I just checked Google to see if my headline is read. The answer is no. So I have to put it in the body of text:
Gods of Commerce
I love commerce. Commerce and technology define the "modern world." Both thrive on meritocracy, diversity and openness.
Is that statement clear?
Gods of Commerce is an allusion to the gods of traditional societies who’s worldview we call animistic religion. Traditional societies commonly have a world view that: rare occurrences, powerful forces (storms, lightning) and unique geographic locations have magical power. Monotheists (us) tend to call the magical sources of traditional societies gods.
Japan is a traditional society and we call Shintoism animistic with the word kami translated into English as god.
If there ever were two powerful forces on the planet, commerce and technology take the prize. Probably more powerful than anything ever known to man. I personally view commerce as the vehicle on which technology rides so I focus on the vehicle. The gods of commerce.
It isn’t much in doubt that a technologist, an engineer, wants to work with other people who are chosen on merit, not family, and merit automatically requires diversity because technical skills are not correlated with skin color nor hair style.
Openness is the fundamental quality of technology. Build a bridge without the available knowledge of generations of engineers and you fail. Books, tables, calculations, equations are all open --- technology is grounded in openness.
The same is true for commerce, but most people haven’t had enough experience with thinking about commerce to know that.