In his book, “The Inevitable,” Kevin Kelly explores the 12 forces that will shape the next 30 years of our digital lives. In this summary, we’ll explore each of these forces and what they mean for the future.
The 12 forces listed by Kevin Kelly are mentioned here: Becoming, Cognifying, Flowing, Screening, Accessing, Sharing, Filtering, Remixing, Interacting, Tracking, Questioning, and Beginning.
Becoming is the force of human transformation. This force is when people start doing things differently. They start using technology differently. Cognifying is the force of people learning about and understanding the world around them. This force is when people start to change how they think. They start to use technology differently. Flowing is the force of people exchanging information and ideas. This force is when people start to share ideas and thoughts with each other.
Screening is the force of people filtering information and images. This force is when people start to filter the information that they receive and see. Accessing is the force of people gaining access to information. This force is when people gain access to information and other things. Filtering is the force of people removing information from the world around them. This force is when people start to remove information from their lives.
Remixing is the force of people making their own things. An example of remixing is when people take a song and mix it with another song to make a new song. Interacting is the force of people working together. An example of interacting is when people use technology to help each other. Tracking is the force of people monitoring their own behavior. This force is when people start to track their own behavior and see what they’re doing. Questioning is the force of people thinking about the future. This force is when people start to think about the future and what they’ll do.
Beginning is the force of people starting to do things. This force is when people start to do something new such as start a business or start a project.
Below are some bullet points that summarize the main points of the book:
•The term “technology” refers to the totality of machines, methods, and engineering processes.
• Technology has always been a part of human life, but it has become increasingly important as time goes on.
• Technology is not just hardware; it also includes intangibles like software, law, and philosophical concepts.
• The technium is the name for the global system of technology that surrounds us. It is self-reinforcing and autonomous.
• Language was the first singularity for humans; it changed everything about how we live and interact with each other.
•The sequence of major transitions in deep history runs like this: one replicating molecule leads to an interacting population of replicating molecules, which leads to replicating molecules strung into a chromosome.
• This sequence continues with the development of DNA proteins, cells with nuclei, sexual reproduction, single-cell organisms evolving into multicell organisms, solitary individuals becoming part of colonies and superorganisms.
• Primate societies eventually develop language-based societies with oral lore transitioning into writing/mathematical notation and scripts eventually leading to printing. Book knowledge then develops into the scientific method while artisan production changes to mass production and industrial culture finally becomes ubiquitous global communication.
•Some people believe that the laws of nature are “rigged in favor of life”, meaning that living things are more likely to arise under certain conditions.
• Others believe that the emergence of life is inevitable given the right conditions.
• Still others believe that not only is life inevitable, but specific forms of life are as well. This is known as a “cosmic imperative”.
• Experiments involving rewinding and replaying evolution suggest that some forms of life are more likely to emerge than others. This points to a direction or “tilt” in evolution.
•Walker is famous for inventing Priceline, a name-your-own-price reservation system for hotels and airline flights.
• In his invention laboratory Walker set up an institutional process whereby interdisciplinary teams of brainy experts sit around thinking up ideas that would be useful in the next 20 years or so—the time horizon of patents.
• They winnow the thousands of ideas they come up with and refine a selection for eventual patenting.•100,000 years ago, humans’ foraging day was clear of technology.
• 10,000 years ago, a farming human might spend a few hours a day with one tool.
• 1,000 years ago, medieval technology was ubiquitous on the periphery of human relationships.
• Today, technology has permeated eating
•The Amish are known for their simple way of life, without many modern technologies.
• However, they are not completely cut off from the world and are aware of what is available to them.
• They choose to adopt only certain technologies that they feel will benefit their families and community while remaining debt-free.
• One Amish man named Leon is unusual in that he has gone to college and still remains a part of the Old Order church. He shares his insights on what it is like growing up Amish as well as the tradition of rum springa.
•The Amish and minimites are content because they have less technology, which gives them a sense of leisure, comfort, and certainty.
• However, too much choice can be overwhelming and unsatisfying. The Amish believe that human nature is unchanging, so there is a peak technological solution to support it.
• Technology expands our possibilities as people. It is not static like the Amish way of life.
•The Precautionary Principle is a theory that works better in theory than in practice.
• The principle states that risks should be anticipated and preempted, but this often hinders potential benefits.
• An example of the principle not working is with DDT and malaria. DDT was banned because it may have caused harm to the environment, but without it, malaria cases rose again to deadly levels.
• The Precautionary Principle is biased against anything new because many established technologies and “natural” processes have unexamined faults as great as those of any new technology. •Second-order effects are often unforecastable and require real-life testing to assess risks.
• The Amish approach new technologies with caution, testing them out before fully implementing them into their society.
• Proactionary Principle is a heuristic to guide us in assessing new technologies.
• Self-duplicating technology is radical and can be hard to control once released into the world. •Technology wants what we want—the same long list of merits we crave.
• Our role as humans, at least for the time being, is to coax technology along the paths it naturally wants to go.
• Extrapolated, technology wants what life wants: increasing efficiency, increasing opportunity, increasing emergence, increasing complexity, increasing diversity ,increasing specialization ,increasing ubiquity ,increasing freedom ,increasing mutualism ,increasing beauty ,and Increasing sentience .
• According to many food experts, the problem with the current food-production system is that it is heavily dependent on monocultures (not diverse) of too few staple crops (five worldwide), which in turn require pathological degrees of intervention with drugs.
•Chemists have cataloged 50 million different chemicals, and the rate of inventiveness is only increasing. This may seem daunting to some, but it’s important to remember that civilization is a steady migration away from “no choice.”
• The solution to the problems that technology brings, such as an overwhelming diversity of choices, is better technologies. The solution to ultradiversity will be choice-assist technologies.
• Specialization will continue to increase – for example, we now have gene sequencers that specialize in racial genomes or are extremely fast and sequence in real time.
• Computers are becoming ever more general-purpose machines, as they swallow more and more functions. However, this convergence is amplified by cloud computing.
•The technium is a rapidly-evolving system that is constantly discovering new ways of knowing.
• This evolution is driven by technology, which enables new ways of discovery and different ways of structuring information.
• The technium has also accelerated the speed of human biological evolution.
• The elaborate system of law that undergirds Western societies is not very different from software.
• Technology provides each person with chances to excel at their unique mixture