An experiment in light expression

This July, I finished reading two excellent sci-fi pieces – Rudy Rucker’s Postsingular and Cory Doctorow’s sci-fi graphic novel – Futuristic Tales of the Here and Now. Both novels are freely downloadable from the above links. (Quite a stellar business model - fans like me are very likely to buy most of their books at some point).

Both books have been as refreshing as a splash of cold fresh spring water - made me feel how constrained my own vision of the future may have been. They also made me reflect on the smallness of the typical techno-utopian vision for the future shared by technologists and designers alike.

Postsingular is a novel breathtaking in its expanse of thought and scale of execution. You will find nano-scale intelligence and malintent, Californian street kids and geeks figuring out the Planck frontier, crossing between dimensions, futuristic interfaces and political marketing and a sweet twist on the traditional view of Nature and Gaia and post-human intelligence. I’m a fan and am waiting eagerly for Rucker’s next novel ‘Hylozoic’.

I also mentioned my inspiration via Rucker and Postsingular in a recent presentation on Design Inspirations from Science Fiction at Dcamp 2.0 Bangalore which I recently organized through UPA Bangalore.

I just finished reading Douglas Rushkoff’s “Get Back in the Box” - a very relevant, pragmatic yet inspiring ride across the Innovation landscape. I highly recommend the book for anyone in the business of design or business innovation.

The world needs more renaissance folks like Douglas Rushkoff who describe a very possible alternate future of sharing, collaboration, meaningful work and workplaces, open source democracy and business, and the essence of the new renaissance we are in.

I finally finished reading John Brockman’s ‘What is your Dangerous Idea’. This book is a compilation of essays by some very interesting contemporary thinkers and doers on important topics ranging from society, technology, media, quantum physics, computing, the nature of self…you get the drift.

All the essays were in response to John’s 2006 Edge question:

WHAT IS YOUR DANGEROUS IDEA?

“The history of science is replete with discoveries that were considered socially, morally, or emotionally dangerous in their time; the Copernican and Darwinian revolutions are the most obvious. What is your dangerous idea? An idea you think about (not necessarily one you originated) that is dangerous not because it is assumed to be false, but because it might be true?”

Here, summarized below are my favorite 13 from the book with links to their brilliant, smart, and often contrarian thinkers:

1. The differences between humans and nonhumans are quantitative, not qualitative - Irene Pepperberg

..a humanistic (notice the bias in this word itself), ethical and scientifically rigorous take on how close we are to our nonhumans ancestors and fellow beings…

2. Groups of people may differ genetically in their Average talents and temperaments -

Steven Pinker

..a bold and important take on the genetic basis of among other things, talents and attitudes, and a reminder that this does not justify individual discrimination…

3. When will the Internet become aware of Itself? - Terrence Sejnowski

..a savvy comparison of the neuronal capacity and bandwidth of the human brain and the evolving Internet…

4. Mind is a Universally Distributed Quality - Rudy Rucker

… notes on panpsychism (or every object has a mind), how everything is a computation, and how this may mean fundamentally different interactions with the everyday world…

5. Zero Parental Influence - Judith Rich Harris

…a fundamental turning upside-down of the worldview that parental influence ultimately determines how children turn out to be, and how incorrect the assumption may be…

6. The Greatest Story ever told - Carolyn C Porco

…a striking comparison of what makes people relate to religion so warmly and science so coldly, a call for more ceremony, ritual and celebration of the science that enables life..

7. What are people well informed About in the Information Age - David Gelernter

..a word of caution that people today are far less interested in science, history, philosophy and how things work than our hands on and curious and well rounded forefathers…

8. There aren’t enough Minds to House the population explosion of Memes - Daniel Dennett

…a startling reminder that in the info-glut we live in and the eroding value of information itself, memes will compete harder to stick to the limited human bandwidth on the planet…

9. Anti-Gravity: Chaos Theory in an all-too-practical sense - Kai Krause

…a ground up, practical and contrarian take on how surprising it is that people actually live, get things done and push the world ahead with all that can possibly go wrong…

10. Runaway Consumerism explains the Fermi Paradox - Geoffrey Miller

…takes a shot at the eternal question (reframed by Fermi) ‘If there are intelligent aliens out there, why haven’t they contacted us yet’. The Answer? Perhaps they’re too busy playing video games, listening to iPods and lost in cyber-junk…

11. No more Teacher’s dirty looks - Roger C. Schank

…a good essay on the questionable nature of formal education peppered with great quotes such as the one by Mark Twain “Children leave school with a bellyful of words and no idea how to actually do something”…

12. Telling more than we can know - Richard Nisbett

…in the tradition of behavioral economists and sociologists, a reminder of how biased we indeed are the surprising findings from research on ‘rational’ human behavior…

13. A Twenty-Four-Hour period of Absolute Solitude - Leo M. Chalupa

…a reminder of something the Ancients knew well – there is nothing like true solitude to set the mind right, recalibrate priorities and become aware of what really matters….

After months of seeing it on my bookshelf, I finally finished reading Steve Denning’s compelling book Squirrels Inc. tonight on the use of stories to transform organizations and communicate, share and put into action core values for the future. If you have two hours to spare, I would recommend reading this book especially if you are in the business of leading people in any capacity.

Unlike other rather simplistic (even if effective) books like “Who moved my &@#$&* cheese”, Squirrels Inc. uses the story of an imaginary company (Squirrels Inc. which is in the business of storing nuts for squirrels) and its motley group of executives (Diana, the up and coming exec who has a new future business model to sell, Mocha the expert in diffusing rumors, the bartender in the neighboring bar who is sort of an anchor pointing the story…) to illustrate the different kinds of stories that you could use in different contexts (the springboard story, the story to quell rumors, the story for getting people to work together, stories for values, actions, visions of the future…) while telling the rather interesting and often tumultuous story (at one point the central protagonist gets chucked out of Squirrels Inc) of the squirrels themselves.

My major takeaway from this book: Stories are a very powerful medium of expressing, sharing, and getting resonance on concepts and ways of being and ways of doing things. I should seed my office and team space with interesting story books and of course more comic book art!

A few days back I finally finished the Black Swan - a rigorous and empirically skeptical (and darkly humorous) take on randomness, stock markets, experts, and life. I enjoyed the contents of the book as much as trying to read into the genius mind of Nassim Nicholas Taleb - a practitioner with sound footing in theory. Mr. Taleb is a genius no less and also bold and relentless with little tolerance for fools and financial ‘experts’.