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What if The Future Looks Exactly Like The Past? | Digital Tonto
In his 1954 essay, "The Question Concerning Technology," German philosopher Martin Heidegger described technology as akin to art, in that it reveals truths about the nature of the world, brings them forth, and puts them to some specific use. In the process, human nature and its capacity for good and evil are also revealed. He offers the example of a hydroelectric dam, which uncovers a river’s energy and channels it into electricity. In much the same sense, the breakthrough technologies of today, like the large language models that power our AI chatbots, the forces of entanglement and superposition that drive quantum computing, as well as technologies like CRISPR and mRNA that fuel tomorrow’s miracle cures, were not “built,” so much as they are revealed. In another essay, "Building Dwelling Thinking," Heidegger explains that what we build for the world depends on how we interpret what it means to live in it. The relationship is, of course, reflexive. What we build depends on how we wish to dwell and that act, in and of itself, shapes how we build further. As we go through yet another hype cycle, we need to keep in mind that we’re not just building for the future, but also for the present, which will look very much like the past. While it is, of course, possible that we are on the brink of some utopian age in which we unlock so much prosperity that drudgery, poverty and pain become distant memories, the most likely scenario is that most people will continue to struggle. The truth is that innovation should serve people, not the other way around. To truly build for the world, you need to understand something about how people live in it. Breakthrough innovation happens when people who understand technical solutions are able to collaborate with people who understand real-world problems. Just like in the past, that’s what we need more of now.
How Tribal Instincts Drive Change | Digital Tonto
The S-curve has become so ingrained in the lore of innovation and change that we scarcely think about where it came from or what drives it. We know that change starts slowly, with a few enthusiasts experimenting with something new. If it gains traction, adoption can accelerate exponentially before the market saturates and levels off. Yet Michael Morris’s work on tribal signals can help us understand the original research in new and interesting ways. We’ve long known that early adopters tend to venture outside their communities to explore. But when we understand the peer instinct and prevalence signals, we can begin to see how the structure of our social networks affects what we can achieve. In a similar vein, understanding the hero instinct and prestige signals allows us to accelerate adoption by celebrating success stories and telling them well. Leveraging the ancestor instinct and precedent signals can help us frame new things in terms that honor and respect traditions that people already value. At its root, innovation is less about technology and disruption than it is about people. Good ideas—even great ones—fail all the time. If you have an idea you care about and want it to succeed, you can’t ignore the basic instincts that drive human nature. You need to harness them and let them work for you instead of against you.
This Is How You Bring Down A Dictator | Digital Tonto
In the early 20th century, the sociologist Max Weber noted that the sweeping industrialization taking place would transform how societies worked. As small operations gave way to large institutions with clearly defined roles and responsibilities, leaders would need to rely less on tradition and charisma, and more on organization and rationality. Today, autocrats work to reverse this process by undermining institutions and bending them to their will. They erode norms, subvert laws and replace them with whims and corrupt incentive structures that value loyalty over competence. Objectives that serve the people are replaced with those that serve the leader and enhance his power. Successful democracy movements do exactly the opposite. They focus on shared values to strengthen societal norms. The Solidarity movement in Poland, for example, leveraged strikes to build trade unions and inspired the Catholic to intervene. In this way, they mobilized people to influence institutions, which amplified and reinforced broader change. In the end, dictatorships always rot from within. Their need to place loyalty over competence hollows out a society's capabilities and saps prosperity and morale. As pressures build, insiders defect and key pillars that support the regime begin to collapse or switch sides. An autocrat who has lost control of institutions can no longer wield power. What’s probably most important is to understand that opposing a dictator is not about playing politics but about strengthening a society, its institutions, and the norms that sustain them. Successful movements are never rooted in a particular person, program or policy, but in the shared values that create a common purpose and mission. There’s no need to make it up as you go along. There’s an established playbook for doing this. The first step is to start following it.
Why We Fail to Adapt — And The 3 Hidden Forces Holding You Back | Digital Tonto
There is probably no better example of institutional resistance to change than the story of Ignaz Semmelweis. In the 1840s, as a young doctor at Vienna General Hospital, he discovered that simple handwashing could dramatically reduce infections and save lives. Yet the medical establishment rejected the idea outright. Millions died needlessly before the germ theory of disease gained prominence two decades later. Since then, the term Semmelweis effect has been coined to describe tendency for institutions to reject new evidence when it contradicts established beliefs or paradigms. Sadly, it appears not much has changed in the last 120 years. It continues to persist. Viewed through the lens of synaptic, cultural, and cost effects, the story begins to make more sense. Doctors’ mental models were shaped by the miasma theory, which held that “bad air” made people sick. High-status physicians felt insulted by the suggestion that they themselves were spreading disease and reinforced the existing model. System-wide reforms would have also created significant costs and disruption. So we can’t just blame institutions. We also need to look at Semmelweis, who was an ineffective advocate for his ideas. Rather than identifying why the medical establishment was unwilling to change, he simply railed against it, sending nasty letters to prominent doctors. They closed ranks against him and things ended badly. He would die in an insane asylum, ironically of an infection he contracted under care. If you truly believe in change, passion and good intentions aren’t nearly enough. You need to be an effective advocate. That starts with understanding why we fail to adapt and addressing the barriers that hold us back.