Read carefully to the bottom because I am going to give you insight into the future. You can take it. leave it, mock it, or internalize it, your choice.
I am a technologist by training, an engineer and PhD level analyst. But the most influential year course of my undergrad experience was something I did not want to partake of,
I had to take a year of humanities to graduate and I procrastinated and bitched to no end about it. My lot in life drove me in the direction of choosing practical skills for gaining highly compensated employment. I had no time for humanities.
Oh, I would have loved to experience a life of literature, poetry, theater, art, and music. But I couldn’t indulge it and risk missing a chance to improve my lot. I did consider architecture and in grad school I gravitated to the philosophy end of the spectrum in theoretical mathematical statistics, the Kurt Gödel variety, a close friend and even mentor of Einstein at Princeton, a progenitor of theoretical AI and computer science.
But I had to take that damned year of humanities to graduate. In my final undergrad year, at the 11th hour I went to register for what was available and the only thing
left to sign up for was the ‘History of Western Civilization’.
I would rather have spent hours each week for a year watching paint dry.
I was a tough guy academically, Aced many tests and was driven to ace everything in my path but the subject of history was like eating rancid soup left out on the counter for more than a month. I couldn’t stand the thought.
First week of class the professor was a battle ax of a woman, an authoritarian who I am sure could whip any of our asses if she wanted to. Assigned a term paper and a book reading of Oxford’s EB White’s “What is History?”. Try readng a few paragraphs of that and it is guaranteed to consume your time as one has to pour over his writing again and again to get what he’s saying. And time consumption was key here because I was carrying a full load of math, chemistry, and physics courses that were my priority.
Second week this brutal professor doubled down on the work load with yet another term paper and more obtuse readings that bordered more on philosophy than history. My other coursework started to get cramped as I fought for survival.
Third week this tough guy was near the breaking point and for the first time in my academic experience I considered dropping this course because my other courses were all suffering. I didn’t know what to do. I needed the damn course to graduate and so I considered a couple of summer sessions and whatever but there was no clear cut way out. I was trapped.
Fourth week, Monday, last day to withdraw a course. I needed the Professor’s signature on a registrar’s slip to withdraw. I obtained the slip and went to the class and sat down looking at the slip wondering WTF to do. The class of about 30 students, half of them were in line with their withdrawal slips to be signed. After they cleared out I thought I would be the last to approach the professor for the signature when she suddenly said,
“I see that about half the class is now gone! The rest of you just sit back and get comfortable because now we are going to really learn something about history.”
All the work done in the first three weeks were for the full quarter except the final term paper due in final exam week. In other words, nearly all the rest of that quarter’s course was over and done with. She had rammed us through 90% of the course in three weeks time.
My jaw dropped.
She continued,
“In case you don’t know, I have my own TV show with my husband who is an archeologist. So we are going to see a lot of his slides and talk about the work that he and I have done together.”
This was before the internet was so prevalent, before Netscape or anything. TVs were CRT tubes. Her husband was a world-renowned archeologist and together the two of them teamed up to do documentaries and publications about their findings.
Second and third quarters of that year were the same, brutal beginnings and then deep learning and reflection.
What she aimed to do was to instill in us a sense of historical evolution and development. Because human beings haven’t really changed that much in centuries, in millennia. She wanted us to understand the same patterns of human behavior were in play a thousand years ago as they are in play today. She wanted us to learn of the human condition including its innovations and how that played out in historical evolution.
There are two basic types of history taught in academic settings. One is the “watch paint dry” variety of dry facts, dates, names, conflicts. The other is a “flood your brain with astonishing wisdom” variety which this professor was immersing us in.
So having a keen perspective for history, a deep understanding of how human populations behave and create their history, and how disruptive innovations cause societies to undergo a sort of social vertigo, with introduction of unknowns such as gunpowder, Marconi frequency magic, nuclear fission, penicillin, etc., this cultivated view allows for insight to where things are converging.
Let’s come back to your comment:
>”I never thought I’d be reporting losses on a simple interesting bearing account one day”
You and I and everyone else will not recognize the world in ten, twenty years. It will be like nothing we can imagine unless we have that practical historical perspective that shows where all pathways are leading.
Our normalcy bias keeps us thinking there will be an interest bearing account in some bank somewhere in our name. In fact, our bias keeps us thinking there will be banks as they exist today.
But banks will not exist as they are today. I see that my bank will be on my personal cyber account accessible through any device I have secured in my name and that account will not have a CENTRALIZED banking network behind it. It will be DECENTRALIZED, decoupled from any ‘bank’ that seeks to get in the middle and take their cut.
Our banks will be in our own computers. We will be our own bankers. We will be responsible for the security and performance of our accounts just the same as we are with legal tender gold backed currency dollar bills.
There will be security services that offer us protection for our cyber money and those services will be registered and insured. But when we purchase or sell, when we exchange or trade, there will no entity in the middle.
There will be software for credit pooling. If we need an asset-backed loan, the software’s AI algorithms will perform validations in seconds and approve within 24 hours. Our Treasury Department will oversee and enforce marketplace rules but the ‘banks’ of today will be gone with the wind.
Today’s banks are on a path to obsolescence. When we study their advent and purpose, whey they came into being to begin with, how their custodians developed crooked smiles when they became aware of ideas such as fractional reserve banking, we begin to see it was all about security and liquidity. When those planks are replaced by something faster, more efficient, more in control by owners, then it is not farfetched to see the bank model of today will be going bye-bye.
For those closely, closely following the Trump era, we see Powell’s head tilt to zero rates as a white flag surrender. Nothing can stop what is coming.
In the years ahead, We will not need central banking, banks, and the Fed. It will all be going away. There will be fights but the trend and its technology have already revealed the writing on the wall.
Today’s senior bankers will enjoy a boring life on the golf course. The middle managers will hit the bottom and undergo complete job retraining.
I appreciate your post. I’m a retired military guy-but also a pastor and an avid student of Biblical history. One thing I really attempt to do A LOT is remind those I preach to of the things you have said: “Always keep perspective.” I raised my kids that way too. Maintain perspective. People haven’t changed. When you think things in this country are so terrible-well-that’s just your normalcy bias talking. If I were to transport you and your values back 1900 years and you were to attempt to live out your faith in 1st Century Rome-you’d be begging me to bring you back within 30 minutes-even if they weren’t persecuting you. That’s what I usually say.
And I had one of those history profs for my undergrad too. He was the best.
Interesting take on things.
Thanks.
L
That makes sense.
Being 51 and way overweight i will be in the cold ground by then :), but it does seem about right.
I haven’t been in a branch in forever and the online banks give the best interest rates already.
and that’s just the beginning of the change i guess.