“OVER THE LONG TERM, THE FUTURE IS DECIDED BY OPTIMISTS”, Kevin Kelly boldly insists. But I wonder if he got it the wrong way around: over the long term, I suspect, optimism is decided by the future. So today’s general pessimism is caused by our loss of faith in the future. Most of us no longer believe in it. Thus we look backwards, inwards, sideways - anywhere except forwards.
Kelly is a liberal futurist - half John Stuart Mill or Thoreau, half Stewart Brand. For him, if we can believe in ourselves, particularly own creativity, we can learn to once again look forwards. Thus his intriguing new book, Excellent Advice for Living: Wisdom I Wish I’d Known Earlier. As he told me on KEEN ON today, he wants us to become improbable versions of ourselves. His advice for living is learning how to surprise ourselves with an excellence that can’t be created by machines. That way, he told me, we can outwit AI. I hope he’s right.
Excellent Advice for Living (and Dying)