David Pennington

“if your new software no longer runs on old hardware, it is worse than the old software.”

This doesn't mean all permissionless fabrications succeed. Most fail. But the right ideas almostalways start without permission. They have to, because permission systems are designed tofilter out anything that might change the status quo.This changes how we should approach problem solving.First, we must stop asking permission to solve problems we... See more

“We do not obtain the most precious gifts by going in search of them,” she insisted, “but by waiting for them.”3

Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle is a concept in quantum mechanics. It tells us that what we measure determines what we observe. And what we observe determines the nature of reality.

Not because machines are writing, but because we are beginning to write like them. Predictability has become a virtue. Voice is flattened into tone. Style is reduced to format.

But E.B. White, one of our last great idealists, was eternally right when he asserted half a century ago that the role of the writer is “to lift people up, not lower them down” — a role each of us is called to with increasing urgency, whatever cog we may be in the machinery of society.

This is what a frictionless world looks like. Everything accelerates, until you forget what it means to try.

“The world of real things is very inefficient.” Harnessing the network effects of big data, he foresees a future where we can more efficiently do many things: “We will definitely see dynamically priced queues for confession-­taking priests and therapists,” he said.