Sublime

ideas of what would coalesce into complexity theory later in the twentieth century, highlighted that the actions of individual members could generate information that was highly valuable to the entire crowd.

An internationally renowned scientist (whom you will meet toward the end of this book) told me that increasing specialization has created a “system of parallel trenches” in the quest for innovation. Everyone is digging deeper into their own trench and rarely standing up to look in the next trench over, even though the solution to their problem happ

for greater scientific understanding (23andMe) or in propagating user-submitted data to motivate behavior change in others (traineo).

computer scientists have learned to engineer increasingly sophisticated electronic algorithms.

There’s a thing in programming called branching. And that’s what Neelay Mehta does. He will reincarnate himself, live again as people of all races, genders, colors, and creeds. He’ll

Overspecialization can lead to collective tragedy even when every individual separately takes the most reasonable course of action.

Converging Technology

Larry gave a passionate defense of the position I like to think of as digital utopianism: that digital life is the natural and desirable next step in the cosmic evolution and that if we let digital minds be free rather than try to stop or enslave them, the outcome is almost certain to be good.