My first post on ‘hi’. Seems like this is the right channel to sketch out the building blocks of a new startup. I spent the first 23 days writing 12 hours per day resulting in 100,000+ words. I have yet to build any physical product yet, but I am confident that I made the correct decision in holding off until I finished explaining the “why” behind my motivation.

This is a working vision statement for a project I began working full-time on October 11th, 2014. It’s still a few drafts away from ‘ready’, but I feel comfortable sharing it here. Seems like a lot of good people on this network. Feels like a good time to transition away from the writing, research, and curation state of mind.

The future is home to the new economy. The old economy was fueled by the same job list of occupations for decades, and with some occupations stagnant for centuries. We knew what jobs were needed, and a person could say “I want to be a doctor” or “I want to a mailman”, and they could follow the track to filling those roles in society.

Today, however, the old economy’s job list is evaporating. Technology automates jobs once filled by humans. This is problematic in the sense that it causes abrupt unemployment, but it also is ‘sweet spot’ of new opportunities which often go overlooked.

I am unable to tell you exactly what “work” looks like in the future, but I am confident that you will be given the opportunity to show me. My vision for the future is that we no longer have individual visions for the future. I want to work together with you to develop a shared vision for the future so that we may work as one to achieve insurmountable goals.

Instead of guessing what the future looks like, we will create it.

Our vision is that it becomes a beautiful place resulting from the decisions you and I make today. In 100 years, people will look back on us as the generation who saved humans from extinction.

Self-Service Nation

The future serves those who build it today.

The future will have much stronger communities which use the internet as a tool for leveraging their mission. Residents will always participate in society to ensure they notice gaps in services for the community. We then will give you the tools to bridge those gaps yourself.

Our prosperity in the future will rely on the common understanding that the government has limitations on how much it can help the people based on how much the people are willing to help each other. Society does not function properly when the parts do not work together.

In the future, constituents of this nation will no longer need to demand, protest, and shun their government because the people will have reached a new level of self-awareness. The people’s perception of themselves and their roles in society will evolve, and we will see ourselves as solutionaries. In the future, we will not waste time complaining about the way things are because we will be too busy building whatever it is we need for ourselves.

Questions surrounding our existence, and our opportunity to thrive in the future, seem increasingly difficult as they do not have ‘yes’ or ‘no’ responses. In order to prepare a generation to solve problems in the real world, then we must teach them how to do so. This is a different teaching method than the 300-person auditorium filled freshman college intro to philosophy course led by a ‘powerpoint professor’, and measured by the number of students who can memorize the most information from the slides.

The future is a place where people learn how to solve real world problems which yet to be defined. People will learn a ‘framework for life’ which is a framework for building frameworks.

Opportunity will not be held hostage to the highest bidder.

Our vision is for society to become a place that values a person based on the number of people she helps, rather than the amount of money in her bank account. A place where money is not an end goal, but as a means to a much greater purpose.

Inequality, homelessness, and poverty are symptoms of an ill society on its deathbed gasping a few last breaths. It is not easy to pull the plug, especially when I have so much stuff recorded on my DVR. However, the time has come to turn off Netflix so that I may create the news and shape the future, rather than be entertained by it as an outsider.

In 100 years, we will look back on this day as the moment we decided to participate.

Assumption to be tested: opportunity can be accessed by a person who did not first-handedly discover it.