From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
Technology claims to be showing us a mirror of what was already present in society but in reality, technology is a funhouse mirror with a feedback loop that's engineered to show us the most egregious parts of society that are better at keeping our attention.
As humans, we've evolved in a world where the pace of change was slow. Our minds are not structured for the pace of rapid change that we're seeing and, increasingly, will experience. One way that we deal with the accelerating rate of change is by sort of riding on top of that tsunami of change rather than being crushed by it.
I learned that even if I lost every limb, my core identity – a hardworking, competitive, fun-loving person – would remain intact. My physical abilities as an amputee changed, but not my fundamental self. It was a powerful realization: my true essence is untouchable.
You will never find opportunities in your comfort zone, you have to push yourself. You have to be hungry and willing to go into the unknown. The unknown is where you will always find opportunity.
AI tools are incredibly good at replicating that. If I share something, they know how to give empathy and validation immediately; they know how to close the loop. And here's the tension: humans aren't practicing the art of trust with each other, or even with themselves, enough. Yet they're outsourcing those trust loops to digital tools almost instantly.
What binds exceptional creators together is their relentless effort. Regardless of the challenges or roadblocks along the way, these people persist and find ways to overcome obstacles.
Deep fakes, are probably the most chilling example to me of it, as if you take a politician's face and you use deep fake technology to slightly change it in ways that are imperceptible to the politician and to you, the observer, but that make the face just change enough to make your brain trust and like that image of that person.
Don't become paralysed by anticipating the unexpected. It does not pay to be worried about failure. If your mind is crowded with thoughts of what could happen, you will never achieve your best performance.
One is: Do I trust you with my feelings? Do I think that you're going to be a listener who is non-judgmental, or do I think you're going to judge me—'Marc is weak because he's anxious,' or 'Marc is a man and he's feeling sad; dudes don't feel sad.' So if I think you're going to judge me for my feelings, I'm going to be much more guarded about whether or not I express them.
It might feel—if you haven't yet learned the rules of these hidden markets—that the outcomes are based on luck, chance, or things beyond your control, but you actually have a lot more agency in them than you think.
Relationships are an emotional exchange hub. We bestow energy upon one another, help each other de-stress, and ignite joy in each other's lives. However, we must acknowledge that the digital realm filters out a significant portion of our emotional bandwidth.
Consciousness is any kind of subjective experience whatsoever. It's what goes away when you fall into a dreamless sleep or go into general anesthesia, and what comes back when you wake-up or come around.