Polymathica will be among the first to enter the knowledge class, younger Members should fully consider how they will want to prosecute their life and what, to them, is meant by a finely crafted life. As more seasoned Members consider how they wish to transform their lives through Membership, they should be fully cognizant of the principles of a finely crafted life. Because the Industrial Age was not particularly friendly to people of refinement and erudition, there will probably be significant opportunity for improvement.

The concept of a Finely Crafted Life will be one of several persistent threads that will define Polymathica and permeate our discussions of it. We suggest the following exercise. Using a spreadsheet, list each of the ten modalities across the top and assign to each a value between 1 and 10 describing how important it is to you. Now list each activity that you engage in that contributes to your experience to each modality. Rate it on how much it contributes to each modality. This worksheet will provide a structure with which you can consider strategies for transforming your life.

The Singularity is Not Near. But the future is going to be really cool anyway

If you kick around the intellectual community for any time at all, you will undoubtedly encounter the Transhumanists and Singularitiarians. If you look at our suggested reading list for polymaths, you will see Ray Kurzweil’s book, ‘The Singularity is Near’. That is because the book is influential, not because it is particularly accurate.

Kurzweil accepts that technologies develop and mature along a path known as an S-curve. He then makes the claim that, in cases such as computing capacity, S-curves follow one another sequentially to form a geometric curve. (page 43) In this, he is mistaken. The same forces that cause an individual technology to follow an S-curve applies to the function, such as computing capacity per constant dollar, itself. Consequently, it will follow a super S-Curve.

When electromechanical computation began to reach its maturity, it was relatively easy to find a technology that had more potential. It was the relay. When the relay began to reach its maturity, it was a little more difficult and costly to find a new technology with greater potential. It was the vacuum tube. When the vacuum tube began to reach its maturity it was even more difficult and costly to develop a new technology. It was the transistor.

The current technology, the silicon based integrated circuit, is approaching its limits. The number of components that can be put on a chip will continue to increase at least until 2019. However, the computing power that can be purchased for a constant dollar amount appears to be reaching its limit by 2014. In other words, after 2014, you will be able to get a more powerful CPU, but it is going to cost you more.

There is a replacement technology, carbon nanotubes, that appears capable of exceeding the performance of silicon based chips. However, the most enthusiastic proponents do not claim that the cross-over point will occur before 2020. Additionally, there is currently no strong evidence that their price performance can exceed current technology by then, if ever. It appears that we are reaching the flex point of the Super S-Curve of computation. In other words, human equivalent computing capacity for $1,000 is likely by 2030. However, after that progress is likely to slow down dramatically.

While the future of immortal humans and god-like computers is not likely in the 21st Century, the next twenty years are going to be extraordinarily exciting. Due to a number of economic and technological forces, robotic performance in practice is lagging far behind theory. The computing capacity that can be purchased today for $1,000 would have cost $250,000,000 just twenty years ago. However, in the same period, the cost of a similar robot has only decreased by 75%.

This is about to change. Robotics and artificial intelligence are about to explode. The 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge, for robotics and artificial intelligence, was something like the Apollo Project for space exploration. It was ahead of its time, but it demonstrated just how far behind we were in the implementation of robotics.

By 2030, even households of moderate means will have robots cooking their meals, washing their clothes, cleaning their house and chauffeuring them around. In fact, their home will be primarily robotically built. Manufacturing plants will not only be completely automated, the production of robots will be completely automated as well. In the office, purchasing, inventory control, accounts payable, accounts receivable, cash management and more will be performed by intelligent computer programs with nominal human oversight. Civilization will literally become a slave economy. However, unlike the first round of slavery, robots are completely uninterested in consuming to a level proportional to their production. They are not interested in asserting their will or exercising freedoms. And, if anyone built such robots, people wouldn't buy them.

We are just now entering the bottom of the geometric growth of installed robotics and artificial intelligence. It should be expected that the process will be messy and contentious. However, it will take place. In fact, between 2000 and 2005, Japan’s growth in robot exports was increasing at a rate of 20% to 35% per year. While the global economic slowdown hit robot sales hard, the recovery will begin in 2010 and is expected to be significant.

It is only a matter of time before this level of growth will over-run a GDP per Capita growth rate of under 3%. Conservatively, we would expect household income to double by 2020 and quadruple by 2030. For those who wish to enter the Information Age knowledge professions the increase in standard of living will be even more pronounced and happen even faster. When we state that people who choose to enter a knowledge profession today will be earning 250K within three years and 500K within five years, that is not hyperbole or hype. It is simply what knowledge professions will be earning in the Information Age.

So, while significantly less dramatic that what is predicted by Singularitarians, we still expect a dramatic and positive next twenty years. Singularitarians seem to make the admirable error of assuming that everything that can go right, will go right. It won’t. However, much of it will, though generally later than expected. Even now, we are beginning to see that S-Curves aggregate to make a Super S-Curve, not a geometric curve. However, the generally pessimistic view of the future promulgated by many of the more mainstream media is even more unrealistic. As Polymathica grows and expands the assumption that an Information Age Income Explosion is imminent is critical to proper planning.

In addition to inviting comments on our blog, we will be setting up a topic on the discussion board of our facebook group. Please follow us here and on facebook.

The Cultural Calculus: An Example of Polymathic Methodological Transfer

Psychologist Charles Spearman hypothesized that for every intellectual task the performance of an individual is determined by traits specific to the task (s) and traits general to all or most intellectual tasks (g). Suppose we chose 100 people at random and gave them a test on number progressions. A performance rank order would result. Now suppose we gave the same 100 people an analogy test. There are three distinct relationships the two results could have to one another.

The first is that they are inversely correlated. In other words, a person who scored in the top 50 on one test would have a greater than random chance of scoring in the lower 50 on the second test. This is the constant intelligence theory that says that everyone has about the same amount of intelligence and if a person is better than average in one task it is because they are applying more of their intelligence to it. Consequently, they have less to apply to other tasks and they can be expected to score below average on those tests.

The next theory is the random theory. In other words, g=0 and all the proficiency a person has in a specific intellectual task is related to traits that only affect that intellectual task. If Spearman is correct, the rank order of a person on one test will have predictive value on the other test. The greater the predictive value the more g dominates the explanation of intellectual performance.

The problem of determining the predictive value between many tests was a difficult one and Spearman developed Factor Analysis to deal with it. It turned out that Spearman was correct. In fact, it turned out that g explained most of the difference in intellectual performance between people. Thus, a new and more rigorous definition of IQ was born. IQ is a measure of g, which is extracted from the results of questions diagnostic of many types of intellectual tasks.

Factor Analysis has been utilized polymathically in geochemistry, ecology, hydrochemistry and economics. Marketing analysis has used a simpler form by creating correlation matrices. Here we are going to give an example of an intentional rather than accidental use of polymathy to develop a Cultural Calculus. In doing so, we will provide a theoretical basis for a new way to evaluate history, understand the present and contemplate the future.

Suppose we gave a number of people a questionnaire that explored their attitude toward abortion. We could then assign values to each person with 1 representing someone who believes that abortion should be illegal in all circumstances and that anyone involved in an abortion should be considered to have committed or been accessory to murder and 100 representing someone who believes that abortion should be legal at all points in a pregnancy and, nobody, including the father or the courts, my abridge that right. We would expect that this questionnaire would result in a bimodal population if plotted on a graph where the x axis is the value between 1 and 100 and the y axis is the number of people with the specific rating. We would expect the left mode to be represented by people who believe that abortion should be illegal except in the cases of incest or rape or to save the life of the mother. The right mode, we expect would be centered on people who believe that abortion should be legal in the first trimester of a pregnancy.

Now suppose we gave the same people a questionnaire that explored their attitude about welfare. We, again, would expect a bimodal population with one group centering around a view that welfare should be limited, locally administered and with significant assistance from the philanthropic and religious communities and the other group centering around a federally mandated suite of government entitlement programs.

Let us expand our graph to three axes, with x being the rating on the abortion scale, y being the rating on the welfare scale and z being the number of people at each particular (x,y). We believe that now we will find a conical mound centering around those who take a low numbered position with regard to both abortion and welfare and another centering around those who take a high numbered position to both. We are not sure whether those not among the two major nodes will be evenly distributed or if there would be one or more smaller nodes. Some people might argue that the graph would have more than two modes. Others may argue that concentrations would be small and the majority of people would reside on a 100 X 100 plane of relatively little topography. We are unaware of any studies of this nature and, consequently, the disagreement cannot be definitively resolved.

Since very few people can visualize hyperdimensional objects, we are going to add one more questionnaire and then stop. Now we will include a questionnaire on the degree to which government should abridge the freedom of action of citizens and enterprises for the sake of preserving the ecological status quo. At the low end will be people who believe that the government has no right to abridge such actions at all and on the other extreme are people who believe that the government has an absolute obligation to proscribe and assess fines for any act that may disturb the current environmental conditions. Now, since we need the z axis for our third questionnaire, we will need to do this a little differently. We will make a volume comprised of 100 X 100 X 100 = 1,000,000 cubes each of which represents one unique (x,y,z) and capable of holding many dots. We believe that this exercise would render two very dense centers surrounded by a halo of loci of decreasing density as the radius from the center increases. For those familiar with astronomy, it would look like two globular clusters, one centered around moderate positions in favor of abortion, welfare and environmental restrictions and one that centered around moderate positions against abortion, welfare and environmental restrictions. Again, we are unsure whether there would be smaller clusters at different locations.

We can imagine that the same questionnaires are given to a statistically valid and consistent group of people over time. We now can see our concept space evolving. Perhaps clusters will become more dense or less dense. Perhaps a piece of a cluster will break off and travel to a different locus, picking up members as it goes. Perhaps portions of our concept space will develop a new attractor and start growing and increasing in density spontaneously. Perhaps we can see the distance between the two major clusters become closer or farther apart. In other words, we will be watching a movie of cultural fragmentation, coalescence and evolution.

Of course, Cultural Analysts, well versed in the more complex mathematical methods required to extract meaning from a larger number questionnaires will take this several steps further than we will here. They will create hyperdimensional models that will move, transform and evolve in ways that can only be approximately represented in three dimensional models. Using factor analysis, they can create a kind of central definition of culture, perhaps extracting central or core factors that define each culture. Even though not easily visualized, characteristic statements, then, can be made about the conformation of the concept space and how it has changed over time.

Not only is this an example of methodology transfer being utilized in the Polymathic Method, it also allows us to provide a more complete explanation of the meaning of Polymathica. If questionnaires were given to people to assess their sense of refinement and erudition, we consider it obvious that few people would find themselves in the 90’s on a scale of 1 to 100. Most of civilization has become rather crass, crude, hedonistic, vulgar and anti-intellectual. Consequently, Polymathica is creating an attractor at one end of the refinement and erudition dimensions of concept space that, we hope will begin to grow through accretion and become more defined through shared cultural literacy.

This post also gives us a common pattern language with which to discuss issues of culture.

Educating the Polymath

At first blush, the concept of educating a Polymath may seem oxymoronic. After all, Polymaths must first and foremost be autodidacts. While they may engage in directed learning for specific skill acquisition the choice is inherently subject specific rather than polymathic. In other words, there really isn’t any significant difference between “Web Page Design for Polymaths” and “Web Page Design for Everyone Else.”

For the most part, polymathy is resident in the synthesis, not in the individual courses of study. Consequently, everything we know about higher education is, at best, tangentially applicable to our needs. In our post, The Research Polymath, we stated that Research Polymathy should take place outside of traditional Academia due to the hostility that the various institutions have toward the practice of Polymathy. Additionally, because we are going to need to start from scratch with a pedagogical design, the actual structure of an Academy of a Polymathic Institute will undoubtedly be incompatible in its structure with the traditional colleges and universities.

Because the Polymathic Method is inherently autodidactic, one of the cornerstones of an Academy of a Polymathic Institute will be the certification of autonomously learned material. It will often be the case that those who interact with a Polymath will want an outside assessment of their knowledge and skills. These may include prospective investors, research funding agencies and individuals or potential collaborators. The certification of specific knowledge and skill sets by Polymathic Institute Senior Members will amplify the opportunities to utilize credit received in a traditional university environment and proficiency testing services, such as CLEP to meet the knowledge and skill acquisition requirements of the chosen degree program.

In addition to assisting in assessing course equivalent proficiencies, a Polymathic Institute should certify at the degree level, as well. Specific certifications may include various Masters and Doctoral level categories. We imagine the most widely acquired would be a Masters of Enterprise Polymathy. For many pundits, talkers, bloggers and community designers, a Masters of Social Polymathy may be useful. For Research Polymaths, a PhD of Polymathy may demonstrate to potential constituencies and markets that an advanced level of proficiency in the Polymathic Method has been attained.

The certification process we imagine would involve two or three steps. The first step would be to interact with a certification design consultant who will assist the student in defining the degree certification to be acquired. In many cases, this step can be abbreviated or even completely eliminated by accepting a previously designed certification, such as a Masters in Enterprise Polymathy. However, it would also allow for a ‘design your own degree’ option.

The second step is to obtain evidence of acquisition of a basic knowledge and skill set characteristic of the certification being acquired. This will involve accumulating transcripts from traditional universities already attended, taking CLEP assessments and demonstration of proficiency made directly to the Polymathic Institute or other non-traditional institutions, such as Project Polymath courses.

Third, because a Polymathic Institute will be conferring graduate, rather than baccalaureate, level certification, a thesis will be produced and defended.

An important benefit of attending a first tier University is the network of contacts that are made. While the benefit is informal at a traditional institution of higher education, it will be something more properly formalized at a Polymathic Institute. In other words, the primary value of matriculating at a Polymathic Institute may, in the end, be vested in the alumni association. We have seen in several of our posts that the adage, ‘United we stand, divided we fall’ is central to the ultimate success of Polymathy as a set of viable career options.

Lastly, we assume, especially for the Doctoral level candidates, that a thesis advisor/mentor will be acquired through the Institute. The advisor, as in traditional educational institutions, will suggest approaches, knowledge and skill acquisition requirements and strategies and provide critiques intended to lead to an eventual successful thesis defense.

As we have stated in the past, we are firmly supportive of Project Polymath and their efforts to create a Polymathic University. It appears from their current direction that they can, in the very near future, provide an additional source of training and proficiency assessment for the Polymathic Institute certification candidate. We sincerely hope that the participants in a Polymathic Institute can bring value to Project Polymath, as well.

We will not make a distinction between our Founders’ Circle, the Academy and Alumni association, and execute them all under the general rubric of Polymathica Institute. We do so because the term 'institute' may refer to an institution of learning and research or an institution promoting a cause. In addition to providing content, networks, products and services to a community of refinement and erudition, Polymathica Institute will do both of these.

The structure of the Academy is totally new, or, one may argue, as ancient as the Academy of Plato. As we have stated earlier, there will be a nominal general access charge to enter the Institute and, then, each individual educational process will be negotiated between a student Member and a Senior Member qualified to provide the service. The only direct involvement of the Polymathica Institute in the Academy will be the general oversight of organizational development and the credentialing process to assure that the various credentials conferred maintain the highest level quality and, thereby, reputation.

We expect that the earliest students to matriculate in the Polymathica Academy will be from one of three categories. First will be individuals of means who want to be able to say, “I am a Polymath and I have a piece of paper to prove it.” They should also enjoy the challenge of meeting the requirements of receiving the certification. Second will be young people who, because of their brilliance, have not thrived in traditional educational institutions and wish to pursue a non-traditional polymathic career path more suitable to their intellectual abilities. Third are career changers who realize that they, because of their intellectual abilities, interests and polymathism, are not likely to progress much past lower, technical management levels in traditional, Industrial Age enterprises.

There is, of course, the matter of the cost of the credentialing. This is difficult to determine with precision, because each phase of the process will be individually negotiated and the amount of outside help each student will require will be different. The cost of access to the Polymathica Institute over a two year certification program will be about $1,500. A reasonable cost of proficiency assessment may be another $1,500 - $2,500. CLEP assessments cost $72 ($77 after July 2010) each. Various universities offer college level credit via assessment of 'life experience.' Additionally, we anticipate that some Polymathica Institute Members may be qualified to write and administer a private knowledge acquisition assessment. Custom made tests are likely to be expensive. However, ones that are commonly needed, such as various areas of Statistics, may be relatively inexpensive. We would expect a thesis defense to cost between $1,500 and $5,000 depending upon its complexity. The cost of a mentor/advisor may be another $3,000-$5,000. PhD level thesis defense and mentor/advisor arrangements could be expected to be in the high end of the range with Masters of Enterprise Polymathy could be expected to be in the lower end of the range.

This suggests that a graduate level certification in Polymathy may cost between $5,000 and $15,000. This compares with the average cost of an MBA of $40,000. As to unaccredited educational services, The Singularity University offers a 9-day executive program for $15,000 and a 10 week summer Graduate Studies Program for $25,000. So, we see that the Academy, by its organizational structure, will be able to provide student Members with cost effective educational credentials and Senior Members with a good professional income.

As we have mentioned in a prior post, we strongly encourage individuals of means to join the Polymathica Institute and fund scholarship and polymathic research. While Polymathica is not properly organized to create and administer such programs, its Members can and should create them.

Because every credential is, in a fashion, custom made and, in our opinion, any attempts at obtaining accreditation from a traditional agency would be futile, we can begin the Academy as soon as we have willing students and mentors within the Institute. If you are interested in gaining Polymath certification or providing graduate level proficiency or academic services, contact Fellows@polymathica.com. As soon as there is sufficient interest, we will create a task force to implement the Academy.

The Before the Flood Hypothesis: An Example of Polymathic Metascience

Before scientists engage in science, they first, either consciously or unconsciously, engage in metascience. In other words, they first ask and answer the question, ‘What is a theoretically interesting question that I can address?’

The paradigm of their subject informs them with regard to what research is likely to be fruitful. In other words, there is a SETI project because it is believed that it might produce meaningful results. There is not a Search for Leprechauns project because it is believed, and we concur, that it wouldn’t produce useful results. The epistemological structure and accepted methodologies informs them as to which questions may be productively addressed through the research process.

While still constrained, the Research Polymath may explore a broader range of questions. Here we address a metascientific line of reasoning that begins with a relatively simple question. Anatomically modern humans have been around for about 150K years. In a period of about 7,500 years at least seven independent instances of the invention of agriculture took place. What are the chances of that?

A very down and dirty calculation would be (150K/7.5K)^6 = 64,000,000:1 against. However, the degrees of freedom should actually be based upon the number of communities of humans that could have invented agriculture, how large they were and how long they were extant. These statistics are not known. Still, any reasonable estimates will yield probabilities greater than 1,000:1 against. In other words, something is missing from the story of the invention of agriculture. Before we proceed with our primary line of reasoning, we will consider a couple of possible explanations that we do not believe are supportable.

The first is what we call the popcorn hypothesis. If you put a number of kernels of popcorn into a pot, nothing happens for quite some time and then, in a relatively short period of time, the kernels pop. This hypothesis suggests that humans require a specific environment for a sustained period of time before they will invent agriculture. The problem with the hypothesis is that it does not explain what the various environments that existed prior to the invention of agriculture have in common and why we should suppose that those environmental factors did not exist at any time prior to those instances.

The second, and most popular among Anthropologists, is the Fertile Crescent hypothesis. In other words, when asked why agriculture was invented, the traditional response has involved discussing the climatic changes that took place at the beginning of the Holocene and how it drove people to invent agriculture. This, however, does not transfer as an explanation to the inventions in the Americas, East Asia or Africa. The environmental conditions within which agriculture were invented in these locations was not substantially different to conditions that existed throughout the upper Pleistocene.

We then move on to the hypothesis that we prefer. That is that agriculture actually was invented in the upper Pleistocene, most likely several times. In fact we will suggest that agriculture and most likely rudimentary civilization was first invented in the middle Pleistocene or about 150K to 200K years ago.

From the DNA recently extracted from a Neanderthal specimen, we now know that the last common ancestor (LCA) of the Neanderthals and modern humans lived about 450K years ago. The inference can be made from this that around that time a population of archaic humans became reproductively isolated and over a long period of isolation slowly evolved into modern humans. After approximately 250K years, mitochondrial Eve lived. The mitochondrial Eve hypothesis has come under attack, however, we believe that it is still approximately valid. About 350K years later, the Y chromosomal Adam lived. There are some very interesting implications to that date, however, we will use it for our purposes at this time.

The existence of a mitochondrial Eve and a Y chromosomal Adam is the result of what Population Geneticists call the Founders’ Effect. Essentially, if a population is small enough and isolated for sufficient time, it will ‘fix’ on a particular genetic configuration simply through random variation. The mathematics of the Founders’ Effect is complex and requires many values that can only be estimated. However, we can draw the conclusion that the population that led to the eventual emergence of modern humans averaged between 10,000 and 20,000.

By the time that the population of modern humans began spilling out into surrounding geographic areas about 100K y.a., they were anatomically different from the archaic humans in a number of ways. They were more gracile. They had a higher skull vault and thinner cranial bones. They had lost the supraorbital ridge, any evidence of an occipital bun and prognathism. It suggests that modern humans evolved in a very benign environment that did not put a premium on a robust conformation.

There is a great big elephant in the corner, however, if we assume that modern humans evolved in a benign environment engaged in hunting gathering. Why did the far more significant environmental changes of a civilized, agricultural life track cause absolutely no anatomical changes? It appears that modern humans came pre-adapted to modern life which would be a violation of what we know about natural selection. Taken in total, we are forced to consider the proposition that the anatomy of modern humans evolved as an adaptation to an agricultural life track.

The traditional Archeologist will bring up the very valid point that, save perhaps for the age of the Sphinx, no credible evidence exists of a pre-Sumerian civilization or agriculture prior to ~11K y.a. To an Archeologist, whose epistemology is predicated upon digging stuff up and then explaining it, this absence of evidence is all that is required to dismiss the hypothesis. However, the preceding points will be compelling to, say, a Physicist or Mathematician who is accustomed to the more theoretical reductio ad absurdum line of reasoning. Still, if no plausible explanation can be found for the absence of evidence, then the correct explanation has not yet been found.

Our hypothesis states that the evidence has been obscured by the Great Flood. We are not referring to some mythological or Biblical flood, but rather to the one that everyone knows about. We are speaking of the one that took place at the end of the last Ice Age from approximately 18K y.a. to 12K y.a. and more specifically what is known as the melt water pulse 1A. Over the total period, 10 million cubic miles of glacial ice melted, moved over the land to the ocean and raised ocean levels a total of 120 meters. Of those totals, nearly 20% occurred during a 200 year period around 13.8K years ago (+/- 800 years) known as the melt water pulse 1A.

Civilization is a coastal or riparian, and to a lesser degree littoral, phenomenon. In other words, if there was any civilization in existence 13.8K y.a. it almost certainly would have experienced a series of profound flooding events. Older civilizations would now be submerged under 100 meters or more of oceans or swept away by flood waters or buried by silt deposited during the flooding events. Furthermore, during this period, the climate was experiencing massive changes. Cold places were becoming warm, arid places were becoming wet and wet places were becoming arid. Species were becoming extinct or changing their ranges. If the nearly global mythologies of great floods have a basis in reality it almost certainly would find its source in this period.

Whatever the level of civilization during the melt water pulse 1A, the populations would have found their homes submerged, swept away or buried. The effectiveness of their food acquisition strategies would have been totally destroyed. In essence, during this time nearly universally humans became refugees. They left their homes and the survivors settled elsewhere to start afresh. Soon after this, agriculture began to crop up everywhere. A careful contemplation of the preceding will lead the Polymath to the conclusion that the mythologies of great civilizations that were destroyed by floods are reasonable.

This hypothesis is clearly polymathic in both the subjects it considers and the epistemological approaches used. A full consideration is even more polymathic. However, the primary point of this post is to ask the question does polymathy inform us differently as to whether ante-diluvian, agricultural civilizations should be considered SETI or leprechauns? The traditional Archeologist or Anthropologist will say the latter and not support expensive undertakings designed to find evidence that they don’t believe will be there. As we see, a more polymathic approach tends to support the proposition that under one hundred meters of ocean, quite reasonably may be found evidence of them.

We will encourage ongoing discussions of both the Before the Flood hypothesis and its relevance to the Polymathic Method.