Incredible things are happening in the world, doncha think?
I was inspired hearing about the work that Practical Action do when we were there last week.
I was blown away to read about Dubai’s jinks.
I am excited about the machinations of big media and that simultaneous rebirth and endgame.
The tectonics of politics continue to grind away.
The world feels like it’s spinning faster and faster to me.
What future are we spinning towards? One future to familiarise ourselves with and think about is a harder, more challenging world.
Whilst the media coaxes us with messages of a recovery, there is a different dashboard to at least be aware of…
Ingredients for a different dashboard, to ‘see’ a different future
- Take Umair Haque’s truer-than-ever macropalypse. (Short version: the economics and business practices of yesterday are totally broken and everything must change).
- Add John Robb’s mindblowing Global Guerillas journal and text book. (Short version: through precisely exploiting modern society and its networks and technology a ‘terrorist’ can generate an ROI inconcievable in yesterday’s world)
- Sprinkle some #collapsonomics and resilient futures, with hexayurts and all. (Short version: while some people speculate about a more volatile future, these guys are actually getting down to the nitty gritty of ‘what to do about a crazy future’.)
- And finish with a garnish of grassroots activism from Dan McQuillan’s link sharing on Twitter. (Short version: lots of different sorts of people around the world are being treated unfairly, and technology innovation and ‘groking’ can help them get their voice heard and their changes made, sometimes…)
In my view our job as citizens and co-workers and as a company and family members and whatever context is to create better futures for ourselves and the world. If you agree, and that’s something you are interested in, in doing a good job, then you should prepare yourselve for a variety of futures, including this harder one too.
Personally, I am optimistic. But whatever the future, it definitely isn’t going to be easy.
2 Comments
Hi Will – the accelerating pace of change is what makes life exciting! Think of this – many are saying that inside the twenty years computers will become more intelligent than people and start designing themselves. Imagine how quickly things will develop then….
This might seem a little esoteric, but when you consider that the human brain operates at something like 100 Hz, then you consider that computers operate at around 4000 MHz, then this accelleration is inevitable. If you bear in mind that over the last 20 years, the internet has expanded exponentially, related to some complex equation (which I don’t understand) based around these speeds, then there are 2 conclusions.
1. We are heading for singularity – IE, nothing will get any faster, the bell curve graph will simply level out at some point.
2. We can’t use the bell curve graph to explain this accelleration any more. We need new models.
Indeed. If you consider that our 100 Hz brains have, in the last 100 years or so, invented electricity, the atomic bomb, allowed man to walk on the moon and invented the internet, then consider how quickly a 400+MHz computer will re-invent and re-create itself once it becomes a true AI. I’d hasten a guess that it would happen so quickly that we wouldn’t have any time to prepare for it.
Esoteric, perhaps. But maybe worth thinking about.
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