Last Uncertainty Wednesday I wrote that “Stuff can and will go wrong, with varying degrees of bad consequences.” One direct corollary of this is that we will all face setbacks in our life. A key question then is what happens next. Do you give up? Or do you learn, persist and try a new approach? That latter requires grit. Grit is a character trait that turns out to be a strong predictor of long term success. In her book “Grit,” Angela Duckworth recounts that tests of grit among Westpoint Acade...

Last Uncertainty Wednesday I wrote that “Stuff can and will go wrong, with varying degrees of bad consequences.” One direct corollary of this is that we will all face setbacks in our life. A key question then is what happens next. Do you give up? Or do you learn, persist and try a new approach? That latter requires grit. Grit is a character trait that turns out to be a strong predictor of long term success. In her book “Grit,” Angela Duckworth recounts that tests of grit among Westpoint Acade...

NOTE: The following excerpt is the introduction to the third part of my book World After Capital.Part Three: Enhancing FreedomThe second major goal of World After Capital is to propose an approach for a transition to the Knowledge Age. The challenge is to overcome the limits of capitalism, by moving past a society centered on the Job Loop towards one embracing the Knowledge Loop. Part Three will propose changes to regulation and self-regulation that increase human freedom and let us unlock th...

NOTE: The following excerpt is the introduction to the third part of my book World After Capital.Part Three: Enhancing FreedomThe second major goal of World After Capital is to propose an approach for a transition to the Knowledge Age. The challenge is to overcome the limits of capitalism, by moving past a society centered on the Job Loop towards one embracing the Knowledge Loop. Part Three will propose changes to regulation and self-regulation that increase human freedom and let us unlock th...

In the last Uncertainty Wednesday, I told three episodes from my life to illustrated just how pervasive uncertainty is in our lives. Today I want to tackle the first and maybe most fundamental implication of that: you cannot know what your life would have been had you made a different decision. This is a fundamental aspect of the human condition. We only observe the one life that was realized, not the many that could have been. This is what Milan Kundera refers to as the “Unbearable Lightness...

In the last Uncertainty Wednesday, I told three episodes from my life to illustrated just how pervasive uncertainty is in our lives. Today I want to tackle the first and maybe most fundamental implication of that: you cannot know what your life would have been had you made a different decision. This is a fundamental aspect of the human condition. We only observe the one life that was realized, not the many that could have been. This is what Milan Kundera refers to as the “Unbearable Lightness...

NOTE: I am resuming posting excerpts from my draft book World After Capital. The previous post introduced the Knowledge Loop. Today’s post covers the promise and peril of a Digital Knowledge Loop and also wraps up Part Two of the book.The Promise and Peril of the Digital Knowledge LoopThe zero marginal cost and universality of digital technologies are already impacting the three phases of learning, creating and sharing, giving rise to a Digital Knowledge Loop. This Digital Knowledge Loop hold...

NOTE: I am resuming posting excerpts from my draft book World After Capital. The previous post introduced the Knowledge Loop. Today’s post covers the promise and peril of a Digital Knowledge Loop and also wraps up Part Two of the book.The Promise and Peril of the Digital Knowledge LoopThe zero marginal cost and universality of digital technologies are already impacting the three phases of learning, creating and sharing, giving rise to a Digital Knowledge Loop. This Digital Knowledge Loop hold...

We are finding ourselves in a strange place this Labor Day: the impact of AI is simultaneously being overestimated and underestimated. There is still massive hype surrounding self driving cars, which will almost certainly take much longer to arrive than the public appears to believe. At the same time, there is mostly quiet but massive AI progress on tasks such as reading radiology images. The key thing to understand – if you want to form an opinion on AI progress – is to distinguish between “...

We are finding ourselves in a strange place this Labor Day: the impact of AI is simultaneously being overestimated and underestimated. There is still massive hype surrounding self driving cars, which will almost certainly take much longer to arrive than the public appears to believe. At the same time, there is mostly quiet but massive AI progress on tasks such as reading radiology images. The key thing to understand – if you want to form an opinion on AI progress – is to distinguish between “...

NOTE: I am continuing to post excerpts from my book World After Capital. The following is on the Knowledge Loop. Unfortunately I am dealing with a gitbook issue, so this revised text is not yet live on the book website.The Knowledge LoopAlready today knowledge has made possible something extraordinary: by means of the innovations of the Industrial Age we can, in principle, meet everyone’s basic needs. But we cannot stop here. We need to generate additional knowledge to solve the problems we h...

NOTE: I am continuing to post excerpts from my book World After Capital. The following is on the Knowledge Loop. Unfortunately I am dealing with a gitbook issue, so this revised text is not yet live on the book website.The Knowledge LoopAlready today knowledge has made possible something extraordinary: by means of the innovations of the Industrial Age we can, in principle, meet everyone’s basic needs. But we cannot stop here. We need to generate additional knowledge to solve the problems we h...

NOTE: Today’s excerpt from World After Capital dives deeper into human knowledge and why it is so powerful.The Power of KnowledgeHave you watched television recently? Eaten food that had been stored in a refrigerator? Accessed the Internet? Played games on your smartphone? Driven in a car? These are all things that billions of people around the world have access to and often use daily (there are over 2 billion smartphone users). Many of us take these capabilities for granted and rarely do we ...

NOTE: Today’s excerpt from World After Capital dives deeper into human knowledge and why it is so powerful.The Power of KnowledgeHave you watched television recently? Eaten food that had been stored in a refrigerator? Accessed the Internet? Played games on your smartphone? Driven in a car? These are all things that billions of people around the world have access to and often use daily (there are over 2 billion smartphone users). Many of us take these capabilities for granted and rarely do we ...

Ok, so technically it is Thursday, but here is the latest Uncertainty Wednesday post. Today I want to draw a second important conclusion that follows from the post about the pervasiveness of uncertainty and last week’s post about the fundamental unknowability of your alternative lives: There is no fundamentally safe path through life. Stuff can and will go wrong, with varying degrees of bad consequences (of course, by the same token you can also have upside surprises, but we will leave those ...

Ok, so technically it is Thursday, but here is the latest Uncertainty Wednesday post. Today I want to draw a second important conclusion that follows from the post about the pervasiveness of uncertainty and last week’s post about the fundamental unknowability of your alternative lives: There is no fundamentally safe path through life. Stuff can and will go wrong, with varying degrees of bad consequences (of course, by the same token you can also have upside surprises, but we will leave those ...

There is a healthy debate going on now about the role of Twitter, Facebook, and others (Google, Apple, …) with regard to moderating speech on their platforms. Rather than writing something entirely new, I decided to go back and look at what I have written and whether my opinion has changed since then. As I did that I was happy to find that I have had a fairly consistent approach based on who has power. Over the years I have written a lot about keeping the government out of regulating content ...

There is a healthy debate going on now about the role of Twitter, Facebook, and others (Google, Apple, …) with regard to moderating speech on their platforms. Rather than writing something entirely new, I decided to go back and look at what I have written and whether my opinion has changed since then. As I did that I was happy to find that I have had a fairly consistent approach based on who has power. Over the years I have written a lot about keeping the government out of regulating content ...

After a six week hiatus I am resuming Uncertainty Wednesday. Much as I have done at varying points with my prior Tech Tuesday series, I have decided to head off in a different direction, at least for some time. Instead of the theoretical approach so far, I will focus more on the philosophy of living in a world full of uncertainty. How should we live our lives, make business and personal decisions, judge performance, etc. given pervasive uncertainty? My plan is roughly as follows, but I am ope...

After a six week hiatus I am resuming Uncertainty Wednesday. Much as I have done at varying points with my prior Tech Tuesday series, I have decided to head off in a different direction, at least for some time. Instead of the theoretical approach so far, I will focus more on the philosophy of living in a world full of uncertainty. How should we live our lives, make business and personal decisions, judge performance, etc. given pervasive uncertainty? My plan is roughly as follows, but I am ope...