Is America Ill-Equipped To Handle Future Challenges?

The fight that's currently taking place between the president and Democrats over funding for a border wall is concerning on a number of levels, but it also raises a much larger issue that isn't being discussed. If we can't agree on a compromise over 0.1% of the federal budget, involving an problem that really doesn't take innovative thinking to solve, how are we going to handle much larger issues down the road? 

The cause of the government shutdown is not a difficult problem to solve. A little give and take from each side and we could have a barrier, more security, a quicker process for deportation and asylum claims, a fix for DACA, tougher penalties for businesses that break immigration law and an immigration system that both addresses our needs and is in line with our national ideals. These aren't issues that require creative ways of thinking to fix, they just require the political will on each side to make a deal. 

What will require an innovative way of thinking are issues like Artificial Intelligence, including automation, and cyber security. 

See to me, those are big picture issues that will determine what kind of country we are in twenty years, far more so than what we’ve spent the past couple of weeks debating. 

If we don’t get a handle on Artificial Intelligence and automation, what we’ve seen happen in the past with the decline in agriculture and manufacturing is nothing compared to the fallout we’ll see in the transportation industry, the service industry, the medical industry and so many other vital economic sectors. From blue collar jobs to white collar jobs, they're all in the eye of the approaching AI storm. 

On 60 minutes this past weekend one of the world’s foremost experts on AI said that 40% of the world’s jobs could be done by machines in as soon as fifteen years. That’s disruption on a scale we’ve never seen before. Now maybe his calculations aren't 100% accurate, but we know big changes are coming sooner rather than later. 

Or look at issues involving cyberspace. An inability to get a handle on the dangers lurking in the cyber realm, for individuals, businesses and governments, and a failure to build the infrastructure to keep more rural and poor areas of the country properly connected could lead to even more disruption and upheaval.

Do you have faith that our leadership, who can’t figure out a deal on something impacting 0.1% of the federal budget, can figure out a way to prepare us for something like that? I have my reservations. 

This isn’t to scare you. It’s to make you think. Big problems require real leadership, bold action and innovative ideas. If we can’t find a way to figure out a deal over $5 billion dollars, how can anyone be confident we'll find a way to prepare for the real crises that we’re on a collision course with. It’s easy to get caught up in the minutiae of the daily news cycle, but let’s not lose sight of the big challenges we’re going to have to overcome in the near future. Our success as a country depends on it. 

Click Here for the full 60 Minutes report. 


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