Online / Offline | No Mercy / No Malice
I celebrated my 50th birthday last weekend (just go with it). It’s a milestone and an opportunity to reflect, which I do … too much. In the past 50 years, there may have been more technological innovation and disruption than in the previous 500. The year my parents divorced, I spent the summer with my dad in Chicago. On weekends, we’d journey to his downtown office, where I could use the WATS line (ask a Boomer) to call my mom. Long distance calls were $4/minute. Well worth the hour long train ride.
If the cycle time of innovation keeps contracting, we may register even greater changes in the next 15 years. The net-net of a jump to lightspeed in innovation is a mix of unprecedented prosperity and danger, as godlike technology will collide with paleolithic instincts and medieval institutions.
Sixty-six million years ago, an asteroid the size of Everest slammed into Earth. The impact unleashed an apocalyptic chain of events that changed the global ecosystem, extinguishing dinosaurs and setting the stage for Homo habilis (i.e., us). When a natural ecosystem changes, predators and prey adapt, or they die.
