A Small Sales Tax Makes Sense

It makes sense for the giant tech companies to pay something like a 3% tax to local jurisdictions globally, why only Europe? It goes beyond purchases. If data is the new oil, the people sitting on the oil wells, those billions of people, ought to have a say.

YouTube's Long Road To Monetization

YouTube was always going to make money, just like Amazon was always going to make money. But it has perhaps needed Google's deep pockets to make it happen. Google has been patient. A wildly popular app since its very inception is still ahead of the curve. The Internet is still not fast enough for video. But YouTube chugs along.

Facebook Is Facing A Backlash

And that is putting it mildly. Facebook sure is facing a major backlash. The global darling app is seen using nefarious means. This is kind of like when Microsoft came under the gun in the late 1990s with monopoly accusations. The beating created space for other tech companies that became big. Facebook might have hit its high point. It is hard for one company to ride multiple technology waves. Although I have thought Facebook might also have some interesting VR applications in mind.

Here is Zuck's latest missive. He is on the defensive.

Employees have begun to worry that the company won’t be able to achieve its biggest goals if users decide that Facebook isn’t trustworthy enough to hold their data. At the meeting on Tuesday, the mood was especially grim. One employee told a Bloomberg Businessweek reporter that the only time he’d felt as uncomfortable at work, or as responsible for the world’s problems, was the day Donald Trump won the presidency.

Towards A Global Government

India has rolled out the biometric ID to almost its entire population. On top of that it has added a layer that works like Jack Ma's Alipay, only Alipay is in the private sector, the Indian version is in the public sector. Voting from the phone should become possible and private. Facial recognition technology minus possible abuse can be harnessed for safety and security. Digital makes business and vehicle registration easy. Solar energy is dropping in price at a dramatic pace and is set to blow open the number one constraint for the Global South's desire for prosperity: energy. When Musk puts over 4,000 satellites into orbit in a few years, you are looking at gigabit internet from every point to every other point on earth. Taking good care of earth will become possible. Much progress seems to be technology driven. But it is the human being that has to be placed at the center of the progress.

A world government has been long overdue. But it will soon become possible, and soon enough become inevitable. The first step might be to create a bicameral legislature in New York. In the lower house each member country has a voting weight in proportion to its population. In the upper house it is in proportion to its GDP. Each member country pays 1% of its GDP in tax. That makes the world government's budget. The President of the World is required to garner a majority in both chambers, limited to two five year terms. Eventually when at least half of humanity has biometric IDs and can vote from mobile phones, the President of the World can be directly elected. Local, state, federal, global -- these would be the four layers of government everywhere on earth, except where the country might be too small, or too homogenous for a federal setup.

The world government is not the UN. It is a new thing, just like the UN was not the League Of Nations. There will be a President Of The World. There will be a global parliament. There will be a World Court. There will be the three branches. All global institutions will be subsumed by the world government.

This century is not the American, or the Chinese, or the Indian, or the Asian, or the African century. This is the global century. All world will become one country. The basic needs of all human beings will be met. Primarily because the Age Of Abundance is right around the corner, much of it technology driven.

Multinational corporations are already global, finance has long been global, but there is not the robust political framework. That robust political framework will also be good for the MNCs, also for global finance.

Nokia: 10 Years Ago

Forbes cover 10 years ago. pic.twitter.com/EBlHpdRDsl

— Mikko Hypponen (@mikko) November 12, 2017

Asteroid Belt And Earth On The Way To Mars

Spending a year in weightless space is a nightmare for the human body. But the push for Mars might have benefits closer to home. And robotic travel will harvest the asteroid belt. A few hundred years ago spices were scarce and literally gold. The asteroid belt could turn gold into a commodity.

Elon Musk’s New Plan: Travel from New Delhi to Tokyo in 30 Minutes https://t.co/KG8GeNq1vE

— Paramendra Bhagat (@paramendra) November 7, 2017

Delhi to Tokyo in 30 minutes, says Elon Musk. That translates to anywhere to anywhere on earth in 30 minutes. That is more alluring for human tourism (and commerce) than zooming vertically to the boundaries of from where all you see is pitch black before you come back.

Blue Origin's Breakthrough Means SpaceX Finally Has a Competitor https://t.co/tNLtYbkBd7 via @Futurism

— Paramendra Bhagat (@paramendra) November 7, 2017

But if you move information well enough, fast enough, in large enough quantities, securely enough, and from every point to every other point on earth, human beings perhaps can get by on less travel in the first place. The vision of 4,000 satellites carrying the bulk of internet traffic is sound. And it beats going to Mars. Such a spacenet would be indispensable for the Internet Of Things with its hundreds of billions of sensors, its top use being to keep the earthly ecosystem at its optimum best. Human safety and security would be a whole new paradigm.

SpaceX to kick off 4,425-strong satellite constellation launch in 2019 https://t.co/2PSHUqRViu

— Paramendra Bhagat (@paramendra) November 7, 2017

SpaceX aims to bring super-fast satellite internet to Earth in 2019 https://t.co/SGLDBLidzE via @MailOnline

— Paramendra Bhagat (@paramendra) November 7, 2017

Elon Musk Wants to Begin Launching SpaceX's 4,000 Internet Satellites in 2019 https://t.co/LyxpW9IOoF via @FortuneMagazine

— Paramendra Bhagat (@paramendra) November 7, 2017

Movie Making Trends

Movies are about to enter a whole different realm, mostly for the good. Some of the trends are:

(1) A Screen In Nearly Every Hand

The smartphone will get there before the broadband will, but the connectivity will get there fast enough. It is a legitimate expectation that people should be able to watch new releases on their own screens. You could charge 10 million people $10 each in a theater, or you could charge a billion people one cent each. Or that cent could be an ad they opt to watch. The numbers work. Micro-payments will become much more of an option.

(2) Reduced Production Costs

A small crew dabbling in the art form could do all the camera work on a smartphone and all the editing on a computer today. That opens up the floodgates of production. Every language, every culture can have its own movie industry. Every such industry has a ready global audience among the scattered peoples, all connected. Let a thousand flowers bloom. That also creates a spectrum of success. A movie making 100 K can meet someone's definition of robust business. A movie making 10 K can. What if you could earn a living making 10 minute long movies? Does that beat serving tables?

(3) Really Big

The small can do brisk business. But the big can get really big. A global super hit movie could make outsize money.

(4) Computer Graphics And Animation

For what you can show on the screen, the imagination is now the limit. You don't have to actually build a physical set. Which means it is possible to have small high tech studios. Right now the costs are high. But they will go down. Spices used to be gold. Now they are commodity. The liberation of the background should give added focus to the human element. Movies have to be thought of as therapy sessions for society at large.

(5) The Script

Some things never change. It boils down to the story, not the technology. Ultimately it is about telling a good story. That ancient art has currency.

Technological Advances And The Social, Political Sphere

Often when we talk about technological advances we assume the political and social frameworks will remain stagnant for decades on end. That is flawed thinking. The era of Big Data will be one, the era of Internet Of Things will be one where data gathering also for the social sciences will be as abundant as has been for the physical sciences. That changes things. The Age Of Abundance that will be heralded by astronomical increases in productivity that would fundamentally challenge basic ideas of ownership and distribution will be a new paradigm beyond capitalism and socialism. It is the steepness of the curve of imminent technological advances and its inevitability that gives humanity much hope. The millennial reign is imminent.

Recent centuries of progress in human knowledge have endowed humanity with much gains of insight on the first four dimensions from magnitudes extremely small to extremely large. That puts humanity in a tremendous position to appreciate the huge leap that the fourth dimension is from the third. If subsequent leaps are even larger and larger and God is the tenth, the final dimension, does your physics now take you face to face with God?

Some very smart minds have sounded alarms on Artificial Intelligence. Lucifer, aka Satan, is magnitudes smarter than the smartest AI you could ever create. Because your AI will be limited to the first four dimensions whereas Lucifer is a being from a beyond dimension. Those who fear AI should be aware of Lucifer even more easily. Evidence of Lucifer "getting" you in all around. You call it global warming. Lucifer promised global warming in the Koran more than a millennium ago. The human hubris that kicked in post "enlightenment" and post industrial revolution and post space exploration took big chunks of humanity away from God and right into Satan's lap. Those who say there is no God, there is no hell, there is no devil make it sound like this is original, independent thinking on their part. Not so. You are in Satan's grip. It is bondage. You made the choice to walk away from God. That is not a good record. Love God with all your heart, mind and soul and keep loving God if you stand any chances to positively harvest the imminent advances in technology. God is infinitely smarter and more powerful than Lucifer.

God is everywhere. Pray anywhere.

The Basic Template Of Entrepreneurship

Steven Spielberg, rightly thought of as one of the most creative movie directors, once said, it makes sense to keep the same team and churn out movie after movie, like they produce cars at factories.

What has happened with technology and innovation in just the past 20 years has been amazing, but all that is nothing compared to what is about to happen. And it makes sense to firm up the basic template of entrepreneurship. So we can focus on the more important stuff, like the technology and the innovation.

Curiously that template is waist deep in politics and public policy. The very idea of who owns the company is about to fundamentally alter. The inevitable Universal Basic Income (UBI) will be a huge boost to the innovators. Without that true large scale wealth creation is simply out of reach. The UBI is the oxygen mask that takes you to the top of Everest.

The idea of the corporate culture should be on the cutting edges of social science fiction and egalitarian thinking. Treating people right does not take away from competition or innovation. The second coming of Steve Jobs was primarily that he had learned to treat people better, like he himself admitted. But it goes beyond smiles and handshakes. It is about making fundamental leaps on race and gender.

Grassroots Organizing: The Stealth Hero

How Hillary Clinton Is Going to Win Today 

Clinton has made a strategic choice to invest significantly in organizing. Finding, onboarding, training, deploying and managing this talent puts any organization under extreme stress, and the Clinton campaign has mastered it flawlessly. The Clinton campaign has deliberately and painstakingly built a grassroots juggernaut that is executing exactly the way it should in these closing days.

Finally, the “Obama Coalition” is quickly evolving into the Clinton coalition. Clinton’s pathway is built on the same foundation of women, young people, African Americans and Latinos but with even stronger support and turnout by those critical groups of voters. I know this coalition well—I ran these programs for President Obama in 2012, and what the Clinton campaign has done to engage these groups is nothing short of breathtaking.

Clinton may very well win women of every age group, ethnicity and educational level—unprecedented in modern campaigns.

When I ran Clinton’s primary in California against Bernie Sanders, I vividly remember the public polling shrinking by the minute as we neared Election Day. However, I knew that if we kept our eye on the prize and deployed the grassroots machine that we developed to turn out our supporters, we would win and we would win big. That’s what we did. Much like then, this campaign is doing everything it needs to in its final days. In the postscript of this election cycle, I hope the analysts and pundits recognize this campaign for what it truly is—a historic achievement of grassroots mobilization in a time of unparalleled political polarization.

Hillary Is Winning, Do Not Fear

NBC's Final Battleground Map Shows Clinton With a Significant Lead 

In our final battleground map of the 2016 presidential race, Hillary Clinton holds a substantial lead over Donald Trump with one day before Election Day. Clinton has 274 electoral votes in her column -- which is unchanged from last week, and which also is more than the 270 needed to win the presidency. Trump, meanwhile, is at 170 electoral votes, down from 180 last week. And we have 94 electoral votes in the Tossup column.

Too Dangerous For Twitter, Too Dangerous For Nuclear

Barack Obama's frantic final campaign 

"Apparently his campaign has taken away his Twitter," Obama scoffed, issuing an attack line on Donald Trump that would barely have made sense during his first stop there eight years earlier. "They had so little confidence in his self-control they said we're just going to take away your Twitter. If somebody can't handle a Twitter account, they can't handle the nuclear codes."

On most days last week Obama woke up at the White House with his schedule virtually cleared. Leaving around midday and returning late in the evening, he spent his downtime tossing a baseball around the Rose Garden with aides and tweaking his stump speech in the Oval Office.

In seemingly every spare moment, he's dialed African-American radio hosts across the swing states, chatting loosely backstage at his rallies and aboard Air Force One about his favorite hip-hop artists (Kendrick Lamar, Chance the Rapper) 

A loss, however, has become a nightmare scenario. Obama's vision of the US is so at odds with Donald Trump's he told a crowd of 16,000 college students in Chapel Hill the "fate of the world is teetering."

"Anybody who is upset about a 'Saturday Night Live' skit, you don't want in charge of nuclear weapons," Obama taunted in Miami on Thursday, only to pierce the anger with yet another exasperated "C'mon man!"

Post Poll

Deep divisions within the Republican Party that Trump has helped stoke are revealed in a question on what the GOP should do if Trump fails to win the presidency.

Among Republicans and independents who lean that way, the largest share, 37 percent, say the party should start from scratch, rename itself, and reinvent what it stands for