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Change has never happened this fast before, and it will never be this slow again. Graeme Wood
Social Principal #9, Geek Media, Sept 29, 2009

Even the primeval Stone Age islanders of the Sentinelese, who still persist in 2015 and shoot everybody who tries to talk to them with cane bows, are under satellite surveillance. The Indian Navy rigorously protects them from any knowledge of the
Indian Navy.– Bruce Sterling, State of the World 2015, January 5, 2015

Never assume that something you find utterly creepy today will not be the norm tomorrow. — Jan Chipchase, Four Deep Trends, Fast Company, November 14, 2011

Singularity University is a kind of seminary in Silicon Valley where the metaphysical conviction that machines are, or soon will be, essentially superior to human beings is nourished among those involved in profiting from that eventuality.– Nathan Schneider, Something for Everyone, Verge, January 6, 2015

“Many people seem to think that if you talk about something recent, you’re in favor of it,” McLuhan explained during an uncharacteristically candid interview in 1966. “The exact opposite is true in my case. Anything I talk about is almost certain to be something I’m resolutely against, and it seems to me the best way of opposing it is to understand it, and then you know where to turn off the button.” — Quoted by Nick Carr, Rough Type, October 18, 2014

In virtual reality, nausea is the body’s dysphoric response to the uncanny, presence is the euphoric one. — Virginia Heffernan, Virtual Reality Fails Its Way to Success, New York Times Magazine, November 14, 2014

The narrative has changed. It has switched from, ‘Isn’t it terrible that artificial intelligence is a failure?’ to ‘Isn’t it terrible that A.I. is a success?’ — Peter Norvig, New York Times, Innovators of Intelligence Look to Past, December 15, 2014.

Though the nature of future discoveries is hard to predict, I’ve found I can predict quite well what sort of people will make them. Good new ideas come from earnest, energetic, independent-minded people….Surround yourself with the sort of people new ideas come from. If you want to notice quickly when your beliefs become obsolete, you can’t do better than to be friends with the people whose discoveries will make them so. — Paul Graham, How to Be an Expert in a Changing World, December, 2014

If the PC epoch was about being omnipotent – computers can do everything, better! – and the Internet epoch about being omniscient – with Google, you can know everything – mobile is about being omnipresent. — Ben Thompson, Stratechery, The state of consumer technology, December 16, 2014.

[A]dding up corpses and comparing the tallies across different times and places can seem callous, as if it minimized the tragedy of the victims in less violent decades and regions. But a quantitative mindset is in fact the morally enlightened one. It treats every human life as having equal value, rather than privileging the people who are closest to us or most photogenic. — Steven Pinker, Why the world is not falling apart, in Slate, December 22, 2014.

My hunch is that The Blockchain will be to banking, law and accountancy as The Internet was to media, commerce and advertising. It will lower costs, disintermediate many layers of business and reduce friction. As we know, one person’s friction is another person’s revenue.– Joi Ito, “Why Bitcoin is and isn’t like the internet.” Jan 18, 2015