Media Theorist Douglas Rushkoff explains how the need for rapid corporate and economic growth has always been great for aristocracy, but bad for everyone else. My notes (PDF) from Mr. Rushkoff’s book, Throwing Rocks At the Google Bus. Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus – Douglas Rushkoff
TED Talk: Geography is no longer destiny
Geopolitical futurist Parag Khanna foresees a world in which megacities, supply chains and connective technologies redraw the map away from states and borders. He sees geography and connectivity fusing into what he calls “connectography.” He goes so far as to say “connectivity, not sovereignty, has become the organizing principle of the human species.”
Mr. Khanna predicts “we will build more infrastructure in the next 40 years, than we have in the past 4,000 years.” And “by 2030, more than two thirds of the world’s population will live in cities.
I really liked the part about redrawing the map away from “states and borders.” I was born in Missouri and have lived here most of my life but it’s not something I brag about. I have no pride in this chunk of land or the people who live here for that matter. And they — we — are probably no better or worse than people who live in other “states.” It’s just that the idea of thinking of oneself as a “Missourian” or a “Southerner” or by any other geographic designation seems archaic.
I have much more in common with the people I’ve connected with online than the people in my neighborhood or city. Shame on me, maybe, but there it is. It’s connections I’ve come to value, not geography. This TED Talk made me hopeful. If you watch it, I hope it does the same for you.
Lucy
iPhone SE: Something smaller in my pants
I purchased the iPhone 6 in September of 2014 and traded it in for the 6S a year later. Now, just seven months later, I’m trading up/down/over for the new iPhone SE. The review below touches on most of my reasons. I always liked the smaller versions of the iPhone but they kept putting must-have (for me) features in the larger phones. With the SE, I can get those features in a smaller phone better suited to my Trump-like hands. But the change that sealed the deal for me was putting the on-off switch back on the top of the phone… WHERE IT BELONGS! A day doesn’t go buy that I don’t accidentally turn my phone off while adjusting the volume (see image below).
I thought the days of smaller (perfect) phones were forever gone. Thank you, Apple. Here’s some more money. This review mirrors my thinking on this.
Become What You Are by Alan Watts
Excerpts from Alan Watts’ Become What You Are:
Though your thoughts may run into the past or the future they cannot escape the present moment.
A man does not really begin to be alive until he has lost himself, until he has released the anxious grasp which he normally holds upon his life, his property, his reputation and position.
The one important result of any serious attempt at self-renunciation or self-acceptance is the humiliating discovery that it is impossible. […] The people who have quite genuinely died to themselves make no claims of any kind to their own part in the process.
Our attempts to stand above (our) emotions and control them are the emotions themselves at play.
Your everyday mind is the Tao. Continue reading