On Optimism (and technology, accurate signals, responsibility, and pragmatism)
Today, well below the headlines on Trump-Iran, Iran plane crash, Ottawa shooting, Trump impeachment, Classpass as unicorn, and so many others stories on CNN's home page, was this little minor tidbit, that after a 26 straight year trend in continually lower cancer deaths, this year America experienced its' largest ever drop in the rate of cancer deaths. (PSS - now returning to CNN's webpage 30 minutes later, it's interesting see the cancer story doesn't even make the front page, having been displaced by Nicki Minaj's wax figure, Charmin's toilet paper robot, and Lizzo's ongoing drama...)
Lately, due largely to David Brin's hectoring, I've been reading through a number of books on modern world optimism: Solnit's A Paradise Built in Hell, Easterbrook's Progress Paradox & It's Better Than it Looks (save yourself some time and read the latest book first), Diamandis' Abundance, Pinker's Better Angels of Our Nature, and Brin's own writing on ContraryBrin.com and a forthcoming book. I've added Factfulness, The Information Diet and several other books to Brin's list.
Bottom line: human nature is generally good, and supporting of others; and life is good, quite good in fact, EXTREMELY good, IMHO, across any valued measure of goodness, and has been moving in the right direction, continually for the last 100 years; however, we increasingly think it's bad, and getting worse.
Much of this is driven by technology. The increase in the quality of life across any number of valued metrics (including most environmental, BTW, with the rare exception of greenhouse gases) is driven by technology, but also the root cause of why we think it's bad. And that's because we steadily consume a technology-driven media diet of inaccurate signals. No - let's not blame the media companies - they print what people read. We are responsible for the signals we attend to; but we have unconscious biases that cause us to attend to the wrong signals. Net result -the average person's information diet gives them a VERY inaccurate view of the world.
Those of us responsible for pushing out this awe-inspiring technology need to pause, and think about this, deeply.
If we succeed in our technology endeavors, we make life better, but more people will perceive themselves worse off.
Is this what you signed on to do with your career?
I've been working on these issues for 7 years now, and I think they are solvable. We solved crime, smog and acid rain in the 80s - we can solve this Progress Paradox. But in the 60s, 70s and 80s we recognized crime, smog, acid rain and others as problems; we talked about them, we worked on them.
We don't talk about this - the bigger issue and context of the modern human condition, and how we are co-existing with the technology of our own creation.
In November I spoke on this to NATO, and am working on books, am engaged in lectures, and working on these issues - but it seems there is no appetite for this problem-space. We're too focused on the other "calamities" of global warming, political intrigue, plastic straws, Australian bushfires to have any headspace to deal with these other issues. We have catastrophe fatigue. We're burned out. We need to go check out social media feed for some relief, where we learn our friends have much better lives than us...
But as CES promotes the latest advances in technology this week in Las Vegas, how can we not pause and note that consumer technology trends lead us to have stories about how an Ottawa murder and a foul ball event at a baseball game occur so much higher than a story about the biggest ever drop in American cancer deaths after a continual decline of 26 years in those deaths?
I have much more to say on this, but today, I just want to call this out, and ask: what do you have to say about this?
?? Deeply understanding humans as the key to business and life success | Technical Program Management | Operations | Security Compliance, MSc, PMP, Agile, CSM, CSPO
4 年Patrick Scannell Great article. Humans are naturally wired to focus on the negative as part of our survival mechanisms, but at the same time we can use our biological tendencies with self-awareness to focus on more positive outcomes and by doing so be more productive in producing innovative solutions while reducing stress levels.
Trailblazing Human and Entity Identity & Learning Visionary - Created a new legal identity architecture for humans/ AI systems/bots and leveraged this to create a new learning architecture
4 年* The ramifications of what I just said are VERY significant. It means having ways of instantly working globally, with the ability to enforce it locally and vice-versa. * Today, this seems like a bit of a day dream. Examples include missed greenhouse gas targets, a paltry 5% success rate in cyber-crime prosecution, etc. * However, I am an optimist. I believe the changing world we live in, will offer up new opportunities to live better, happier and longer, regardless of where one lives on the planet * My final comments are "fasten your seat belts!" The rate of logarithmic technological change your diagram you produced Pat, means that tomorrow is definitely not going to be like today. Put into words, at last year's Davos meeting Justin Trudeau said “Think about it: The pace of change has never been this fast, yet it will never be this slow again.” Thanks for taking the time to read a VERY long reply!!!!
Trailblazing Human and Entity Identity & Learning Visionary - Created a new legal identity architecture for humans/ AI systems/bots and leveraged this to create a new learning architecture
4 年* Then there's the environment to consider. We are doing a fine job of heating up the climate, raping the earth, watching oddles of species in significant decline, seeing coral bleaching, and not doing enough constructive things to quickly change this. On the other hand, we can bring technology to bear to address this. The challenge is technology deployed in one jurisdiction, won't solve the problems since we live on a small planet with an integrated bioclimatic system. * Add all of this up and I feel, at the social level, a lot of masculine based beliefs and ways of doing things will no longer work well. Competition, usng armies et al, aren't going to work so well in the future coming towards us. * I told my wife, when we met, 39 years ago, she was born 100 years too soon. She looked at me like I was an asshole, asking me why I would say such a thing? I told her that the age of men and their ways of thinking was on the way out. I went on to say that women and feminine ways of approaching problems would slowly come to the fore. * 39 years later, I feel this stronger than ever. As our economic models change, and as our planet's environment degrades, we're going to have to learn to work collaboratively together. Today, our focus is local then global. I can see this changing to be global-local at the same time. I'll continue on in the next? post...
Trailblazing Human and Entity Identity & Learning Visionary - Created a new legal identity architecture for humans/ AI systems/bots and leveraged this to create a new learning architecture
4 年* If and when a cheap source of energy is created, this too will significantly alter our economies. Why? We'll then be able to produce most of our food close to where we live, regardless of the type of climate we live in. Today, the ability to grow things indoors, including produce and meat (lab-grown), is only limited by the cost of energy. This will significantly shake up existing large scale food production around the planet. It should also mean people will have access to better food all year round. * Then there's things like cloning and bio-robotics to consider. As each year rolls by, I can see technology being developed to keep us alive for much longer, as well as being able to cheaply produce clones of ourselves. * Out there on the edge of science, I can also see the day coming when babies can be grown outside the human body. Yes, I know this sounds like science fiction. However, I feel this too is coming our way. * Then there's bots to consider. They are becoming "smarter" and have abilities we don't have, i.e. able to instantly work together in singularity. Yes, it's still early days, but one can see this coming. This will create a significant disruptive force in our economies, our social fabric and our politics ?I'll continue on in the next post...
Trailblazing Human and Entity Identity & Learning Visionary - Created a new legal identity architecture for humans/ AI systems/bots and leveraged this to create a new learning architecture
4 年Hiya Pat! Excellent comments. Here's my thoughts back to you: * I've been in many parts of the planet where things aren't so great. However, having said this, yes, in the "west", things are better than they were 100 years ago and even 10 years ago * I think, over the next 20-30 years, job automation will become very significant. I also don't think there will be many new type jobs replacing all those who lose their jobs * This will create a huge tension in societies, since in the West, we are running on Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations ideology, where people work to create capital and then invest it. Each year, I can see fewer and fewer people working, not earning money, and therefore not able to fully participate in the economies in which they live * A good novel to read depicting this is "Manna, Two Visions of Humanity's Future".(https://marshallbrain.com/manna.htm). I'll continue on in the next few posts...