The 'Innovating To Zero' Initiative
I read an article this morning called The Twelve Mega Themes That Will Drive Our Future World. The author of the piece is Sarwant Singh from the Frost & Sullivan’s Visionary Innovation Group. One of the mega themes he mentioned in his article was "Innovating to Zero."
The phrase 'Innovating to Zero' was introduced by Bill Gates in a 2010 Ted Talk about ‘Zero Emissions Technology' but was later used by Singh to address a broader range of issues. source
The Twelve Mega Themes
The twelve mega themes mentioned in Singh's article are listed below, but in today's post, I will focus on the idea of 'innovating to zero.'
- Transhumanism
- Anything That Moves Will Be Autonomous
- Heterogeneous Society
- Connected Living
- Moving From Industry 4.0 To Industry 5.0
- Digital Reality As Frontier Technology
- Data As 21st Century Oil
- Intelligent Assistants
- Innovating To Zero - The Concept Of A ‘Zero’ World
- The Rise of The Platform Economy
- Zero Latency World
- Marketplace Everywhere
Innovating To Zero
I had never heard this phrase before, and to be honest, I did not intuitively understand the message that was trying to be conveyed until I did a little more research and found a few examples.
I would define the idea of 'innovating to zero' as the removal of the undesirable and/or the unnecessary. What is your definition?
The following list contains some 'zero' examples (source - compiled from the previously referenced articles):
- zero waste
- zero fatalities
- zero manufacturing defects/faults
- zero security breaches
- zero emails
- zero emissions
- zero accidents
- zero obesity
- zero crime
Steem and Innovating to Zero
As a community, we just survived Hard Fork 21. I was pleasantly surprised that we were "kicked off of Steem" for a much shorter time than when Hard Fork 20 rolled out.
But what if there were zero downtime resulting from hard forks or attacks against the Steem platform and blockchain. One hundred percent uptime would be awesome!
Anyone for no spam posts? With more free downvotes it looks like we are trying for zero spam. Time will tell!
What about zero greed, zero problems onboarding users, zero bidbot misuse, zero flag wars, and zero name calling?
In my opinion, all of these ideas seem like good zero-initiatives for Steem, but these are just my opinions.
Who Decides?
If a 'zero world' implies the removal of the undesirable and/or the unnecessary, who decides what is undesirable and unnecessary?
- Bidbot owners are at odds with non-bidbot owners.
- Pro-Lifers are at odds with Pro-Choicers.
- Liberals are at odds with Conservatives
- A nation's government is at odds with her people.
Who decides what should be eliminated when we don't agree? When someone makes a decision for you, with or without your consent, there is always potential risk and reward? There is always a cost!
How far are you willing to let a person, a business, or a government implement a 'zero world' that will impact you and your loved ones?
I like the idea of a zero world where I define the parameters. I am scared though if someone else gets to make up the rules.
Just food for thought!
@SumatraNate
That's an interesting concept, and one I haven't heard before either. I share your skepticism about being able to define parameters around it though. I'm sure some would argue that "zero immigration" is a desirable end state.
It's probably much easier to define in the areas of manufacturing and business logistics, but even there might be competing priorities, now that I'm thinking about it: "zero taxes" vs "zero illiteracy". Maybe it's all dependent upon perspective.
I think that your examples of immigration and taxes are great. People need to be careful about immigration issues because there are people from their home country that provide extreme value to their host country - with proper permissions and documentation.
In regards to taxes, no one wants to pay, but everyone wants to receive benefits. Thanks for adding to the conversation!
Are there things we can define as "bad" according to everyone's definition? Zero disagreement is not desirable, but zero cruelty is. And how we get there matters. Solving the underlying problems rather than treating the symptoms.
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There are things that should be fairly easy to agree upon, like zero cruelty and zero war. But I think your statement about addressing the underlying problems is key. If we don't address the causes of cruelty and war first, we will not see any progress.
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This is very good food for thought!
I'll have to read the whole article, but at first glance it sounds as ridiculous as the famous article that predicted "The End of History" after the collapse of the Soviet Empire.
I agree with your view on a "zero world". One "zero" that is rarely discussed is "zero computer waste". Computer waste is a mounting environmental catastrophe, not to mention the unsustainability of the rare earth materials that are required to make lithium ion batteries. Yet the big tech companies spare no energy in trying to make their tech devices redundant as quickly as possible.
Personally speaking, I think "zero government" might be a good thing :)
Thanks for stopping by and leaving a thoughtful comment. I found the article thought-provoking even though I am not in full agreement with all of the points.
Your zero waster computer example is a prime example of two sides wanting two very different things.
In regards to zero government, that is a tough one for me. I see value in limited government. There are systems that are can be aided by centralization if done properly. The important thing is that honest, kind people should rule, and as we often see, once people are in positions of powers, their kindness and honesty fade away.
Actually I agree with you about zero government. That's why I put a smiley after my comment because it was only partially meant. Sometimes I feel like getting rid of the whole self-serving lot of them, but having studied History at university I know that power vacuums usually bring no good at all. I think it's up to all of us to take more responsibility, and to keep checks on what our so-called leaders are really getting up to!
Sorry. I guess I misinterpreted the meaning of the smiley emoji. Thanks for all of the great dialogue. I appreciate it.
No need to apologise! I also enjoy discussing these issues, so thanks for a thought-provoking topic.
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