The number one principle is "Don`t believe anything; think for yourself." - Ray Dalio [Bridgewater Capital]

The talking heads and commentators around the world want to be paid to tell us what they think. But what if its all talking just for talking's sake? What if the information is just data? Simply telling us data points without the "so what" or the "what if"? Is this why no one ever checks the predictions these people make? Will any current affairs programme spend January 2012 going through the predictions they made in January 2011 to check if they were right? No they won't. Why? Because it is not in their interests. They are simply providing a repeatable gimmick, a promise of correct future predictions with no accountability or rigourous analysis. No different to a common con man.

We have created a society where we value the attention of crowds. We simply take their economic value and pass it on to a smaller group of wealthy individuals/corporates. The concept of "society" for the middle classes is being eroded and no longer exists except for the wealthy high society. We raise money for charity only to give most of it to the administrators and corporates who provide the services to the poor at prohibitively expensive rates thus ensuring people in the middle class have jobs; whilst the wealthy have assuaged their guilt and the poor will continue to remain on hand outs forever.

Would it not be better to enable the masses to apply their talents for economic benefit. Surely it is a numbers game, ensure enough of them develop a mindset to solve problems and then adapt people who learn to apply their talent to commercial applications. Its a grand social engineering challenge that politicians have tried to create but they have never managed it. In an age of instant communication we need less and less innovators to benefit the world. It just takes one idea and prototype and the whole world can copy and benefit from it. As information is set free and the world learns through distributed networks like www.khanacedemy.org and http://www.codecademy.com/ we are beginning to create a world in which we can all learn. The cheap computers from http://www.raspberrypi.org/ will be the final puzzle to engage the poor. We just need more electricity from sustainable renewable resources and we will create a virtual society where economic value will no longer be dictated by where you were born and more about what you can do for society. Every bit of economic value can we generated from using your on-line skills to attract crowds to your virtual shops,  games, consulting or engineering. Once we get a few people doing this a flood will follow and the status quo may begin to be up for debate. If its a numbers game the children in the West certainly aren't the ones who could capitalise on this opportunity. Can we create this virtual society? I think we can, we just need to by-pass the vested interests. Remember, have an idea, write down the final goal and the steps you need to execute it - then try and do it! Failure along the way makes you better - and when you look back it will be fun!