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The system we are proposing is far-reaching and may strike many as unrealistically grandiose. But it is also unrealistic to doubt the impact of technology. Consider that today our mobile technology, in particular, has wrought a type of dystopian present where everyone is addicted to their phones. I was looking at students at a bus stop not long ago and every single one of them was immersed in their phone. It reminded me of a Star Trek TNG episode from decades ago where everyone became addicted to a video game and couldn’t stop playing it. The game somehow acted upon the pleasure center of the human brain. We know that mobile software, particularly social media, is doing largely the same thing. It is furthermore known to be having profoundly negative effects on politics and social interaction. So we have an example of a technology that has changed the habits of nearly everyone, along with a profoundly negative aggregate effect. If someone had predicted this 20 years ago it most likely would have been critiqued for being unrealistically far-reaching.
Furthermore technology has a tendency to lag in its economic and societal effect. Thomas Edison’s first electric generating plant was established in 1882, about 40 years before electricity started having a major impact on the economy. The “Mother of all Demos”, where the first computer with windows, mouse, video conferencing, revision control, etc. was shown, was done in 1968, which was approximately 30 years before these technologies would be widely used by the public. Usually the introduction of a technology needs to wait for further refinements combined with social conditioning, mass adoption and finally to a societal change, presumably for the better.
In our case, the technology exists in parts and plenty of social conditioning has taken place. Acceptance of a tool like the one we are proposing might be a challenge but not impossible given people’s facility with the internet, mobile devices, and social media. Furthermore, our ideas are coupled with widespread dissatisfaction of government, media, educational institutions, etc. It seems the time would be ripe for a defining change.