Building meaningful futures - Issue #5
While Google announced the company will reach 100% renewable energy in 2017 for their global operations, Ford CEO Mark Fields said there is no market for electric cars, including hybrids, totally ignoring that Tesla is now dominating the luxury car segment in the US leaving all traditional car manufacturers behind by large.
What a change of a political situation can do to our future and our planet. Meanwhile, Breitbart - the puke evoking publication behind Trump’s rise, produced another fake news story denying climate change using weather.com materials totally misleading Americans.
D’oh! This new world we’re entering… It’s the old vs. the new, going backward instead of forward, open vs. closed, fossil-fuel economy vs. renewables, easy profit vs. responsibility for people and planet, purpose over profit, frustration vs. transformation, continuous learning vs. staying put, love vs. hate, sharing vs. wasting, and so on.
Legendary physicist David Bohm was truly visionary, decades before the social web, as we know it today, in his seminal work “On Dialogue”:
“In spite of this worldwide system of linkages, there is, at this very moment, a general feeling that communication is breaking down everywhere, on an unparalleled scale… What appears [in the media] is generally at best a collection of trivial and almost unrelated fragments, while at worst, it can often be a really harmful source of confusion and misinformation.”
On the problem of communication, he writes: “Different groups … are not actually able to listen to each other. As a result, the very attempt to improve communication leads frequently to yet more confusion, and the consequent sense of frustration inclines people ever further toward aggression and violence, rather than toward mutual understanding and trust.”
Sounds familiar?
So, what are we going to do about it? I decided to use this newsletter to share stories about moving forward, building bridges, dialogue, doing things differently, using technology and innovation in the pursuit of a good life, to create a better future for our children and humanity.
This newsletter is not just for me; it’s also yours and a platform to share your stories. I would love to hear your insights on what you know about positive change and how we can all contribute in creating a better society. Feel free to send me your links to great innovative stories you know about so I can share them with +17.000 subscribers.
If you like “Building meaningful futures”, please share the stories, forward it to your friends and business contacts that may be interested. A community is build upon referrals and recommendations.
This week lots of great articles on the #futureofwork #ai #retail #disruption #flyingcars #startups #blockchain #climatechange #iot #smartcities #neuroscience #trends2017 #vr #privacy #cyberculture
Enjoy!
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“The aim of education should be to teach us rather how to think, than what to think – rather to improve our minds, so as to enable us to think for ourselves, than to load the memory with thoughts of other men.” - Bill Beattie
A spatial map of the rightwing fake news ecosystem. Photograph: Jonathan Albright - via The Guardian
Must reads of the week
Google, democracy and the truth about internet search
Tech-savvy rightwingers have been able to ‘game’ the algorithms of internet giants and create a new reality where Hitler is a good guy, Jews are evil and… Donald Trump becomes president.
We can Fix It: Saving the Truth from the Internet –
Fake news is just the tip of a massive problem. Truth is being killed by the internet. The good news: we can fix it.
I can’t just stand by and watch Mark Zuckerberg destroy the internet.
Mark Zuckerberg — Facebook’s CEO — is probably the most powerful person alive today. He may even be the most powerful person ever. But with great power comes great responsibility…
Connected but unequal: The mechanics of inequality in a networked world
If we closely analyse the mechanics that drive todays platforms and networks, we learn — rather disturbingly — that digital platforms are designed to drive greater social inequality, not reduce it.
True Freedom Comes With Basic Income
Numerous studies show that sex trafficking is largely the means for those without means to obtain the requirements of life from those with means. A universal basic income would give those involved in trafficking the ability to choose a different life other than the one they are currently compelled to live.
What if Google and Facebook got it all wrong?
What if Google and Facebook focused on the wrong monetization strategy from a long-term perspective? What if ads are inferior to transactions? And what if we can watch our future unfolding in China today?
Why Socrates Hated Democracies: An Animated Case for Why Self-Government Requires Wisdom & Education
In the ideal society Socrates constructs in Plato’s Republic, he famously argues for restricted freedom of movement, strict censorship according to moralistic civic virtues, and a guardian soldier class and the rule of philosopher kings.
What Stephen Hawking gets right and wrong about ‘the most dangerous time for our planet’
Vivek Wadhwa on why we have to decide what the limits should be and where the ethical lines are how we use technology. As Hawkings points out, we are at an inflexion point with all of these technologies, and we can still take them in a direction that uplifts mankind. But if we don’t learn and participate, our darkest fears will become reality.
Why “They’re Just Dumb Racists” is Liberalism’s Climate Denialism
Moral Justice and Moral Transformation.
Clarity. It is what you and I need now, more than ever. It is no exaggeration to say the future balances precariously on a razor’s edge. Where are we to find it, this mysterious thing called clarity…
Trends 2017
Tech Trends 2017
With 2017 on the horizon, frog looks ahead with 15 tech trends that will make a lasting impact on technology, businesses, and our world.
Future of Work
Simon Sinek on Millennials in the Workplace
If you have to spend 15 minutes of your time this week, watch this brilliant explanation on the most important generation of our future and their relationship with corporations. “We put these kids in corporate environments that care more about numbers than the kids, they care more about the short term gains than the long term life of this generation.”
Socratic Design Workshop London Summary
“Everything is possible so it is not what we could do but what we should do.” A short review and video summary of the first Socratic Design workshop in London, an exciting and great learning experience on the topic of “The Future of Business".
In Search Of 'The Entrepreneurial Society'
Last week, the world’s leading general management conference—the annual Global Peter Drucker Forum—met in Vienna to discuss the emerging age of agile. Instead of a golden age of entrepreneurship, most speakers recognised that there is widespread evidence of a global decline of innovation and entrepreneurship.
How the Most Emotionally Intelligent CEOs Handle Their Power
True professional growth without personal growth is impossible. In order to truly learn to be a better leader, and to be better able to deal with power dynamics, you’ve got to figure yourself out. To start, ask yourself a few questions.
City of the Future: The Future of Work
The Future of Work in Cities report contrasts the realities American cities face today with the ways they are planning for tomorrow, exploring the means by which cities can exploit innovative opportunities while realigning local governance priorities.
Dear Mr. Trump, About Those U.S. iPhones
I hear you’ve been telling your constituents that you’re going to create a lot of jobs. Let me give you some advice.
Technology, jobs, and the future of work
Automation, digital platforms, and other innovations are changing the fundamental nature of work. Understanding these shifts can help policy makers, business leaders, and workers move forward, writes James Manyika in a briefing note prepared for the Fortune Time Global Forum in Vatican City.
Artificial Intelligence
WTF is AI?
Researchers are hard at work creating new generations of AI that learn and process in unprecedented detail and sophistication, AIs that learn much as we do. Whether they think or merely calculate may be a question for philosophers as much as computer scientists, but that we even have to ask it is a remarkable achievement in itself.
Amazon AI — Artificial Intelligence Services
Amazon Web Services (AWS) announces three new Amazon AI services. Explore the AWS family of AI services that provide cloud-native machine learning and deep learning technologies to address different use cases and needs.
Uber Bets on Artificial Intelligence With Acquisition and New Lab
With the Geometric Intelligence deal, Uber wants to make major advances in how the computers behind self-driving vehicles think and make decisions on the road.
Universe
Elon Musk’s nonprofit openAI launches Universe, a software platform that can help AI systems get smarter — even if their developers have bad intentions.
Google Assistant bot ecosystem will open to all developers by end of 2016
Developers and the rest of the world will soon be able to make bots that interact with Google Assistant and new Google devices made public.
Artificial Intelligence Is More Artificial Than Intelligent
The tech industry will only be able to set realistic expectations about AI’s promises if it uses the term judiciously and is realistic with consumers about what artificial intelligence can truly deliver.
Retail disruption
If you were not yet convinced Amazon is about retail disruption knowing the company now has a warehouse or delivery station within 20 miles of 44% of the US population, the company opened Amazon Go earlier this week, a grocery store with no cashiers and no checkout lines. Some 3,5 million cashier jobs are projected to disappear in the US in the near future. Despite the convincing nature of Trump’s anti-offshoring argument, Amazon Go proves the biggest danger isn’t jobs going overseas, but rather the march of technological progress.
Amazon is opening a grocery store with no cashiers and no checkout lines
We’re getting closer to a future where we don’t ever have to talk to another human we don’t want to. Amazon announced on Dec. 5 that it will open a grocery store in Seattle, Washington, in early 2017, where customers will be able to walk in, pick up the items they want to buy, and walk out….
Amazon’s no-checkout store threatens death of the cashier
Disruptive change equated to supermarket equivalent of self-driving car.
Mindboggling :)
Vinyl sales outstripped digital downloads for the first time last week
Who said vinyl sales were slowing? New data from the ERA has revealed that vinyl album sales outstripped digital album downloads in the UK last week.
Privacy
Talking dolls recorded kids’ conversations without parental consent
Internet-connected toys pose privacy risks to children, and their parents often aren’t aware, according to advocacy groups for children and consumers.
Alexa and Google Home Record What You Say. What Happens to Your Data?
Recording your voice and storing it on a server sounds alarming—OK, it is alarming—but there’s a good reason why Amazon Echo and Google Home do it.
Flying Cars
Fast-Forwarding to a Future of On-Demand Urban Air Transportation
IN LESS THAN a decade, Uber has redefined the idea of flexible labor and gutted the American taxi industry. Within a decade, according to a 99-page white paper released, Uber will have a network—to be called “Elevate”—of on-demand, fully electric aircraft that take off and land vertically. Flying. Cars.
European VCs are going to make flying cars a reality
European venture firm Atomico has invested 10 million euros in the vertical take-off and landing plane developer, Lilium Aviation.
Welcome to Larry Page’s Secret Flying Car Factories
Three years ago, Silicon Valley developed a fleeting infatuation with a startup called Zee.Aero. The company had set up shop right next to Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., which was curious, because Google tightly controls most of the land in the area. Then a reporter spotted patent filings showing Zee.Aero was working on a small, all-electric plane that could take off and land vertically—a flying car.
Smart Cities
Experimental City: How Rotterdam Became A World Leader In Sustainable Urban Design
Europe’s largest port—threatened by rising waters and a loss of its major industry—has reinvented itself as a playground for innovative thinkers who are trying to create a resilient city of the future.
Paris makes all public transport free in battle against 'worst air pollution for 10 years'
Parisians can use public transport for free for the second day running due to a spike in air pollution and some cars have been barred from the roads. The city is suffering its worst and most prolonged winter pollution for at least 10 years.
Neuroscience
Could you soon fly an airplane with your mind?
We are on the brink of a revolution in mind technologies. We can measure reliably certain signals associated with individual functions. We can see how to move an arm, or what is happening during a specific emotional state. Sooner than you think, you may be able to drive a car or even fly a plane with your mind.
Startups
the Hundert
With its ninth issue, the Hundert covers the exhilarating ecosystem of New York. The magazine is an archive of the thrilling and fast-paced changes happening in the world of startups through the interviews, reports and photo galleries that it has featured.
European Talent Landscape 2016
Balderton Capital released its European Talent Landscape 2016, a report, set out to identify where people working in European technology companies come from, what experience they have, and what they expect in their roles. The data gathered profiles almost 15,000 employees in over 1,000 venture-backed companies in Europe, and by working closely with a select group of recently launched start-ups.
Station F
Station F opens in Paris in April 2017, the biggest startup campus in the world. Early stage startups can now join the Founders Program for full time residency.
Blockchain
How blockchain can change the future of IoT
Blockchain will enable IoT ecosystems to break from the traditional broker-based networking paradigm, where devices rely on a central cloud server to identify and authenticate individual devices.
Stellar Emerges From Shadow of Bitcoin to Find a Home Overseas
Bitcoin hasn’t freed currency from the grip of governments just yet. But cross-border commerce may be the blockchain’s killer app in the here-and-now.
Culture / Cyber Culture
The people who shaped Islamic civilisation
Coverage of violence and Islam often go hand in hand. So it comes as a relief to be reminded that historically, culturally and intellectually, Islam is less a nihilistic creed than a global civilisation. A new book celebrates the achievements of early Muslims, and dispels some myths along the way.
Joi Ito Explains Why Donald Trump Is Like the Sex Pistols
We’re ripe for a new cultural movement. Culture movements and art and punk rock thrive under bad presidents. The music was better under Reagan and Nixon than it was under Obama.
Fun
Epic Reply To A Restaurant Asking Musicians To Play For Free. Every Creative Should See This.
“If you’re good at something, never do it for free,” said the Joker in the 2008 classic The Dark Knight. A Vancouver restaurant posted an ad on Craigslist…
Sheep View: Where there’s a wool, there’s a way
When some people from the Faroe Islands decided to document their country for Street View, sheep weren’t a baaad place to start.
65 Satirical Illustrations Showing Our Addiction To Technology
Art is often a mirror, reflecting the social issues and problems of the day. With the rise of ubiquitous Internet, smart phones, and other…
Virtual Reality
Sports kick-starts a virtual reality revolution
Virtual reality, for so long considered an expensive novelty, is on the cusp of a real breakthrough, as sports broadcasters pump money into immersive technology.
e-Money
Facebook just secured an e-money license in Ireland, paving the way for Messenger payments in Europe
Paving the way for friend-to-friend payments to come to Facebook Messenger in Europe (and after the functionality debuted in the U.S. all the way back in March last year), Facebook has quietly secured an e-money license from the Central Bank of Ireland.
Parenting
10 Insights of Remarkable Parents from a Family Therapist
Ten key insights from a family therapist outline what parents can do to best support the healthy social and emotional development of their children. Helping our children understand the importance of their thoughts and emotions gives them coping and relationship skills. Skills that will protect and guide them throughout their lives.
Climate Change
Five west African countries ban 'dirty diesel' from Europe
Nigeria, Benin, Togo, Ghana and Ivory Coast to block imports from oil companies and traders of diesel with sulphur levels many times European limit