Three Futures

Paradise, Hell, or Overrated?

The Inevitable

Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future

Kevin Kelly 2016 Bvtn 303.483 KEL

Skimmed.

Kevin Kelly consumes content, and writes about it. But what does he make?

Becoming Continuous upgrades are good
Cognifying Cheap ubiquitous AI replacing jobs with new jobs
Flowing Copying
Screening Screens are better than books
Accessing Subscription "replaces" ownership ( most people become renters )
Sharing most people work for free and collaborating (on what? ephemera? )
Filtering software for recommendations; "commodity attention"
Remixing the combination of ideas. That is indeed a path to some inventions ... but rarely physical ones.
Interacting VR, gesture-driven gadgets
Tracking
Questioning
Beginning

More Later

Missing from the index: savings, investment, insight, invention (except of crime), discipline, contemplation, charity, peacemaking, freedom, reputation, honor, responsibility ... This is perpetual adolescence, not a future for adults.

You Are Not A Gadget

A Manifesto

Jaron Lanier 2010 Bvtn 303.4833 LAN

Skimmed.

Jaron Lanier makes music, and worries about free content. But when sorta-OK content can be created almost for free by a surplus of willing providers, and copying is free, why pay for more?

In 1930s Africa, Karen Blixen (Isak Dinesen) writes of illiterate natives paying semiliterate letter writers to write letters and read them. In a rich educated society, those who want to can write and read their own letters. Certainly there are superb letter writers and discerning readers available, but why should we hire them? Perhaps an even richer society will dispense with professional musicians and actors and writers, and (aided by some technology) democratize the creation of vast quantities of personalized entertainment.

More later

FutureHype

The Myths of Technology Change

Bob Seidensticker 3006 Bvtn 303.483 SEI

Read cover to cover, this places hype about future technological marvels in context.