Sunday, December 18, 2011
A remarkable talk by Mark Pagel.
A tiny number of ideas can go a long way, as we've seen. And the Internet makes that more and more likely. What's happening is that we might, in fact, be at a time in our history where we're being domesticated by these great big societal things, such as Facebook and the Internet. We're being domesticated by them, because fewer and fewer and fewer of us have to be innovators to get by. And so, in the cold calculus of evolution by natural selection, at no greater time in history than ever before, copiers are probably doing better than innovators. Because innovation is extraordinarily hard. My worry is that we could be moving in that direction, towards becoming more and more sort of docile copiers.
If you're scrambling for time, I recommend reading the transcript. Pagel posits a thought provoking argument, the evidence of which you 'll find within your own environment.
A related article appeared in The New York Times, earlier this year.
Very few people discuss ideas, fewer still, come up with newer ones. The what if quotient of our generation has suddenly plunged.
Television, print media, movies and books don't seem to be helping either.
I don't know if it's to do with information overload, shorter attention span, lack of incentive, lack of desire to engage in meaningful dialogue or a killer combination of all of these.
But it sure is unnerving to be moving towards zombieland.
A tiny number of ideas can go a long way, as we've seen. And the Internet makes that more and more likely. What's happening is that we might, in fact, be at a time in our history where we're being domesticated by these great big societal things, such as Facebook and the Internet. We're being domesticated by them, because fewer and fewer and fewer of us have to be innovators to get by. And so, in the cold calculus of evolution by natural selection, at no greater time in history than ever before, copiers are probably doing better than innovators. Because innovation is extraordinarily hard. My worry is that we could be moving in that direction, towards becoming more and more sort of docile copiers.
If you're scrambling for time, I recommend reading the transcript. Pagel posits a thought provoking argument, the evidence of which you 'll find within your own environment.
A related article appeared in The New York Times, earlier this year.
Very few people discuss ideas, fewer still, come up with newer ones. The what if quotient of our generation has suddenly plunged.
Television, print media, movies and books don't seem to be helping either.
I don't know if it's to do with information overload, shorter attention span, lack of incentive, lack of desire to engage in meaningful dialogue or a killer combination of all of these.
But it sure is unnerving to be moving towards zombieland.
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