The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future

by Kevin Kelly

The only things that are increasing in cost while everything else heads to zero are human experiences—which cannot be copied. Everything else becomes commoditized and filterable.

Lifelogging is a hugely wasteful and inefficient process since most of what you lifelog is never used. But like many inefficient processes (such as evolution), it also contains genius.

making sense of all this data is a far bigger challenge than merely recording it.

By raising the level of complexity, we elevate bits from data to information to knowledge.

In addition to expanding civil rights, I want to expand civil duties.

Ironically, in an age of instant global connection, my certainty about anything has decreased. Rather than receiving truth from an authority, I am reduced to assembling my own certainty from the liquid stream of facts flowing through the web. Truth, with a capital T, becomes truths, plural.

I believe the conflation of play and work, of thinking hard and thinking playfully, is one of the greatest things this new invention has done. Isn’t the whole idea that in a highly evolved advanced society work is over? I’ve noticed a different approach to my thinking now that the hive mind has spread it extremely wide and loose. My thinking is more active, less contemplative.

For some folks, this is the worst of the net—the loss of contemplation. Others feel that all this frothy activity is simply stupid busywork, or spinning of wheels, or illusionary action.

Others feel that all this frothy activity is simply stupid busywork, or spinning of wheels, or illusionary action. But compared with what? Compared with the passive consumption of TV? Or time spent lounging at a bar chatting? Or the slow trudge to a library only to find no answers to the hundreds of questions I have?