“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot, learn, unlearn and relearn”. - American Futurist, Alvin Toffler In a world where the half-life of skills is shrinking, we have to get comfortable with the idea of learning and re-learning, just like Alvin Toffler says … Continue reading On Writing
Trend analyst, Dion Chang of Flux Trends said that 2018 was the year of voice - the year that we reached "peak screen" and began to move from screen based internet to voice based internet. He was not wrong. Alexa, Siri and Google Home are now common place. Over 43 million US homes have access to … Continue reading Introducing “The Ethernet”
The Brave New World conference took place in the Netherlands this week. One of the biggest ideas on display was that of bio-organic, 3D printed body parts. Yes, 3D body parts have been around for a while. The list of replacement cells, arteries and organs scientists can design and manufacture is an impressive, growing one. The … Continue reading Build Your Own Body Parts – A Brave New World Indeed
Ficciones is a collection of some of Jorge Louis Borges most compelling, philosophical (fictional) fantasies. The mind-expanding Library of Babble and the Garden of Forking Paths are among the outstanding short stories contained in the book. Borges's gift is to take complex concepts about subjects as obtuse as quantum physics, multiple futures, time travel, and … Continue reading Ficciones
In Hans Christian Anderson's famous tail, The Emperor's New Clothes, a vain ruler is tricked by a pair or shrewd into walking around naked, in the belief that he was wearing clothes so fine and luxurious that only those with exquisite taste could see them. Today, we are all close to sharing that Emperor's delusions. … Continue reading The Emperor Has No Clothes
Anyone interested in the future is (or should be) familiar with Yuval Noah Harari's work. He is one of the great philosopher-historians of our time and he poses the questions all of us should be asking ourselves and each other. 21 Lessons for the 21st Century is his latest offering. It's not my favourite book … Continue reading 21 Lessons for the 21st Century
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOYzFKizikU Dancing cheek to cheek may have been "the" way to get close to someone's thoughts back in Fred Astaire's day, but these days you can literally get into someone else's head. Matrix-style brain-to-brain internet (aka the Internet of People) is here. Mind reading? No problem! Japanese scientists can now de-code your thoughts into visuals that … Continue reading Cheek to cheek, brain to brain
"A great company is a conspiracy to change the world." "Darwinism may be a fine theory in other contexts, but in startups, intelligent design works best." "Computers are compliments for humans, not substitutes. The most valuable businesses of coming decades will be built by entrepreneurs who seek to empower people rather than try to make … Continue reading Zero to One
“You can’t really put a lid on it, even if you wanted to” ~ Dr Jennifer Doudna, CRISPR researcher As always, the dichotomy between freedom and equality threatens to split humanity. This time though, I'm not talking about economic freedom vs economic equality; that good old battle between free market "monopoly capitalists" and their arch … Continue reading Procreative Freedom vs Genetic Inequality
Things are transformed one into another according to necessity, and render justice to one another according to the order of time. ~ Anaximander The Order of Time is a mind-expanding little book. Part physics, part philosophy, the book is packed with strange and wonderful ideas about how the very fabric of the universe works and … Continue reading The Order of Time
