FUTURE, INTERNET LANDSCAPE, GEN Z, 🍭

The American Dream 2.0💫

From stars and stripes to zeros and ones

Let’s set some context. The American dream once consisted of a vision for a college backed, professional career rewarded with a cushy retirement and automated paychecks. At the average age of 65, freedom is finally granted, and sovereignty opens up the space to build a garden, buy a motor home, or start a new passion-based business.

Take a deep breath 🗣

because the internet is going to shed 45 years of hard labor and experience for the next generation. We are moving from analog to digital at an exponential rate. This means no more 9–5s, 401ks, or waiting till 65 to live out this “dream life” mentioned above. Traditionalists, Baby Boomers, Gen X, Gen Y (Millenials), Gen Z, and now Gen Alpha? Generation Alpha- not a return to the old, but the start of something new.

The pattern is simple: learn from the old, and recreate everything digitally. There are currently 2.5 million Gen Alphas being born globally every week. These kids will grow up asking about email, Facebook, laptops, and other archaic communication mediums. As we continue to deploy iterations on the American dream evolution, we must open our eyes to the fact that we are seamlessly integrating our dream with the world's dream using the internet. 👀

We will watch the continued exponential labor division among humans and move towards the quantum division of automation among computers, networks, and the cloud. One big thing to keep in mind is that 47% of the world’s population is still operating without a web connection.

Ok, so you can exhale now… haha. 🌬

That was a lot to take in on one breath. I could write about this for days, but I want to focus on Generation Z, the builders of “The American Dream 2.0." We can debate about the trusted pathway of college, jobs, salaries, and other ways to live in prosperity, but I want to highlight the word: “retirement.”

Retirement: the action or fact of leaving one’s job and ceasing to work 🛠

Pause… what. Please think about this for two seconds. The American Dream 1.0 says: Spend 45 years working on someone else’s dream so you can possibly live long enough to retire and have your own?? 👀

Well… I was fortunate enough to start leveraging my work via the internet at a young age. I was born on the cusp between Gen Z and Millennial, which was an amazing time period for the internet landscape. At this time, there were around 23,500 websites created on the internet. Growing up and trying new ideas in the rapidly evolving digital landscape quickly became a hobby of mine. By the time I was 10 years old, youtube had launched, which was the easiest internet money I had made. Referring to the concept mentioned at the beginning of this article, I’m currently 25 years old and pretty well “retired” from the “job.” 👨‍💻

I say we normalize the fact that you should’ve never had a job in the first place. Yeah, I get it, people want safety and security, but I’d like to propose we start with education. Ok… yeah, I get that too, education is such a saturated topic, but I believe that our education system was flawed since the day we scaled out of one room community schoolhouses. The capitalistic gains were just sooooo juicy that we had to bite into a new system that discouraged creativity, free-thinking, and true apprenticeship. In reality, I am grateful for capitalism and education systems; I’m just stating that it’s time for a new one.

*whoooosh sound effect

As we open our minds and explore the future, we can always be assured that it will be rooted in today’s culture. This brings me enthusiasm for what’s to come. We, as Gen Z kids, hold the wisdom of growing up without the internet. The last humans of the disconnected dispensation. It is compelling to remember blowing the dust out of a cartridge before inserting it into a console that required a physical wire to split-screen with your amigos. What we build today for Gen Alpha will be tested by the upcoming Generation Beta (born from 2025 to 2039) 🧠

So let’s build the American dream 2.0,

an interconnected global dream, a co-operation that empowers the next generations with tangible tools that encourage a similar American Dream that so many of our predecessors once sought after.

“Generation Alpha began being born in 2010, the year the iPad was launched, Instagram was created, and App was the word of the year- and so from their earliest years, they have been screenagers.” — Mark McCrindle

To get started, let's take some actionable steps. I love the concept of becoming a permissionless apprentice. Theoretically, you could do this anywhere in the world. Go pick up a new Starlink device, set it up in Antarctica or the middle of the Sahara, and start leveraging the internet to work for you in ways that were not previously possible. Here is an example:

Jack tweets about this concept often. We should normalize the process of learning new things as well as teaching the things we are learning. It is the easiest way to get started within the passion economy. Here is a little illustration I whipped up using my new skills:

Student vs. Apprentice: “Memorize this, and we’ll give you a certificate that confirms you memorized it — by the way, you owe us $200,000.” vs. “Choose a skill, practice relentlessly, and we’ll pay you more as you get better.”

The apprentice can humbly grow alongside a trusted master. The master can refine the process and accept more students by building products. Some things will work, some won't. Mistakes are bound the happen, but through those mistakes, we find the process illustrated above.

Find a master > obtain their knowledge > put your spin on it > find students > repeat.

This is the process I am currently practicing while developing a comprehensive course that breaks down the internet's future, where one can start, and how to make money doing it.

I hope this opened your eyes to all the possibilities and gives a small insight into the inspiration dancing inside my head and heart.

bless,

jordy