Knives To a Dogfight

The British Empire was once the most influential empire on Earth.

This was in part due to the enormous wealth they extracted from their colonies.

Their rapid colonization of the world was largely because they had the largest naval fleet at the time.

You see, British strategists of the time were years ahead in their thinking.

While other empires before them focused on building military might based on the size of their ground forces, the British knew they could not compete in that game.

Their population was just too small.

If an enemy force ever invaded, they would have been overwhelmed by sheer weight of numbers.

The British understood this chess game quite well.

Since they didn’t have much land anyway, why not conquer the seas that surrounded them?

It made sense defensively, as their only vulnerable points were the seas that surrounded them.

Offensively, they could overcompensate for their numerical disadvantage by building an immense number of battleships.

As a matter of fact, in the 1880s and 1890s, the British enacted the “Two-Power Standard,” a law which stipulated that the British Royal Navy should maintain a number of battleships at least equal to the combined strength of the next two largest navies in the world (at that time, France and Russia).

This solidified Britain's naval dominance well into the 20th century and was critical in securing British control over key trade routes, particularly those leading to India and the Far East.

This led to an era of almost unlimited prosperity for the British Empire.

But then…

"Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end." - Seneca

Fast forward to 1903 when, in the United States of America, the Wright Brothers made their first powered flight in a propeller-driven biplane, which stayed in the air for 12 seconds.

Twelve seconds in the air might not mean much by today’s standards, but it shattered all existing assumptions about how (and how fast) man could travel.

This eureka moment in American history would prove pivotal to a new era of innovation in travel and military warfare.

Write this somewhere before we proceed: Historical patterns show that every prevailing superpower has been able to utilize the knowledge and technology available to their era to conquer time and space (or distance) for the purpose of commerce and/or warfare.

By the time the technological shift occurred, the US had a head start in the mass manufacturing of warplanes and later, advanced military tech like submarines and aircraft carriers.

The British simply could not keep up, especially as they were severely depleted and indebted to the United States after World War II.

The “Two-Power Standard” of the 1880s, which ensured they doubled the firepower of the best-armed nations, was now financially impractical by the 20th century.

Besides technology, a cultural shift had begun - decolonization.

Former British colonies pushed for independence and resource control, reducing the influence of the British and largely diminishing the amount of wealth they could extract from other countries.

Rather than simply taking what they wanted from the former colonies, they now had to resort to trade and good old innovation.

New empires take the place of dying ones due to their ability to “hear the sound of abundance of rain,” a reference to the Biblical Elijah’s word to King Ahab when during famine, he was able to hear a storm approaching when no one else could see or hear anything.

Change is like that.

Shy.

She doesn't like to be mocked and so will never tap the shoulder of the common man to announce its arrival.

She simply arrives - an abyss for the unprepared, a ladder to the discerning.

Every now and again, the power deck is shuffled.

Third world nations are presented with a generational opportunity to leap for first world glory, as small scale businesses are enabled to produce on the scale of the Fortune 500.

The next era goes to those individuals, corporations, and nations that are sensitive and proactive to the emergence of change.

What’s in your pocket?

Are you carrying a knife to a dogfight?

What does this mean for you in a practical sense?

Though this letter was intended to be about sensitivity to change in general, I will use the elephant in the room - Artificial Intelligence.

- Businesses who before now could not afford to hire data analysts (salaried in Nigeria at around 800k per month) will be able to replace that entire competency with a tool as simple as ChatGPT, while existing analysts can get more jobs and have AI do the work. I demonstrated how here: https://creatorlab.media/fbm

- Startups will be able to deploy apps much faster and with fewer programmers or a fraction of the number of skilled workers previously needed.

There’s more but this letter is not an AI class.

No matter your age group or vocation, find ways to use it to renegotiate your position on the chessboard of life.

There will not be a tool like this available to all for a long time to come.

Eventually, AI will become so commonplace that you won’t be special anymore.

United States Congressman, Jeff Jackson, released a video to this effect on his Instagram account.

You can watch the video yourself here, but my takeaway from it is that American companies are diving into AI, not necessarily because they want to make more, but because they believe that they would cease to exist without getting into AI as quickly as possible.

I wanted to say something about religious sects who dissuade their adherents with claims that AI will spell the end of days, but I fear that entertaining that conversation might make me significantly dumber.

So, no.

“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.” - Alvin Toffler.

Don’t bring a knife to a dogfight.

GLOSSARY

Dogfight: a close combat between military aircraft.

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