Today we have the technological solutions to our economic and ecological crisis offered by the Third Industrial Revolution to consider. Some may jump to the conclusion that technology and industrialisation are what got us into this mess in the first place and depending on my mood on any one day I might agree with you, but there’s no turning back the clock on the scientific and technological revolutions, so if you can’t beat it then reform it; And many social elements of the digital and internet revolution seem to have started doing just that, quite independently. That said it has been the campaign and deep vision of my guest today for more than 40 years to go further than just talking about it, to push beyond political divides by prioritising life over blind growth and productivity, and get big entities like governments and trade federations to start thinking like this.

He is of course the economist, social theorist, activist and author of 21 books, Jeremy Rifkin. His work focuses on the impact of scientific and technological changes on the economy, the workforce, society, and the environment. Today we’ll be focusing on this new book the “Age of Resilience”, his 2014 book “The Zero Marginal Cost Society”, and his 2011 book “The Third Industrial Revolution”; Rifkin has been an advisor to the leadership of the European Union since 2000 and several other European heads of state, particularly on ushering in the smart, green revolution; he has advised the Peoples Republic of China on the build out and scale up of the Internet in a sustainable low-carbon economy; And he is currently advising the European Commission on the deployment of the Smart Europe initiative.

What we discuss:

00:00 Intro.

06:20 Dysfunctional economic system from 1st and 2nd and Industrial Revolution.

08:00 Exponential Climate change feedback loop from industrialisation.

08:30 New Communication, Energy, logistics and water paradigm changes alter society radically.

10:20 Infrastructure paradigms define our world view.

15:00 Dropping productivity and efficiency after 2008.

17:50 Near-marginal cost economy e.g Solar, wind, internet commerce.

20:00 Jeremy’s 3rd Industrial Revolution vision, all at near zero marginal cost.

21:30 Component 1: Communication via the internet.

22:30 Component 2: Energy internet - sharing surplus globally.

23:55 Component 3: Logistics internet fed by the energy internet.

24:30 Component 4: The Water internet.

31:00 The 3IR infrastructure system is by its nature distributed using data over the internet.

38:00 "The Age of Resilience" Book.

38:20 Biophilia, Eco-consciousness, and an empathic society.

44:10 “Periods of Happiness.. are the black pages of history” Hegel.

47:00 Mirror neurones and empathic neurocircuitry.

55:00 Extinction events lead to unity.

55:50 Shadow 1: Big data. Can this common be democratised?

01:02:52 Bio-regional governance.

01:04:45 “Glocalisation”.

01:19:00 Shadow 2: The internet business model.

01:29:40 Shadow 3: No motivation for corporations to move from multinational investment to ‘glocal’ investment.

01:39:00 Differences between Claus Schwab’s “4th Industrial Revolution” and Jeremy’s 3rd.

01:50:00 The Ginsburg “Moloch” allegory.

Jeremy Rifkin, “The Age of Resilience: Reimagining Existence on a Rewilding Earth”

https://search.app.goo.gl/g97t6pL

Jeremy Rifkin, “The Third Industrial Revolution”

https://search.app.goo.gl/gbMdqE9

Jeremy Rifkin, “The Zero Marginal Cost SocietyThe Zero Marginal Cost Society”

https://search.app.goo.gl/eiZXAy5

The Human Microbiome Project NIH

https://hmpdacc.org/