Adventum – to come, to arrive, to develop and advent – those are some of the English translations for that Latin word. It can also be used for “adventure”. I have been in Orlando for a little over eight years now, having left El Paso in late 2011. I have lived in several cities over my lifetime. In Europe and in the Americas. Guadalajara and Mexico City are the cities where I have spent most of my life. Those were followed by the border – Cd. Juárez and El Paso. Orlando is now the fourth longest I’ve stayed in one place. Starting tomorrow, I’m going to start a new journey.
For years I have been telling anyone that will listen that it isn’t immigrants that workers should fear, it is technology. Labor is the single most expensive component of any company. Reducing the cost of labor is the most important quest any company has. Reducing the need for labor reduces the cost to produce widgets or provide services.
There is a reason the United States fought a civil war and it has a lot to do with labor force cost reductions via slavery.
Labor cost reductions started with industrialization and it continues to evolve from there. Global supply chains are about reducing labor costs. However, the global supply chain is now saturated as worldwide workers are demanding an increase to their standards of living across the world, while consumers are demanding lower prices.
Meanwhile technology continues to evolve exponentially. Artificial intelligence is driving cars on U.S. roads. Robots have proliferated in U.S. factories. Order taking kiosks are taking hamburger orders and processing payments at the local hamburger joints.
It is only a matter of time before workers are supplanted by robots.
So what are workers to do?
There is one thing a computer algorithm is yet unable to do.
Create.
Technology cannot create.
Technology is unlikely to reach this milestone for at least another generation, or two.
Thus, the worldwide worker needs to create.
Intellectual property is valuable. It makes money simply by existing.
My book, “Convicting Chapo – Naked and Afraid” (link) makes me money simply because it exists. My art, my photography and my apps make me money because they exist. A computer cannot write a book about a criminal trial. It can present facts but it cannot write a book. A computer can create a facsimile of art, but art is strictly a human thing. Photography is viewed through human eyes. Creative photography needs a human eye to catch attention.
Music, creative architecture, poetry, inventions, and anything that expresses or stimulates emotion can only by created by humans.
Creating is the future for the best labor activity that cannot be supplanted by technology.
Starting tomorrow, I’m evolving my business endeavors to embrace this reality.
I’m living what I advocate.
My main income source, Cognent (link) has evolved into a full-service managed services provider offering cloud services to companies large and small. That will continue as it has now become pretty much self-sustaining in that the team that I’ve built keeps my company humming along. The reason cloud services puts food on my table is because cloud technology reduces the need for a labor force.
This allows me to start taking my creative side to the next level.
Over the coming months I’ll be building up my creative content. I’ll be experimenting with different forms of expression with the goal of developing my creative content. I have two books I want to finish. The one about the rise and fall of the Mexican drug lords is almost finished. For years, I’ve been mentally writing a spy novel (Border Bandit) with a Mexican as the protagonist. I want to get started actually putting words to digital paper.
I am hoping to take my HAM radio license test in the coming weeks. Maybe we’ll come across each other in the airwaves. I am going to start exploring Florida with the goal of expanding across the country, Canada and México. I’ll be sharing those experiences and more through many creative outlets.
Overlanding, HAM radio, photography, videography, digital art and even a little disaster prepping are in the works. My immigrant identity and my affinity towards technology, I believe will bring an interesting perspective that is ripe for exploring.
I am on a quest to use what I know and add to my knowledge. Along the way I plan to share my experiences.
How about the blog?
Nothing will change, except that I’m a little bit more unshackled and thus I can explore even deeper into the controversies I’ve explored over the years. The blog will continue to be border-centric as I firmly believe that the U.S.-Mexico border, and all that tails as the single most important topic of the 2020 elections.
Tomorrow, I’m starting on the quest to prove that creators are the future of the labor force. Look for my experiments online as I start to create property that makes money just because it exists. I’ll share my failures and my successes as I travel through the adventum journey that I embark upon starting tomorrow.
If your job is about doing stuff with information, it can be done cheaper (and maybe as well) in Bangalore. Mostly you are right, Martin, but someone still has to bear and raise children, care for the sick and elderly, clean up, and harvest food. But overall Marx was right about capital eventually replacing labor. “Workers of the world, unite, you have nothing to lose but your chains.” And, maybe, your robot competition.
If the UAW is any model for this dystopian future, we’re all screwed.