After 10 years of global recession we all have the sense “somethings gotta give”. I’m not sure if it is just us getting older and more pessimistic, or the world being more aware of the shit that’s happening all around us, either way, there seems to be a lot of crap to deal with these days.

Anyone who knows me, knows I’m a ridiculous optimist.

I love the endless possibilities that the future holds. I’m obsessed with technology , and its ability to make life easier/better. My childhood idol Kelly Slater has been replaced with Elon Musk (although Slater’s wave pool near saw him take back that top slot). I wait eagerly for the latest releases, whether it be Tesla cars, iPhone software/hardware, or simply my favourite futurist blogger’s tech posts.

It always amazes me how humans , when faced with adversity, how they adapt and find solutions for what would have seemed impossible just years before. Taking the negative, and turning the result into something better than before.

I’m starting to see a change in the world that I think is going to transform our lives quite drastically in the near future. Good people have big power now, young idealists amassing huge fortunes, not hardened by decades of toil, are leading the way. In most of these bright new minds, money is not the goal, making the world a better place is. Zuckerburg has pledged 99% to good causes by the end of his life. He just declared war on all disease which he hopes to cure by the end of the century, a stark contrast to the old guard.

The power is being put into our hands, like never before. We all know the barrier to entry for starting a business is lower than it has every been, but companies like Facebook, Amazon, Airbnb, are creating platforms that make success even easier, because of the intelligent systems they provide for free.

I think the changes are going to transform our lives quite drastically in the near future, because it already has started affecting my life.

In the last few months, Airbnb has paid my bills and for only a 3% commission. It has taken my home and turned it into a money-making machine. It has been my single source of income, besides the odd article being published here and there, since my transition to selling property. It has taken my kids on holiday and scored me the best waves I have had in years this July. You wanna to do the same with your place? You can see how here .

My child, who is 7, is selling t-shirts online, to people all over the world, without ever having lifted a roll of fabric, or seen an ink printing machine. He draws, someone else takes the order and makes it, he gets paid. He was in pre-school last year. You can check his stuff out here at Joel’s T-Shirt Store and you can follow his antics here on Instagram here

Elon Musk just announced his plan to create a rental pool for his autonomous cars, once you are dropped off at work, they will enter the rental pool and earn you money, driving other people around, returning to you on summons… your car, an asset. Imagine that first monthly instalment, being less than the profit you made from it being rented out. The cars will hit SA by the end of 2017, the software will likely be available sooner.

Your home’s roof (another new Musk mission) is now capable of creating more energy than your home needs, through super efficient, beautifully designed solar roofs, and massively improved battery storage systems, you can feed excess energy back into the grid, earning you money.

When the things you own, earn you money back, you suddenly start turning everyday items into assets, and passive income. And where you don’t own?…well,  there are multiple cheap options to outsource. Imagine the cost of transport and how it will drop when the energy is coming from the sun, and every car is capable of being rented out as a taxi. The cost of electricity, when every home makes you more than it costs.

I think the true power and potential of the internet is yet to be realised, we are are only scratching the surface. The ability to create these platforms that connect everyone may be of far greater importance than social media further down the line, it may be the future of true democracy. Where voting happens in real-time and honesty and accountability are inescapable, removing us from the ancient shackles of government and industry.

I still eagerly await the ability to upload my consciousness or an eternal solution to my ageing cells, but in the meantime, I’m pretty happy about self-driving cars and Kelly’s wave pool.