Do you want more or less control over your life? You may not have a choice.

Do things happen in threes for you? They do for me … well, maybe I believe they do so they do. I’m not sure if I’m the created, the creator or the creation. I have no control and I don’t need to know. I just know what works for me and what appears before my jaundiced, opinionated, judgemental eyes.

So, today’s three things:

Firstly, Philip Nitschke is creating an open source design for a euthanasia machine. So, if you want to end your life you’ll just be able to download, for free, the plans, obtain a 3D printer and your job’s done – you can take charge of your demise without having a group of non-medical people (politicians) who don’t know you, deciding if you can end your life or not. Check the article at http://bit.ly/2CNWCUm.

Secondly, a Russian neuroscientist, Alexandra Elbakyan, has made 14,000 academic articles available, for free, via her website at http://sci-hub.io/. Previously, academic publishers had a stranglehold on academic publications and it seems they’ve been growing more and more greedy, charging more and more – so greedy that they’ve lost control of their lucrative industry. Check the article at http://bit.ly/2pg5J5v.

Thirdly, a report by Finnish Education expert, Pasi Sahlberg, says that the Australian education system is failing because of too much control. In 2000 the OECD released its first Program for International Student Assessment (Pisa), which measured member countries on key education metrics such as literacy and numeracy. The strongest performer was not some global superpower but Finland, a country of about 5 million that doesn’t introduce its children to formal schooling until the age of seven, requires its highly autonomous teachers to have master’s degrees and almost entirely rejects standardised testing … less control creates better education. See the article at http://bit.ly/2m5Src9.

Of course there are moral arguments around euthanasia, copyright and education but I’ll leave the subjective for those with opinions, biases and prejudices.

From the objective point of view, these three are examples of control being taken from authorities and being passed on to the general public … and for free or, in education, for a huge drop in cost.

This is the age we’re living in – The Age of Decontrol. As explained in my book, The Lawless Way, the last 4,000 years have seen the authority over our lives and over our information shift from the ruler/sages (Wu, Moses, Solomon, Tutankhamen etc.), to priests to politicians to scientists and, now, to you and I. As priests, politicians and scientists cling ever more desperately to the crumbling cliff of their arrogance, the freedom of information and action is washing away at the sand beneath them.

The taxi industry is being Decontrolled by Uber. The hospitality industry is being decontrolled by Air BNB. The monetary system is being decontrolled by Bitcoin. The fuel and car industries are being decontrolled by Tesla. The publishing industry is being decontrolled by print-on-demand printing. Edward Snowden, Julian Assange and others are decontrolling the information held by authorities.

China has tried to control Bitcoin but failed. The Byron Bay council (Australia) has tried to control Air BNB but is failing. The American administration is trying to control Edward Snowdon and Julian Assange but has failed. Queensland police tried to control Uber but failed.

The trend of those taking control from authorities is set to accelerate and to expand into every aspect of our lives. All attempts at controlling those who are breaking free will fail – that is the age we’re living in. There is no reversing back into the stable of control – the horse is free and isn’t going back. Not for another 2,000 years. Apparently, we chose this time to arrive so we’d better just sit back, enjoy the loosening of control and enjoy our growing freedom.