If you follow my blog, you might have noticed that I am worried about fast becoming obsolete if I don't adapt myself to the idea economy. You too can become obsolete if you are not careful...
With the benefits of exponential technological progress also comes a flip side: everything is becoming more and more complex and to be able to participate in this new economy, you will have to develop some new skills.
In the past 70 years, not knowing the alphabet would exclude you from most of the modern knowledge economy.
In the near future, just being literate and knowledgeable is not enough!
You need to develop techno-literacy to participate in the idea economy.
As often happens, Kevin Kelly has thought deeply about this and has written about this in a post here
http://kk.org/thetechnium/techno-life-ski/
I will use this post as a skeleton to add my comments and see where that gets us:
He describes it as follows:
I like to think of this ability to deal with any type of new technology as techno-literacy. To be at ease with the flux of technology in modern-day life you’ll need to speak the language of the technium, and to master the the following principles:
1) Anything you buy, you must maintain. Each tool you use requires time to learn how to use, to install, to upgrade, or to fix. A purchase is just the beginning. You can expect to devote as much energy/money/time in maintaining a technology as you did in acquiring it.
As I wrote in my article about leverage in life tools can provide you with great leverage, but they come at a cost.
Unless you use your tools intensely to obtain their multiplier effects, you are not getting a return on investment out of your tools. What you are left with is pure cost, that can be monetary, (check your Visa statement for recurring costs) or even worse an attention cost (how much time are you spending on that iphone looking at Facebook?).
I think a huge trick is going to be to clean up the various gadgets, internet services, subscriptions etc. in your life to the strict minimum and then use the next principle:
2) Technologies improve so fast you should postpone getting anything until 5 minutes before you need it. Get comfortable with the fact that anything you buy is already obsolete. Therefore acquire at the last possible moment.
I am in the process of selling everything (Read here why) and am facepalming myself several times a day when I start to realize how much money I have locked up in all kinds of gadgets etc. that I stopped using. It adds up.
Moreover depreciation of this stuff is scary.
Lately I just stopped buying new stuff.
I find that there are secondhand stores which sell me the next to last generation for 30-40% off and accept my old gadgets in trade for a decent return (which of course I also bought second hand).
Playing this game I can keep up to date for a fraction of the price of buying "new".
The dirty secret of the whole consumer electronics business is that the curve of improvement has flattened on most devices. Going from a Nokia "dumb" phone to the first Iphone was an exponential step.
Going from say an Iphone 6 to 7 is an incremental step, no matter what they try to tell you...
If you were already not using the full capabilities of the Iphone 6 (and most people don't even come close)
Why bother upgrading? In one word FUD
Of course another reason is planned obsolescence, so you can't keep your gadgets too long or they stop working, so finding the ideal point where you get maximum utility for minimum price allows you to enjoy technology without becoming a slave to it. (...literally, noticed how much of your income is paying for technology in your life, have credit card debt?)
3) You will be newbie forever. Get good at the beginner mode, learning new programs, asking dumb questions, making stupid mistakes, soliciting help, and helping others with what you learn (the best way to learn yourself).
I think there are different strategies here:
a) If you are going to use the new tech constantly: "Keep at the cutting edge and learn constantly new stuff."
b) If you use it occasionally but can't invest the time to learn: Outsource to freelancers who are at expert level and charge you by the hour. One hour of theirs as an expert is probably as effective of 10-20 of yours as a newbie. This way you still get a multiplier effect of the technology without having to invest time and effort to learn it.
c) For non-critical stuff in your life: Refuse to upgrade until the last possible moment, if it is still working for you.
Say you take occasional pictures, your 2 year old pro-level camera can still produce great pictures, unless you are a professional who makes an income from this technology, it stops making sense to keep upgrading your tech and knowledge. Good enough is good enough...
I think a blend of these strategies is going to be needed. You can't possibly keep up with every new development. Neither should you probably.
Like I said in the leverage article, if you are able to use tools for the multiplier effect you can probably justify the investment of time and effort. But keeping up with everything can't possibly give you a return on investment. Being selective about what you start as a newbie is probably a skill that goes with this one. See point 19 of this article
(yes point 19 I just realized this is going to be looong again... but it should be life altering so there's that)
4) Often learning a new tool requires unlearning the old one. The habits of using a landline phone don’t work in email or cell phone. The habits of email don’t work in twitter. The habits of twitter won’t work in what is next.
A difficult one, my brain rebels against it... "Why change AGAIN!" it screams.
In crisis lies opportunity. Because the rules keep changing this also creates constant opportunities for level playing fields.
Notice how things here on Steemit.com seem to work differently? Well that is your chance to be an early adopter and learn before the masses that will wipe you out with their Twitter prowess or Youtube fantaboulessness . So it cuts both ways...
5) Take sabbaticals. Once a week let go of your tools. Once a year leave it behind. Once in your life step back completely. You’ll return with renewed enthusiasm and perspective.
I think this can't be underestimated. Technology is great, but it is no substitute for thinking. Deep thinking is difficult with all the distraction that technology creates. In the end your ultimate tool is your brain, and that needs maintenance too. An occasional reset allowing it to regroup and focus again is a huge factor in creativity and original thinking.
Your brain can't be in constant reception mode, it will create information overload. By not having access to your tools, you will need to work around problems. That can in turn help you to re-evaluate your existing tools, find new ways to simplify your toolset or find whole new purposes for your tools.
6) How easy to switch? You will leave the tool you are using today at some time in the near future. How easy will it be to leave? If leaving forces you to leave all your data behind, or to learn a new way of typing, or to surrender four other technologies you were still using, then maybe this is not the best one to start.
Here I slightly disagree: yes the cost of switching can be high, to the point where it does not give you any return on investment. BUT
Starting with a clean slate can be great. A breath of fresh air. A radical choice to give up everything to jump to a new technology can be exciting but there is a cost too.
The problem with newer technology is that their useful life-cycle is ever shortening (for social media look at myspace, Geocities, ... look at obsolete social media sites alone
Overcommitting to one technology is in my opinion the riskier strategy. Of course, switching needs to make sense, switching too soon or too much can totally obliterate any benefits. The art will be in adapting to change
7) Quality is not always related to price. Sometimes expensive gear is better, sometimes the least expensive is best for you. Evaluating specs and reviews should be the norm.
I am slightly addicted to looking at specs etc. On thing you realize quickly is that quality and utility are very contextual to your needs. I have a Leica IIIc which is about 80 years old. Still works fine. Quality! But I don't take pictures with it... Instead I use my cellphone which I always have with me.
On the other hand, lightweight backpacking learns you some important lessons of quality vs price.
A guy who has this down to a fine art is Tynan http://tynan.com/quality
Price and quality are not always related either:
There are interesting arbitrage opportunities when items of high quality are perceived to be outdated but are still perfectly functional. Because they are of a high build quality they tend to last way longer than their perceived badge value.
I am looking at second hand cars for a 6 month road trip.
What am I looking at? 12+ year old Toyota sedans. Why? Fully depreciated and technically super reliable. I drove a Camry in South Africa that was 22 years old and had 400.000 + km on it. You learn from aviation that with mechanical things age is relative, good maintenance keeps things going a looongg time.
These are cars that might not make sense for a daily commuter, but my spec's are different: I will do relatively low annual mileage in a few large trips.
By optimizing for these specs I can get maximum utility for minimum financial expenditure. The Mercedes in this picture, you could buy a few years ago for peanuts, and this car with good maintenance will outlast the latest model of this year. There are quite a few million KM of these kind of cars.
8) For every expert opinion you find online seek an equal but opposite expert opinion somewhere else. Your decisions must be made with the full set of opinions.
You can go nuts trying to get advice from the internet. Opinions abound.
This is why curation is so important. It is much more than just clicking a few upvotes. Good curators share your criteria for good content and criteria, you can outsource your decision making to an extent if you understand what these curators are optimizing for.
The tricky thing with opinion is that it is rooted in local rationality. Everyone has theirs.
People do and say what makes sense to them based on their understanding, personal goals and focus of attention.
Before you can understand if opinions from other people are useful, you need to understand their local rationality: what is their understanding? What are their goals? What is their focus?
Taking advice from a New York fashion icon when you are in the wilderness of Alaska is not going to do you much good...
Same with investment advice, you need to understand these people's risk profile, goals and how well they understand what they are "advising " about.
9) Understanding how a technology works is not necessary to use it well. We don’t understand how biology works, but we still use wood well.
Reminder to self: Need to keep this in mind with crypto... you don't need to be a car mechanic to drive a car...
Investing time and effort to understand something can be helpful.but you need to understand the utility...
Going into technical rabbit holes can be fun definitely, but where is the return on investment of your time?
10) Tools are metaphors that shape how you think. What embedded assumptions does the new tool make? Does it assume right-handedness, or literacy, or a password, or a place to throw it away? Where the defaults are set can reflect a tool’s bias.
A point to ponder: how will Steemit.com's transparency, incentives and permanency change the way you think and communicate? Are you still authentic?
Or is it actually improving your way of thinking because of the incentivization of positive constructive comments and posts?
11) What do you give up? This one has taken me a long time to learn. The only way to take up a new technology is to reduce an old one in my life already. Twitter must come at the expense of something else I was doing — even if it just daydreaming.
A point I make obliquely in my article on leverage
Tools that provide you leverage always have a cost, sometimes not expressed in money but even more costly attention and focus. Yes you get lots of information with the new social media tools, but is it costing you your ability to think deeply and create valuable ideas yourself?
12) Every new technology will bite back. The more powerful its gifts, the more powerfully it can be abused. Look for its costs.
FAcoughCEcoughBOOK... 'nough said..
13) The risks of a new technology must be compared to the risks of the old technology, or no technology. The risks of a new dental MRI must be compared to the risks of an x-ray, and the risks of dental x-rays must be compared to the risks of no x-ray and cavities.
Technology and technological progress is always a double edged sword.
Yes a chainsaw can cut down trees faster but it is equally easy to take off your own limbs. A stone axe will maybe give you a bruise or cut at best while using it.
The more powerful any technology is, the more its potential negative effects.
My field is Safety Management, and the intersection of humans and technology is a source of endless possibilities for things to go very wrong. Most of the time they go right and we reap huge benefits.
But think about the downside of what you are exposed to when it all goes pear shaped?
4 main questions of risk management for your protection:
1 What is potentially going to cause your next loss? (Are you willing to suffer that loss?)
2 How do you know that?
3 What are you doing about it?
4 How do you know (what you are doing) will work to keep the loss from happening?
14) Be suspicious of any technology that requires walls to prevent access. If you can fix it, modify it or hack it yourself, that is a good sign.
Not sure if this is still going to be applicable... with increased technology comes increased complexity.
For instance Linux is great because it is open source, but I am not a programmer and not in danger of becoming one so I have to trust the community that is working on it that they will do it right.
Same with Steemit.com by the way.
15) The proper response to a stupid technology is to make a better one yourself, just as the proper response to a stupid idea is not to outlaw it but to replace it with a better idea.
As anything in life, natural selection is at play. If you are forced to use stupid technology, your organisation might very soon become disrupted by another organisation or community which is using better technology. Not a matter of IF just WHEN it will happen...
16) Nobody has any idea of what a new invention will really be good for. To evaluate don’t think, try.
This captures something I feel is very true about Steemit.com and STEEM.
I have a hunch it will be MUCH more than yet another blogging platform.
It has the potential to become an entire marketplace, that allows to bootstrap its own development generate important research and create major societal change.
The ease of access to talent, frictionless paying that talent for fractional work
and trustworthiness through the transparent and permanent nature of the blockchain can all combine to liberate enormous human potential.
If you watch Jerry Banfield and others, there are initiatives to bootstrap new applications for the Steem blockchain.
The exciting thing is that capital investment within STEEM is not limited anymore by how you can convince outside investors.
The users ARE investors which removes a lot of friction in the R&D cycle.
This could make the development of the whole STEEM ecology itself exponential.
17) The second order effects of technology usually only arrive when everyone has one, or it is present everywhere.
Continuing from 16. It will be very interesting to see if say 1 % of the world population will be using Steemit.
That can happen in about 3 years by the way, look at the math here
18) The older the technology, the more likely it will continue to be useful.
This sounds paradoxical but it is very interesting. Not all tools that are old are going to be replaced by high tech.
The idea is explained here http://kk.org/thetechnium/technologies-do/
19) Find the minimum amount of technology that will maximize your options.
I think this is a critical skill. To realize the maximum impact in life, an 80/20 rule will apply with technology.
Becoming like the Jetsons is probably not what the future is going to be like.
They say "Technology is a fantastic slave but a terrible master"
More and more we have to be selective about technology, which requires thinking critically about it and recognizing hidden cost.
Technology can make life great, my ambition is to make a living someday by writing on Steemit.com while travelling the world sitting on terraces sipping exotic drinks... Who knows that might happen...
But once it would start demanding my attention 24/7/365 it would be a terrible life...
The more useful metrics we should apply to technology are :
Is this making me free, is it creating more options in my life?
Is it saving time or eating time?
Is it making me money or obligating me to more and more overtime to be able to afford it?
Does it give me energy or is it sucking energy and depressing me by using it?
Does it allow me to create or is it just something that makes me consume?
