Exponential
technology and information are
poised to transform the world, but can the human species muster the
social will to let that happen? 
To date we’ve created amazingly fuel-efficient cars, robust water
purifiers, revolutionary stem cell -based therapies, and
better, cheaper light bulbs, all of which have met with great
social and political resistance, greatly slowing the pace of their
spread. This has caused many to scratch their heads in confusion,
others to curse up at the sky, and some to chuckle at the naivete
of their fellow meme-monkeys.
Take for example Dean Kamen, the
Edison of our time who invented compact kidney dialysis, the
Segway human
transporter and most recently a water purifier that could save
upwards of 5 million lives in under-developed nations if widely
deployed. Kamen’s innovations have repeatedly encountered social
barriers, causing him to proclaim that creating new technology is
the easy part.
“I’m disappointed with every project I ever do. Because you work
on something for years that you think should take hours. You
finally get it done and you think, ‘Now the world’s going to be a
better place,’ expressed Kamen in a recent Newsweek article,
“Then you find out that as fast as technology moves, people move at
the same slow, cautious pace they always did. If anything, people
have gotten more cautious, more afraid of change, more skeptical,
more cynical.”
Sloth-like technology diffusion is nothing new. The late great
Everett Rogers
taught us that all technologies except for Interactive
Communication Technologies (ICTs) spread at an amazingly slow rate
due to cultural barriers. Seasoned futurists all point out a
consistent bias in favor of overly ambitious predictions and
sternly warn their fellow prognosticators to avoid similar
mistakes. And now Kamen has joined the ranks of those with enough
experience to back up the notion. (cont.)
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One of the themes on Future Blogger and for fans of accelerating
change in general is life extension and the prospect of relative
immortality. 
We covered this topic in our very first interview with
Aubrey de Grey and Dick
Pelletier has addressed it many times. One of the core
arguments in this debate is that, regardless of increasing life
expectancy rates, humans have an upper limit. This is probably best
categorized as the Hayflick
limit argument . That there is a maximum number of years that a
human can live and if nothing gets to you before reaching that
threshhold, when you do, that’s it – it’s over. That limit is about
120 years of age, with the oldest documented lifespan being the 122
attained by Jean Calumet
Increases in life expectancy are ultimately discounted by this
assumption. In response to Jack Uldrich’s
recent piece on the prospect of living to 1000, John
Frink correctly points out that the radical increase in life
expectancy that developed societies have experienced over the last
170 years or so (roughly doubling) is largely due to advances in
health/medicine and hygiene. He cites the vast reduction in the
infant mortality rate as being of particular note. But that is more
reflective of initial gains and merely part of a larger trend at
work. (cont.)
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By Jack Uldrich
Cross-posted from www.jumpthecurve.net
One of my favorite quotes comes from Kurt Yeager who once said:
“In periods of profound change the most dangerous thing is to
incrementalize yourself into the future.” I was reminded of
this quote because although I often speak to businesses about the
future of technology, I frequently encounter push back from
executives who are mostly interested in identifying ways to
incrementally improve their businesses or products. In short, they
are looking for improvements in the range of 10%. 
I constantly remind them, however, that we are no longer living
in an era of linear growth – a 10% improvement might have been
sufficient to keep them competitive in the past, but it is no
strategy if they desire to be in business in 10 years. To achieve
that goal, they must be on the lookout for how 10X improvements
will transform their business. (Ray Kurzweil, in this excellent editorial , also
emphasizes this point.)
To this end, I recently came across a couple of articles that
highlight this point. The first addresses how a number of researchers are looking to increase data storage by “a
factor of a hundred.” It is difficult to contemplate how a 100X
improvement in data storage might transform education, media,
advertising and even health care, but it is imperative that
professionals in these fields start thinking along these lines
immediately. (cont.)
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Jack Uldrich
Cross-posted from www.jumpthecurve.net
When Charles Darwin first proposed writing his landmark book on
evolution, The Origins of Species, his editor suggested
writing a book on pigeons because, in his words, “Everyone is
interested in pigeons.” Fortunately, Darwin chose to ignore the
advice. I am reminded of the story because even though Darwin’s
theory was proposing only that species make modest, incremental
changes over long periods of time, it was – and in many circles
still is – a revolutionary idea. 
What then happens if evolution is not just incremental in nature
but rather exponential? That, too, is a revolutionary idea –
especially since it could impact us within our lifetimes.
Well, we are now approaching a time when this exponential theory
of evolution will be put to the test.
If you accept the notion of evolution, you will agree that the
earliest life appeared on earth approximately 4 billion years ago.
Complex cellular organisms showed up 2 billion years ago, and the
first multicellular organism about 1 billion years ago. The first
reptiles and dinosaurs made their appearance 300 million years ago;
the first primates 40 million years ago; homo sapiens appeared
160,000 years ago; Cro-Magnon man 40,000 years ago; and modern
civilization as we know it began about 10,000 years ago.
Thinking about this much progress over such an extended period
of time is difficult. Years ago, Carl Sagan, the famed astronomer,
offered up a “cosmic calendar” to make such progress more
comprehensible to the layperson. He asked that they imagine the
entire history of the universe as being compressed into a single
year. (cont.)
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It is notoriously difficult to comprehend the compound growth
potential of exponential forces driving innovations in computing,
nanotech, and solar power, but pro futurist and regular future
blogger Jack
Uldrich does a great job explaining this counter-intuitive
phenomenon in his latest book Jump the Curve . Therefore I was
thrilled to come across this short & sweet video synopsis of
exponential potential by the man himself:
By employing comprehensible metaphors and gradually relating
accelerating change to our lives, Jack succinctly and effectively
gets the idea that “the really big change is still ahead of us”
across (no small feat). So if you’re looking for a link to send to
your non Accel-aware buddies, co-workers or relatives, this is
it.
By Jack Uldrich
In my new book, Jump the Curve, I make the case that one
strategy for “jumping the curve” and helping your organization
innovate into the future is to “develop a future bias.”
A future bias is the opposite of “hindsight bias” and hindsight
bias is, quite simply, the idea that after an event occurs
most people take credit for believing that the idea was
pre-ordained and that they “knew” it would happen. For instance, by
1920, most citizens claimed they knew that man would “always” fly.
Unfortunately, this isn’t true. Most people were completely
blind-sided by human flight. Lord Kelvin, the world’s most renowned
scientist claimed in 1899 that “Heavier than air machines are
impossible,” and no less an authority than the New York
Times wrote in an editorial in December 1903 – just two weeks
before the Wright Brother’s historic first flight – that human
flight would not be achievable for “1 to 10 million years.” My
guess is that if a poll had been commissioned at the beginning of
the turn of the 20th century the overwhelming consensus among the
American public would have subscribed to similar opinions or,
alternatively, something along the lines of “If God had intended
man to fly, He would have given him wings.”
In the future, as a result of exponential advances in technology
(see above chart,
source – Collapsing Geography), many things that sound
impossible today are, in fact, not only going to be possible they
are going to be commonplace. Therefore, in order to embrace this
future, it will be necessary to think exponentially – and not
linearly – about the future. As Ray Kurzweil says in his book,
The
Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology, in the 21st
century humanity will experience the equivalent of 20,000 years of
change (using the 20th century’s rate of change). What he is trying
to do in an indirect way is to get people to develop a future bias.
(cont.)
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A variety of thinkers have converged on the notion that humans rely on what is essentially "software" to build our simulation(s) of the world around us.
Abstractions Driving the Flynn Effect: Cognitive historian James Flynn attributes the steady rise in IQ over the past 100+ years (known as the Flynn Effect) to better human abstraction abilities, not to any significant increase in physical brain power: 
Our brains at conception are no better than they ever were. But in response to the evolving demands of society, we can attack a far wider range of problems than our ancestors could. It is like the evolution of the motor car in the 20th century. Are automotive engineers any brighter than they were 100 years ago? – no. But have cars evolved to meet modern demands for more speed and entertainment while we drive (radios, tape decks, etc) – yes. Our brains are no better but our minds have altered as dramatically as our cars.
Flynn's observations line up nicely with both the concept of memes & temes advanced by Dawkins and Blackmore, as well as philosopher Terence McKenna's theory that culture is in fact an operating system.
In other words, the abstract thought frameworks that we drill into our children during critical periods, including math, science, biology, maps, businesses, social networks, new language, etc, are in fact a form of software that affects our IQ and ability to navigate the world.
This simple yet powerful abstraction (npi) is a critical paradigm shift in our definition of what it means to be human and opens the door to additional metaphors for social, economic and intelligence studies.
Particularly intriguing is the question of how quickly and/or regularly we (individuals, groups, societies, nations) experience software upgrades, akin to loading the latest Windows or Linux versions.
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By Jack Uldrich
Cross-posted from www.jumpthecurve.net
As a result of my new book, I have been asked on a number of
occasions to describe what I mean by the title: “jump the curve.”
It is a fair question and when answering it I like to recall the
words of that old sage, Albert Einstein, who once said that if a
person – especially a scientist or technologist – couldn’t explain
what he or she was working on to an 8-year old child then that
person was either a fraud or a charlatan.
It’s an excellent test and because I have both an 8 year-old
daughter and a 6 year-old son, I decided to put the topic of my new
book to this test. Liking a challenge, I decided to see if my
youngest child could comprehend the idea of “jumping the
curve.”
Without using an example in the book, I asked my son, who has
yet to lose any of his teeth, whether he would rather receive a
single dollar for every one of his 20 baby teeth or if he would
instead prefer to receive a single cent for his first tooth and
then have that penny double for the next 19 teeth?
Being fairly good at numbers and knowing that his dad often
likes to trick him, my son selected the second option—the penny
doubling. (cont.)
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