Equitopia Productions

In 2001 I appeared on a public access talk show. I told the host that within a decade he would be able to upload his show onto the Internet and that anyone, anywhere, could watch it. Rather than having viewers in his cable distribution area, he could have viewers in Hong Kong, Argentina, Greece, Russia, South Africa, Cambodia, India. I confess, I did not envision a youtube.com as the primary delivery channel and I still don't. I also do not envision cable networks becoming Internet networks. Finally, Netflix, Hulu, etc. are also not likely to be the final state of Internet television.

In The Future 1o1 premium service I have a 'maintained' white paper entitled 'The Age of Boutique Everything' where I explore in great detail the likely evolution of Internet television. Since I have been thinking about it for over a decade and a half, I do have a bit of a head start on most pundits.

I have a basic aversion to membership in the Chattering Class and consequently, whether you choose to become involved in The Polymathic Institute at the Membership level or the Fellowship level, talk is followed by a bias toward action. In other words, I may spend a whole lot of time exploring Internet television, but I will also provide venues for turning those ideas into projects and enterprises.

Last week, The Polymathic Institute and Wallace Rothman, a young Harvard MBA holder and Columbia PhD candidate, have agreed in principle to form Equitopia Productions, Inc. which will serve as general and managing partner to a series of LLPs that will fund and produce niche market, 'made-for-Internet' programming.

Equitopia Productions will package the created content and provide plug-in modules to niche websites that will allow them to gain income from traffic through streaming and downloading. This will provide blogs, targeted social media, niche marketing sites, etc. with the opportunity to improve monetization through high income and highly compatible product offerings. Polymathica will provide to its members programming of refinement and erudition.

Equitopia Productions will provide dozens, perhaps hundreds, of opportunities to Members and Fellows of the Polymathic Institute to create a career in Internet News and Entertainment. These may be in writing, punditry, production or, through the LLPs, passive investment.

This is just one of many large projects that will provide the opportunity for a Knowledge Class career and income.

The Polymathic Institute supports polymathic education, research, careers and lifestyles. One may become involved as a Member, Fellow or Senior Fellow. If you would like to learn more about becoming involved, please e-mail or message me.

The 2012 Election

Let me say this again.  Whichever party party has control after the 2012 elections, there is little doubt that the voters will be of the opinion that it should be seen as a mandate to do something about jobs.  However, in that regard the election is a lose-lose proposition.

If the Republicans are in control, they will attempt supply-side stimulus.  Remember AT&T's forklifts that drive themselves?  If the business is encouraged to invest in capital equipment, they will buy those forklifts and lay off their drivers.  Here is what is very, very important.  The driverless forklifts are just one example of an enormous amount of productivity enhancing technology that is out there.  The more supply-side stimulus, the higher the GDP growth and the greater the job loss.

If the Democrats are in control, the emphasis is on demand-side stimulus.  Rather than tax breaks and investment incentives driving the purchase of driverless forklifts, et. al it will be greater demand.  People will buy more stuff which leads to additional profit and simultaneously creates the need for larger capacity.  Old capacity will be retired.  New capacity will be created.  Productivity will be increased. There will be increased GDP growth, but again greater job loss.

The fact is, you cannot stimulate the economy and thereby increase GDP, without encouraging modernization, which destroys jobs.  As I say, Information Age problems do not yield to Industrial Age problems.  The solution is not to be found there.

This is just one of many, many realizations that you will come to with your premium subscription to The Future 101.  Over time more and more people are coming to understand that this graduate level understanding of the forces that will shape the Information Age is not a 'nice to know', it is a 'need to know.'

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