Kotler's Four Migrations

I was listening to James Altucher's podcast a couple weeks ago and his guest was Steven Kotler. For those who don't know, Kotler is a popular futurist who has written several books about what we can expect and he's right more often than he's wrong.

It was an interesting episode all around (you should listen to it) but the thing that really stood out to me was his mentioning the "four migrations" of the 21st century.

Any time you get people moving en masse there is money to be made, so I thought it might be a cool exercise today to dissect these four migrations and figure out how best to profit from them. Let's face it, it doesn't get more macro than this.

According to Kotler, there will be four massive migrations between now and the end of the century. They are:

• Virtual Reality
• Space
• Climate Change, and
• Our own subconscious

Some of these we can already see happening. So let's take them one at a time and figure out what we know.

Virtual Reality

There are a lot of ways this can go, but I think it's a foregone conclusion at this point that we are moving to a virtual world, at least in some capacity. These are very early days, to be sure, but some of the VR that already exists is astounding.

One of the questions that immediately springs to mind for me is, how ready are you guys to operate as bankers in a virtual world? I'm not talking about fake transactions with virtual players, I'm talking about doing the actual work that you do today in a virtual environment.

Picture this: instead of spreading comps on your 27" monitor (if you're lucky enough to have one that big), imagine doing it on an IMAX screen. And not with just one computer, but twenty at a time. Sound far fetched? It already exists.

VR Desktop for Windows is already a thing. If you have an Oculus Rift or an HTC Vive, you can now spread your comps across a dozen different screens that you can see all at once.

I don't want to go too far into the weeds on VR, because that's the subject of a standalone post. It's important to note how prevalent it's on its way to becoming, though. When you throw AR (Augmented Reality) into the mix, the scores really change. Adding a virtual layer on top of the real world has unlimited potential.

There are a lot of nightmare scenarios around VR, though. Anyone who's read Ready Player One can tell you how the world gets dystopian without anyone even noticing if everyone is hanging out in a VR utopia. I won't dwell on the potential negatives because you can leave that to your imagination.

There's no doubt that VR is going to take hold in a big way over the next 25 or so years. Figure out how to capitalize on it, and you can get rich.

Space

There is a growing chorus of optimists (many ironically driven by pessimism) who insist that we'll be an interplanetary species by the end of this century. Missions to Mars are planned for the next decade, and the first wave of colonists have already volunteered for the one way trip.

We're in the midst of a new space race, this one almost entirely driven by private industry and the egos of tech billionaires. Elon Musk has drastically reduced the cost of space travel (despite recent setbacks), and Jeff Bezos is hellbent on beating him to the punch. Virgin Galactic is back in the air after a two year hiatus, and Branson wants to make everyone a space tourist.

Anyway, there's a big push to get into space. If the controversial EM Drive actually works, it'll be a game changer. That seven-month trip to Mars drops to just 70 days.

Will our species un-ass Earth en masse? I seriously doubt it. But there's enough going on up there to make it worth figuring out how to turn a buck.

Climate Change

This is a decidedly more somber prediction, but it's perhaps the most inevitable. We recently crossed a climate Rubicon and there's likely no coming back from it. Predictions of up to 30 feet of sea level rise are no longer considered hyperbolic.

This means massive migration from the coasts. I see it here daily in Louisiana, where roughly a football field worth of the state slips underwater every 15 minutes. The entire island nation of Kiribati is in the process of resettling after the sea took over their island. They won't be the last.

There is talk of creating a special climate refugee designation with the UN. The term "environmental migrant" is already in use.

When you have that many people who are forced to relocate, as sad as it is, there is going to be opportunity. I'd love to hear what you guys think that opportunity might be.

Our Own Subconscious

There's no denying the renaissance of late when it comes to drug tolerance. I'm writing this primarily as an American, a country with some of the most draconian drug laws on Earth, but also as an observer who has witnessed the trend toward tolerance abroad.

That's not to say that journeys into the subconscious require pharmaceutical assistance, but that's generally the quickest path.

As we find ourselves with more leisure time (I know, debatable) it seems our tendency turns toward introspection. I personally spend a lot of time in float tanks, so it's at least anecdotally true of me.

If Kotler is correct and it becomes a global phenomenon this century, then those people who facilitate that sort of introspection stand to profit handsomely.

Anyway, I thought it was interesting in a mega-trend sort of way and I figured you guys would as well.

Do you think he's right? Which of these migrations do you think would have the largest overall effect? Are you ready to wear VR goggles for 12 hours a day?