Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist's Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations

by Thomas L. Friedman

But there is one big difference between these two forms of technology, he added: Physical technologies evolve at the pace of science—fast and getting exponentially faster, while social technologies evolve at the pace at which humans can change—much slower. While physical technology change creates new marvels, new gadgets, better medicine, social technology change often creates huge social stresses and turmoil, like the Arab Spring countries trying to go from tribal autocracies to rule of law democracies. Also, our physical technologies can get way ahead of the ability of our social technologies to manage them—nuclear proliferation, bioterrorism, cyber crime—some of which is happening around us right now. Our physical technologies won’t slow down—Moore’s law will win—so we’re in a race for our social technologies to keep up. We need to more deeply understand how individual psychology, organizations, institutions, and societies work and find ways to accelerate their adaptability and evolution.