From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
There was a significant psychological barrier; people were afraid of making mistakes and ruining their work. But when they saw this engaging, simple game on the screen, they understood what to do and felt successful. It broke down that fear and made people more comfortable with computers.
It's shocking how quickly this innovation [the internet] has become woven into the foundation of everything that we do. In just 30 years, the internet and the world wide web have gone from being generally unknown to consumers to being involved in every aspect of life, and necessary for almost everything. There is no healthy society without a healthy internet.
The idea that education can reduce resistance to innovation is often informed by the misguided view that people oppose new technologies because of ignorance. This is not the case.
We need a new Manhattan Project to rebuild trust in a world that's been deliberately attacked at its cultural foundation. This is not about state actors nuking each other's electricity grids but attacking each other's trust and cultural infrastructure which is just as critical.
Despite huge and on-going technological advances in electronic transactions technologies, it has remained surprisingly durable, even if its major uses seem to be buried in the world underground and illegal economy.
The defining feature of our era is that the next generation are bona fide digital natives. They're backed by technology, making them tech-empowered. Thanks to social media, they can sway vast audiences in mere moments. They possess a crystal-clear agenda about the environment, justice, equality, and beyond just financial markets, they're reshaping social and political narratives.
I acknowledge the monumental impact of the convergence of games with computers, leading to the creation of video games. This fusion marked a significant cultural explosion, underscoring the importance of games in the context of modern technology.
This access has significantly altered what individuals and communities can accomplish, challenging traditional power dynamics. It's essentially a democratic revolution, wresting control from the conventional gatekeepers like intelligence agencies and the media.
New media conducive to fostering participation can indeed increase freedoms… just as the printing press, the postal service, the telegraph and the telephone did before.
We are a dark-deprived society in this modern era, and we need darkness for the release of melatonin for healthy sleep. Without melatonin, we will not sleep sufficiently.
The internet has a natural pressure to bubble us up and vulcanise society, it makes it less comfortable for us to be around people who think differently, and more comfortable to be around people who think the same as us.
I think the biggest technological innovation that will impact Wikia – and the Internet more broadly – is the continuing progress we are seeing in reducing the costs of communication technology, such that it will reach the entire planet in relatively short order. Just think about what happens when the next billion people come online, and the next two billion after that.