This article makes so many points that are relevant to me.

As someone who’s worked in project teams my whole working life, the idea that collective intelligence is more important than individual intelligence resonates with me strongly. In a typical project team, there’s no one “hero” who can legitimately claim all or most of the credit. What’s more, no one person, no matter how long they worked, could possibly achieve what the team achieved.

Then there’s optimism. The person being interviewed here makes the excellent point that good news is gradual while bad news is sudden, so bad news tends to be what we notice. But with a consistent history of things improving, why are we convinced that they’re going to get worse? (That’s not to say that some things in particular will not get worse, but things in general tend to improve.)

Culture and society provide a kind of “ratchet effect” which mean that, on the whole, we build on what the people who came before us made. That’s why I’m typing this on a computer that’s the size of a large (but not thick) book and sending it out to people all over the world. Once we collectively solve a problem and encapsulate the solution in technology (or culture), we don’t have to solve that problem again; we can use the solution to solve the next problem.

Originally shared by Singularity Hub

Collective Intelligence Is the Root of Human Progress http://suhub.co/2ymMZtI

“Speech favorable to those in power may be close to First Amendment protection, but speech viewed as subversive to the social order is subject to significant costs.”

This is a perspective I hadn’t considered before, but it makes a lot of sense.

Originally shared by Yonatan Zunger

There’s been a widespread argument recently that the Left is calling for restrictions on the freedom of speech, and that this is either simply an attempt to restrict opposition (if argued by the Right) or that this is foolish because such restrictions will invariably be used against the Left (if argued by the Center).

But these arguments miss an important intermediate fact, which I want to call out: speech is already not free, and this lack of freedom happens in a very non-content-neutral way. Our existing speech laws and policies amount to great freedom for the expression of ideas which support existing power, but substantially less for ideas which oppose it. In that context, these calls take on a clearer meaning: they are demands to widen the marketplace of ideas by having speech policy (generally not law, but official and unofficial private and public policies) recognize the ways in which it currently fails to be content-neutral.

A friend of mine complained the other day on Facebook (in a joking context, but knowing his politics he was semi-serious) about not getting anything for his rates (city taxes).

This is an otherwise highly intelligent man who drives every day on roads that are not flooded, not full of potholes, and not wandered by stray dogs, leading past buildings that are earthquake-safe, food businesses that won’t give him food poisoning, well-stocked libraries, well-kept parks, clean public toilets, thousands of street trees, and well-used community centres, to give a non-exhaustive list of what he gets for his rates.

The thing is, unless you’ve worked in among that infrastructure, as I have, it tends to be invisible. Nobody thinks about stormwater until it’s flooding their house – nobody, that is, except the stormwater engineers whose daily job is to stop it from flooding your house.

This article reminds us of that.

“What if we saw tribalism as a natural malfunction of any cognitive system, silicon or carbon? As neither a universal truth or unavoidable sin, but something to be overcome?”

Originally shared by Jennifer Ouellette

Is Tribalism a Natural Malfunction? What computers teach us about getting along. http://nautil.us/issue/52/the-hive/is-tribalism-a-natural-malfunction

Via a private share. I’m putting this under Collective Endeavour because problems of authority arise usually within a few microseconds of deciding to band together for some greater purpose.

I’ve experienced a number of different kinds of authority in my life, and I recognise a lot of them in the Harry Potter series. This piece does a good job of laying them out.

A less dramatic way of putting it would be “Civilization is in a traumatic transition”.

And I wish he hadn’t framed things in terms of male-female stereotypes (even if he calls them archetypes). But the point is still valid: as we move into a world where abundance is, in many areas, replacing scarcity, we need a fundamentally different way of organising to deal with the new reality effectively. And many of our current problems are a result of dealing with new situations as if they were old situations.

Originally shared by Singularity Hub

Not the most uplifting intro. But the good news is, Ismail had some pretty unique insight to share about the nature of the problems society is facing, and plenty of thoughts on how to fix them too.

Via a private share. Nonviolent resistance is more effective, history seems to indicate.

Remarkable stuff. I want to look more into the group helping people with disabilities enter the workforce when I have time.

Originally shared by Singularity Hub

The Singularity University Global Summit in San Francisco this week brought brilliant minds together from all over the world to share a passion for using science and technology to solve the world’s most pressing challenges.

Via Dave Higgins.

There are plenty of angry people on the Internet right now who will tell you that their way to feel, to believe, to act about current events is the only right and proper way, and anyone who doesn’t do it exactly their way without the smallest deviation is a traitor to the cause, and part of the Other Side.

This article is a necessary corrective.

Originally shared by Austin Hackney

From where I sit – in a country that provides medical care for everyone, because that’s how you run a decent society, what is wrong with you? – this all seems pretty obvious. But I know that it’s a daily struggle for a great many people in the US, and that’s in large part down to narratives about earning and deserving, and how something run as a business will naturally and inevitably and magically work better than something run by the government.

Originally shared by Gregory Lynn

If you don’t know Kameron Hurley, you probably should. She writes some massively complex science fiction and fantasy so she’s often thinking about the future and what society would look like. She also has a chronic condition that almost killed her so she has some thoughts about medical care and the way it all works.

They are thoughtful thoughts and you should read them.