Karl-Heinz Land
Karl-Heinz Land (56) is an insider of the digital transformation. For over 35 years, he has experienced and shaped his core theme—digitisation—working in leading positions at internationally operating companies such as Oracle, BusinessObjects (SAP), and Microstrategy. With Neuland, he launched a digital and strategy consultancy in 2014 which, according to the ranking of the German business magazine magazine brandeins", is repeatedly among the best in Germany. As a serial entrepreneur and investor, he relies on innovative technologies such as the Blockchain and the Internet of Things. The World Economic Forum (WEF) and Time Magazine recognized Karl-Heinz Land with the Technology Pioneer Award back in 2006.
Karl-Heinz Land, who sees himself as a digital evangelist, inspires thousands of decision-makers from business, politics and society year after year with keynotes and workshops and shapes their digital agenda.
As co-author, Land has published three ground-breaking management books:
With this book “Earth 5.0—Provoke the future” Karl-Heinz Land addresses the general public and faces an ambitious task: how we can save the world through digitisation.
http://www.karlheinzland.com
“Imagine the consequences if we do nothing.”
For my children Sarah, Moritz, Felix and Cheyenne.
For my grandson Jan and all the children and grandchildren on this planet.
May we understand the opportunities of technological progress, use them sensibly for the benefit of all—for a future marked by tolerance and for those who think differently. Peaceful coexistence and determined solidarity against all forms of fanaticism.
For Priska.
Many thanks for your daily inspiration and art.
“The future overwhelms us and our imagination. It is high time to design them. Karl-Heinz Land proves to be a master of his trade. He succeeds in making unimaginable challenges visible and comprehensible in a wonderful way. I would like to put the contents of this book in your heart and in your hands—as reading material and as a call to action. For a good morning. For the common good.”
Frank Dopheide, Member of the Management Board of Handelsblatt Media Group
“We need more visionaries like Karl-Heinz Land! In his book he shows the opportunities that digitisation offers when it serves us humans. You must read it!”
Prof. Götz W. Werner, founder and supervisory board member of the chain of retail stores DM-Drogerie Markt
“Whoever wants to understand and shape the coming digital society will find here a guide to all key concepts of the future.”
Professor Peter Weibel, CEO of the ZKM, artist, exhibition curator, art and media scholar
“Digitisation as a great opportunity to solve the relevant problems of our world. Karl-Heinz Land calls on us to design Earth 5.0 with a lot of positive energy and shows many intelligent digital solutions.”
Carsten Voigtländer, former CEO of the Vaillant Group
“A wonderfully easily written book that makes you want to look at the future of our society—and learn more about it.”
Karsten Schwanke, meteorologist and TV presenter
“The survival guide for the coming years: In a life-affirming tenor, Earth 5.0 outlines the near future—from the current developments in Artificial Intelligence to Blockchain, the book shows possibilities for shaping our future: to take action now and see that the responsibility for setting the course lies in our hands instead of staring into the future like a rabbit paralysed with shock.“
Johanna Reich, artist
“Technological revolutions usually provoke two diametrically opposed reactions. On the one hand, ecstatically exaggerated expectations of salvation—on the other hand, demonization and fantasies of doom. Dealing with the exponential developments of digitisation also currently ranges between euphoria and diffuse fears. With his new book Earth 5.0, Karl Heinz Land succeeds in objectifying the debate in an inspiring and entertaining way. It introduces the reader to the evolutionary speed of digitisation. The meaning and the potentials of Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence and the dematerialisation of the world are explained in a way that is easy to understand even for non-experts. But it not only describes what will be possible in the digital future, but above all provides productive food for thought on how digitisation could be useful for the benefit of people. It takes readers on a journey to the digital planet earth and shows that poverty can be eradicated, resources can be distributed more fairly and the environment can be sustainably protected. In a time without vision, he challenges his readers not only to passively endure the future as fate. He paints an astonishing picture of what the digital world could look like and thus makes us want to actively participate in shaping the future.”
Stephan Grünewald, psychologist and founder of the rheingold Institute
“Technological progress is limited only by our imagination and will!”
Karl-Heinz Land
My special thanks goes to the identity founders Bettina Dornberg and Christoph Berdi for their tireless, competent and inspiring collaboration on “Earth 5.0”.
Christoph Berdi’s work on the manuscript, his research and as a discussion partner helped me to think further and delve deeper into the topics than I would have never thought possible at the beginning of the project.
Bettina Dornberg’s conceptual support, her fine sense of dramaturgy and language as well as her precise final editing ensured that my argument always remains viable, comprehensible and above all full proof.
Last but not least, I am grateful to both of them because they stoically endured the creative chaos that I sometimes cause. I am very aware that this is a great achievement!
It was a pleasure, to work with you both.
Human Dignity Is Inviolable
(Article 1, paragraph 1 of The Constitution Of The Federal Republic Of Germany)
Author:
Karl-Heinz Land, Digital Darwinist & Evangelist, neuland GmbH & Co. KG
http://www.karlheinzland.com
Publisher:
FutureVisionPress e.K.
Konrad-Adenauer-Ufer 83
50668 Cologne
T +49 221 999697-30
Editors:
Christoph Berdi, Bettina Dornberg (http://www.identitaetsstifter.com)
Typesetting & Layout:
Johann-Christian Hanke, (www.jchanke.de)
Cover:
Felix Land
Graphics:
Christian D. Stefanovici, Felix Land
The German National Library lists this publication in the German National Bibliography; detailed bibliographical data can be accessed on the Internet via http://dnb.d-nb.de.
ISBN: 978-3-9817268-6-2
© 2018
This work, including all its parts, is protected by copyright. Any use not expressly permitted by copyright law requires the prior consent of the publisher. This applies in particular to reproduction, editing, translation, microfilming and storage and processing in electronic systems.
By Professor Götz W. Werner
Founder and Member of the Supervisory Board of DM-Retail
“It is not a question of predicting the future, but of being prepared for the future.”
Perikles (Athenian statesman)
Every day is a beginning from the beginning. I recommend this saying of my old rowing trainer to everyone as a motto. It means developing an urge to keep reappraising things and asking: Are we on the right track? This is the principle of Karl-Heinz Land in this book. It is extremely helpful to penetrate our world today with consciousness, and that is what everything we do is about. We must constantly ask ourselves: To question the meaning of things and reaching the end goal is extremely exciting. There is too much importance attached to Know-How instead of Know-Why; this leads to undesirable developments that we see too often. Take into consideration factory farming, nuclear energy, private transport, stock market speculation: We have the Know-How—but does it make sense to do all these things just because we can?
Today more than ever we need free thinking people who can recognize what matters and who can tackle design and transform things with constructive criticism. It is about us asking ourselves: What is really important? The paradigm of linking work and income does not make this so easy. We experience so many situations where people do things just for money. But if you define yourself in terms of money, you have already lost, especially in the time of Bitcoin, Blockchain and Dematerialization. In the following chapters of this book you will find further suggestions of this and why there is no way around the unconditional basic income.
What is important in our time? How are we actually using digitalization? Quite simply, to free man from dangerous, hard labour employment. It is the basic principle of capitalism, which means using our brain for work. We have come a long way: we had the opportunity and the duty to banish poverty. Digitization and automation have created the necessary freedom so that we can focus on the essential things: to contribute to the well-being of our fellow human beings through creative action. Karl-Heinz Land uses examples to analyze and describe how we can make progress in our thinking. Then we can shape the future. Now all you have to do is read on and think!
By Karsten Schwanke
Meteorologist and TV presenter
Everyone talks about it—everyone has an opinion—but hardly anyone understands it. No, I am not talking about the tactics of the national football team, nor about my heart issue, climate change, but about technological progress and digitization.
When I stand on a stage and give a lecture on climate change, I can feel it: climate change is an issue that concerns us all, those who are concerned about the future for the next generation. But the moment it becomes clear we fight against it. Too much global warming begins in our own front yard, many people will ignore the signs and move on. What happens when half knowledge meets fear? Fake news has it easy these days. Is it because reality is just too hard a pill for us to swallow.
With this attitude we will give up the future of the earth for our children, Earth 5.0, is already here today.
This book, which you hold in your hands, is a courageous account about the future of the earth for our children. For the first time, I read something about the possibilities and the extent of digital change, without seeing the world in black and white. For the first time I realize that what we are facing an upheaval in society as industrialization in the 19th century. Only much faster!
I can’t help feeling that many people who use the buzzword “digitization” have some idea of what it basically means. Until recently, I was one of them, but today I have the feeling that I can at least begin to see what issues may lay ahead. But another aspect of this book is far stronger: it is a basis for discussion, books that encourages people to exchange ideas and want to learn more about it.
“Earth 5.0” does not avoid the potential dangers of digitization (data misuse, artificial intelligence or job loss). But it does not demonize the possibilities of digitization, but shows how much our society may change. It is in our hands to let it happen—or to take action ourselves.
This book suggests that we want to get involved in the discussion about our future.
Dear Readers,
With this book I challenge the provocative vision of the future, how can we use technology to transform the world into a better place worth living in on a global scale.
Many people today fear a rapidly changing present and an uncertain future. Apocalyptic ideas determine the socio-political debate.
This is all the more astonishing because it was precisely the technological progress of the 20th century that has brought us safety, better quality of life and health, everything that makes our life so worth living today.
Nevertheless, fear of the future is spreading. People feel that they are facing enormous upheavals and feel overwhelmed by the speed and complexity of change. Many are vehemently opposed to new technologies. This is a major problem, because the future depends on information and insight. We not only have to shape the future, we have to provoke it. We now have to decide which technological progress we want and which we don’t. We must give transformations a framework of norms, rules and values in, political, social and above all ethical terms.
We must save our planet, halt climate change sustainably, end poverty and hunger, reduce inequality and injustice and ensure education for all through the potential of digitization and technological progress. This is realistic; we just have to want it.
“He must be crazy,” you may think. Rather, as a speaker and author, as a Digital Darwinist and Digital Evangelist, as I call myself, I’m in every sense of the word a voice of change perspective. I basically agree with Rosa Luxemburg, who said: “Freedom is always the freedom of those who think differently”.
After 35 years as a manager and entrepreneur, I am convinced that digitization will solve the problems of the planet—provided we manage them purposefully and decisively. As a manager at software companies such as Oracle and Business Objects, I understood early on the internal mechanics of digitization from its immense acceleration and the exponential power of information technology. As founder of VoiceObjects in the 2000s, co-founder and shareholder of Internet sites Ding, and Grandcentrix and as founder of strategy and transformation consulting company of Neuland, I have experienced and repeatedly analyzed how profound digital progress is changing the world.
With this book I would like to invite you to work with me on solutions, not only to better understand the interrelationships, on the basis of numerous clues, projects and concepts, scenarios and guiding ideas. This means that I am deeply motivated to put my knowledge of the exponential energy of digitization and dematerialization, combined with technologies such as Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence, to the forefront of the general public for the benefit of all. It is an insult to human intelligence that even one person on this planet should die of thirst or starvation!
The time to change this has long since come.
“The old world is dying, the new world has not yet been born: It is the time of monsters”1, wrote Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937), the Italian philosopher and co-founder of the Italian Communist Party, in prison after the First World War. With his concise characterization of the emerging fascism of that time, Gramsci posed the central, highly topical question of the protagonists of social transformation: Who rules, who leads—and who is no longer?
Given the scale, potential and speed of technological progress and digital innovations of an Earth 5.0, we cannot and cannot leave technology alone. Technology has been a gift, an ingenious tool since the beginning of the first industrial revolution, and it is up to us to make good use of it.
We urgently need to set the framework for how far we are taking it forward and how we are using it for ourselves. Obviously, as a Digital Evangelist, I am firmly convinced that I can make the world machine work for our planet in good practice. But I am also aware that there are these “monsters” who can misuse this technology. All the more reason why we no longer need any of these debates, which are either dictated by paralyzing fear, are conducted with half-cooked knowledge or are based on pure greed for profit and blind euphoria. Nor can we afford to postpone this complex discourse of lethargy and lack of vision, stagnation and passivity indefinitely. Rather, it requires an active, courageous and provocative discussion that is conducted transparently and with disclosed interests, that integrates uncertainty and explores opportunities and risks.
Therefore, this book contains a lot of knowledge, you will probably have new and more questions after reading it. Perhaps you will also find me naive in one or two places while reading this book and think: “We could have done this long ago! The powerful, the privileged, the global corporations and DAX companies, the politicians and decision-makers of this world could have done this long ago”. I agree with you. They exist, the incorrigible. But I have to take that chance. Because for me, the premise is: Only those who dare to think new, radical, visionary ways will win. Just as US President Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) said in his speech entitled “Citizenship in a Republic”2 at the Sorbonne in Paris on April 23, 1910:
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.“
In short, as a digital evangelist, I don’t expect you to follow me blindly. But you can follow me on www.Erde50.de I would be more than happy to talk to you.
Digitally yours,
Karl-Heinz Land
“... and do not forget love!ˮ
Based on Maximilian Kolbe (born 1894 in Zduńska Wola, Poland / died 1941 in Auschwitz concentration camp)
The astrophysicist Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) dedicated his life to the fundamental question of what forces, what laws dominate the universe and what they mean for us humans. He also never tired of fuelling his enthusiasm for space travel. Not only out of an urge to explore, but because he believed that the earth was lost as a habitat. Climate change, asteroid impacts, epidemics and population growth, he estimates, will require humanity to be prepared to move to another planet within a hundred years. “Earth is threatened in so many areas that it is difficult for me to think positively,“ Hawking said in 2017.
In fact, an apocalypse threatens if people do not finally use technology to save the Earth and its future. For decades, as the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and other organizations have tirelessly warned, humanity has lived beyond its means, consuming more resources year after year than nature can reproduce. But reaching for the stars, as Hawking had in mind, is not the solution to the looming existential crisis of Homo sapiens. The new planet is not out there somewhere in space, but at our feet.
The second planet is digital.
This book leaves no doubt about that, even though bitter discussions about the benefits and dangers of artificial intelligence are taking place in Silicon Valley, when scandals about the theft and illegal use of data unsettle the public and threaten the automation of millions and millions of jobs.
“Earth 5.0” tells how digitization can be actively used to restore the planet’s eco-balance, bring about more justice and equality and defeat poverty, hunger and disease. In eight chapters, readers learn how the lives of most people, especially in developing countries, will change and improve if digitization is viewed systematically, consistently pursued and applied in a visionary way to the decisive questions of the future.
The chapters in detail:
However, the decisive prerequisite for a successful start into the digital future lies not only in understanding the technological possibilities in a global context, but above all in the “courage to dream”. Really dream? Although we live in a world that is as unjust as it is unsatisfied, ecologically in the greatest danger and in which people do not even manage to save children from starvation?
But yes, Chapter 8 tells of Bhutan and its gross national happiness, of new concepts for measuring economic performance, and leads back to a final look forward.
It must have been a moving moment, back on Christmas Eve 1968, when the men in the spaceship Apollo 8 observed a phenomenon that no man had ever seen before: the earth rose above the curvature of the moon. The crew took one of the most famous photos in the world: “Earthrise”. As talented marketers, the Americans had planned the mission so that Apollo 8 would enter the moon’s orbit at Christmas. Television was broadcasting live from the spaceship at the time. “Seen from here, the Earth is a magnificent oasis in the vast desert of space,” said astronaut James Lovell above the blue and white splash of color that seemed to float sparkling in the black void. Moreover—the drama was perfect—the crew read the creation story from the Bible as a Christmas greeting to the earth.
The Apollo flight and the photo did not remain without consequences: “Earthrise” is today part of the founding myth of the international environmental protection movement. The photo showed people so impressively how unique, beautiful and vulnerable our planet is. To this day, the image challenges people to take a step backwards and look reflectively and self-critically at the Earth and their own species, which is superior to all others.
Figure 1: Earthrise
“Earthrise”: That’s how the crew of Apollo 8 saw Earth. The photo has changed our view of the world and is one of the founding canons of the environmental movement. © NASA
Fifty years have passed since the flight of Apollo 8, five decades in which humanity has not shown humility or mercy towards the fragile ecosystem of Earth. Instead, she exploited the planet more ruthlessly than ever before. What the Club of Rome predicted as early as 1972 in its famous study “The Limits of Growth” has long since come true3: “If the current increase in world population, industrialization, pollution, food production and the exploitation of natural resources continues unchanged, the absolute growth limits on Earth will be reached over the next hundred years. The Club of Rome report was the ultimate warning and the end of all excuses. Since its publication, no one can ever say: “We didn’t know.”
Over the decades, the simulations of the “Club of Rome” have proven to be surprisingly robust. Updates of 1992 and 2004 essentially confirm and clarify the results of 1972. Looking back, we know that the 1972 study was a stroke of genius of digitization, a forward-looking, early example of the potency of data analysis and computer simulation. The team put industrialization, population development, malnutrition, exploitation of raw material reserves and the destruction of ecosystems into context, using it to create a “world model” that could be fed with historical data and assumptions about the future. Using the programming language “Dynamo”, the researchers wrote a computer simulation called “World3”.4 Even then, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) had the mainframe computers needed to run the simulations. They showed that only sustainable environmental protection, consistent birth control and limited growth would bring about change for the better. Tentatively turning one or the other adjusting screw would change the behaviour of the system earth, but could not prevent the collapse. On a sober note, however, this is exactly what people have done: they have turned the levers a little. Far-reaching decisions would have been necessary to prevent the exploitation of irretrievable resources.
A good half century after “Earthrise” and “Limits to Growth”, people’s striving for prosperity, consumption and mobility continues unabated. Especially in the 1990s—capitalism had prevailed over Soviet-style communism—an almost unbridled economic liberalism broke through. In the context of globalization, world trade has risen to ever new heights. Digitization accelerated economic cycles and shortened product cycles. Investment banking developed a life of its own, became increasingly powerful and finally decoupled from the real economy. In accordance with the principle of shareholder value, the profit of shareholders became the focus of economic activity. The unleashed capitalism was easily overcome by setbacks. When the first Internet bubble burst in the early 2000s, this had no serious impact on the global economy. The global economy also recovered relatively quickly from the far more significant financial crash in 2008.
One of the engines of growth today is the emerging economic power China has with its 1.4 billion inhabitants. At the beginning of the 2010s, China’s gross domestic product (GDP) grew by more than ten percent. These times have been over since 2012, but with annual growth rates of seven percent, communist China continues to be regarded as the engine of the global economy.5 Emerging countries such as China and India, but also developing countries, account for an increasing share of economic growth and global gross domestic product. The rise of these economies is of great importance. Their undeniable backlog in consumption is the main reason why humanity is still trying to push back the limits of growth. This results in an ethical dilemma: after 200 years of systematic overexploitation of nature, industrialized countries are hardly in a position to put the developing and emerging countries in a position to put their wishes for infrastructure and prosperity in check. Moreover, there is no organization with the authority to do so. The fact that the number of extremely poor people fell from 1.9 billion thirty years ago to 815 million6 is also a result of this economic development. The bottom line for the global economy is a story of steady growth. Between 2007 and 2017 alone, global gross domestic product increased from USD 58 trillion to USD 78 trillion. Annual growth rates during this period ranged between three and 5.5 percent. Only in the post-crisis year 2009 did global economic growth fall briefly to zero percent.
Figure 2: The Top 10 Of The World Population
The emerging countries India and China as well as the developing country Nigeria will be by far the most populous states at the turn of the century. Source: World Economic Forum/Karl-Heinz Land
At the same time, more and more people are populating our planet. Right now, we’re 7.5 billion. By 2050 we will be over nine billion people, and by 2100 we will be eleven billion.7 At least, in its optimistic calculation, the United Nations assumes that the birth rate will fall. So what if it doesn’t? A more pessimistic scenario of the UN expects more than 16 billion Homo sapiens in 2100.
Population growth is accompanied by two trends that imply new challenges:
With common sense and an ethical balance, one could assume that economic growth is linked to population growth—according to the motto: if more people live on the planet, more must be generated to supply them. But that’s a mistake. The primary goal of economic activity remains the success, the increase of market shares, turnover and profit of companies. One thing is clear: the immense economic growth does not benefit everyone, not even the majority of people. On the contrary, inequality continues to increase. The richest percent of the world’s population owns 50.1 percent of the total wealth of private households worldwide, the Credit Suisse Research Institute calculated.10 The gap between rich and poor is widening. In a global comparison within industrial nations. Even the “Guardians of Capitalism”11 (“Die Welt”) at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) surprised in 2017 with the statement: “While some inequality is inevitable in a market economy, excessive inequality can lead to an erosion of social collapse, political polarization and ultimately lower economic growth. The IMF’s call for a new redistribution policy—with higher taxes for the better-off, a basic income for all and strong investment in education and health—is tantamount to a revolt at the heart of the capitalist system.
The growth of the economy and population is the main reason why existing efforts to improve climate protection or conserve the earth’s natural resources have never been sufficient. The economic and population data are diametrically opposed to the target agreed in Paris in 2016 of keeping global warming well below two percent by 2100. Consequently, CO2 emissions will continue to rise worldwide for the time being, as became clear at the UN Climate Change Conference 2017 in Bonn.12 No good news. In order to curb global warming, emissions of greenhouse gases must actually be reduced to zero by half this century. The largest issuer is China, followed by the USA and—by far—India. These three countries account for 50 percent of global CO2 emissions. It is not to be expected that one of these states will be ready for the radical interventions that the “Club of Rome” has been suggesting since 1972.
This keeps the future of the planet on a knife edge. Humans continue to produce too many climate-damaging gases, the earth is warming up, sea levels are rising and exceptionally violent weather phenomena are increasing. The climate goal of Paris already seems unattainable. There are more and more voices saying: too late, too little, too despondent. Especially as there are some effects whose effects are not yet foreseeable. Permafrost soils in the northern hemisphere are beginning to thaw. This could initiate decomposition processes with fatal consequences: In the course of the next century, an additional 60 to 200 billion tons of CO2 could be released. That would be five to 15 times the current global annual output.13
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