Sublime

So over the last 70,000 years humankind first spread out, then separated into distinct groups, and finally merged again.

Before the internet, in 5,000 years of writing, humankind had had roughly 300 million authors[34]—people able to share their views beyond their immediate surroundings. This number has increased tenfold in just 40 years. We’re living through an unprecedented explosion of authorship.

history’s choices are not made for the benefit of humans.

an entirely different world history

These are the scales of modern human networks, and it’s Dunbar’s number multiplied by millions. In these large-scale communities, standards and self-governance can’t be maintained by people simply running around and talking to each other. Instead, the builders of these networked products must create features that nudge the interactions in the right

The merger of infotech and biotech might soon push billions of humans out of the job market and undermine both liberty and equality. Big Data algorithms might create digital dictatorships in which all power is concentrated in the hands of a tiny elite while most people suffer not from exploitation but from something far worse—irrelevance.