Categories: Articles

Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #238

Is there one link, story, picture or thought that you saw online this week that you think somebody you know must see?

My friends: Alistair Croll (BitCurrent, Year One Labs, GigaOM, Human 2.0, Solve For Interesting, the author of Complete Web Monitoring, Managing Bandwidth: Deploying QOS in Enterprise Networks and Lean Analytics), Hugh McGuire (PressBooks, LibriVox, iambik and co-author of Book: A Futurist’s Manifesto) and I decided that every week the three of us are going to share one link for one another (for a total of six links) that each individual feels the other person “must see”.

Check out these six links that we’re recommending to one another:

The Dominant Life Form in the Cosmos Is Probably Superintelligent Robots – Motherboard. “Watching Star Wars decades after its release, it always bugged me that there were humans in the spaceships. I mean, put a pilot–even a Jedi–in an X-wing, and you need costly life support; you need windows; and it can’t corner very well without squishing the passenger to a pulp. If every smart civilization makes sentient AI a couple of centuries after it invents the radio–and can then design purpose-built machines without the constraints of flesh–the universe is probably full of smart robots. So why haven’t we seen them? ‘You don’t spend a whole lot of time hanging out reading books with your goldfish. On the other hand, you don’t really want to kill the goldfish, either, says Seth Shostak. But as one astute commenter observed, ‘Maybe not, but one thing you surely do to that goldfish is capture it, remove it from its natural habitat, and most importantly of all – isolate it completely from other species except those already in your menagerie. Maybe that’s why we haven’t made definitive contact yet – we’re in a fishbowl and lack the level of awareness to realize it.'” (Alistair for Hugh).
What The World Values, In One Chart – Vox. “I’ve always found what makes us the same as interesting as what makes us different. The Lewis Model of cultural types is a great example of how cultures exist on a spectrum, and why certain cultures tend to clash. So the World Values Survey, which tries to map how human values differ around the world, is a pretty daunting undertaking.” (Alistair for Mitch).
The Peripheral by William Gibson – A Glorious Ride Into The Future – The Guardian. “Mitch just sent me a note to remind me to send over my weekly links and I realized, I got nothing. Part of that is because I have been consumed by William Gibson‘s new novel, The Peripheral, the past few days. In broad strokes, it’s the story of some semi-pro gamers in about 2025 (I think), who get hired to do some gaming, only it turns out the game isn’t a game, but the future, some 70 years later. I was so confused by the beginning of the book that, at about chapter 50, I started alternating between the beginning of the book, and the second half — so reading: chapter 1, then chapter 51, chapter 2, then chapter 52… etc.” (Hugh for Alistair).
Clockwork City, Responsive City, Predictive City and Adjacent Incumbents – City Of Sound. “And, here is Dan Hill on the predictive/responsive city.” (Hugh for Mitch).
Block Chain 2.0: The Renaissance of Money – Wired. “I’ve been spending a lot of time trying to understand Block Chain. I don’t think that I totally ‘get it,’ but this article helped me, in a big way. As a marketing professional, I am often asked ‘what’s next?’… something tells me that Block Chain is much bigger than just Bitcoin, and that it could provide a very substantial clue as to what comes after the Internet, websites and e-commerce.” (Mitch for Alistair).
Why You Do Your Best Thinking In The Shower: Creativity & the “Incubation Period” – Open Culture. “I feel like a walking cliche, because I have had many a-ha moments while in the shower. In fact, if I’m dealing with pain or not allowing my mind to wander as I clean up in the morning, I find that I don’t have a productive day. Is there any science or reasoning behind this? Would I have more ideas if I ramped up to two showers a day? I’m sure the skincare companies would love that!” (Mitch for Hugh).

Feel free to share these links and add your picks on Twitter, Facebook, in the comments below or wherever you play.

Mitch Joel

Mitch Joel lives at the intersection of technology, business transformation and consumer culture. He is the Executive Director of Next Era Institute, a strategic intelligence platform helping leaders understand the forces reshaping business, technology, culture and society. The Institute identifies which shifts matter, explores their wider significance and translates them into strategic direction and momentum. Mitch is also a globally recognized keynote speaker. He has delivered thousands of presentations across both B2B and B2C industries to organizations including Google, Walmart, LEGO, Shopify, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble and Unilever. Strategy Magazine has called him “one of North America’s leading visionaries.” Mitch built his career by working directly inside the waves of change that reshaped modern business. He founded and built a digital marketing agency that worked with some of the world’s largest brands and was later acquired by WPP, where he served as President of a firm operating in 25 countries with almost 3,000 employees. Mitch is the bestselling author of Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete, and the host of Thinking With Mitch Joel, one of the longest-running business podcasts in the world. His writing and commentary appear in outlets including Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and Inc. Magazine. He is a member of Dr. Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches and was named to the Thinkers50 Radar. Mitch also hosts Groove – The No Treble Podcast, documenting the oral history of electric bass players. Mitch is also Co-Founder of ThinkersOne, a platform that enables companies to bring personalized thought leadership from world-class experts into meetings, events and off-sites in focused 15-minute bursts.