Issue #34: Miseducation, Cities and 'Team Human'.
Some truth from a podcast I listened to a few weeks ago has stayed with me. Paraphrasing the guest on this podcast, he suggested that
if every month or couple of months you sat across from someone you’ve invested in or have an interest in and you questioned this person on why they didn’t look better or dressed better or why this person hasn’t grown taller by a few more inches since the last time you saw them, you would be considered mad. Mad for having unrealistic expectations. So why do we make this ask of businesses and no one questions the madness?
You have to believe that businesses are organisms for this to seem unrealistic. I happen to believe businesses are organisms.
We make the same ask of cities - there is the saying that if your city is not growing, it is dying - and it’s a mad ask. Because cities are organisms. For the simple reason that cities (and businesses) are made up of humans, organisms themselves, and they take on the organic nature of the people who dwell (and work) in them. But then we ask them to do things that are not of their nature. How long do we think we can do this?
All the above will read like madness to you if you do not believe that businesses or cities are organisms. I can’t help you much if that’s the case…
Articles
Have you ever wondered why you only see one or two banana brands in your grocery store? And we might soon lose them.
Personalized learning doesn’t seem to be working in one Kansas town. I wrote this essay (longread) last year as my frustration with the school system boiled over. It might not be working across the US.
Information rich, insights poor. Is the information you are consuming ‘useful and expiring’? Useful and permanent? Irrelevant to you but relevant to an asset? Knowing is important.
Kurt Vonnegut suggested that there are only 6 main arcs in storytelling. AI confirmed it in 2016.
Old TED talk on Why societies collapse by the author of Guns, Germs and Steel.
Cities aren’t a problem to be fixed, as tech companies seem to think in their search for business models.
(h/t Kyle Westaway) Apparently, that cotton tote bag, the one you get your conference swag in and carry around to shop? Yes, that one. It might actually be worse for the environment than the plastic bag it’s supposed to replace.
To grow an AI first company, be less of an AI first company.
Did you know most scientists will oblige and send a free copy if you ask them for their research? The alternative is to either pay an ever increasing subscription fee or, up until recently, get if from science’s pirate queen (longread).
Working on a tech startup? Might be time to read the ethical OS toolkit put together by the Omidyar network.
Books
In a few years, we will look back and realize the voice of Douglas Rushkoff was the prescient voice we needed to listen to as technology tore apart our social and political fabric. With ’Present Shock’, ’Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus’ and now ’Team Human’, where he reaffirms the need for community. It’s a shame we need to still reaffirm humans. Pair this one with 'your attention was never the endgame’.
I’m late to this party but ’Whiplash’, by Joi Ito and Jeff Howe, provides the most useful compass for our fast changing and thoroughly confusing times. Ignore the MIT 'ads’ and be sure to take notes while you read this one. Especially the 'PS’ sections at the end, which in themselves could make a separate fantastic book.
Jan Gehl’s ’Cities for People’ is less a book and more a philosophy. You don’t read it as much as you reference it time and time again to remind yourself of what we are getting wrong as we rush into making our cities smart with technology we don’t quite understand. Especially as we emphasize efficiency at the expense of people and realize we haven’t factored in the ’accidents’ of these tools.
Hope you have a great month!
Best
Seyi