Is it time to put the human team back at the centre ? #TeamHuman @rushkoff
He has a FREE Book launch event at Civic Hall in New York City on Wednesday January 23 2019
Douglas kindly provided me with a pre-launch books and here is my review
SIMPLE - READ IT.
Douglas spots a trend and writes a book about it. How do we put people back into the centre (tech). It has been a theme growing for a while but the sense is that it is now that we should refocus. I agree.
Team Human is a manifesto, different to the policy ideals explored by say Paul Collier in The Future of Capitalism.
The structure is 100 (one hundred) essays or statements, where he argues that we are essentially social creatures, and that we achieve our greatest aspirations when we work together — not as individuals. Yet today society is threatened by a vast antihuman infrastructure that undermines our ability to connect. Money, once a means of exchange, is now a means of exploitation; education, conceived as way to elevate the working class, has become another assembly line; and the internet has only further divided us into increasingly atomized and radicalized groups.
Team Human delivers a call to arms. If we are to resist and survive these destructive forces, we must recognize that being human is a team sport.
In Rushkoff’s own words: “Being social may be the whole point.” Harnessing wide-ranging research on human evolution, biology, and psychology, Rushkoff shows that when we work together we realize greater happiness, productivity, and peace. If we can find the others who understand this fundamental truth and reassert our humanity—together—we can make the world a better place to be human.
My thinking.
Douglas brings up in the 100 short essays including the majority of current thinking and overall I agree with the outcome - humans need belonging and we have lost that. I would agree with Paul Collier in The Future of Capitalism that this is more about policy than technology, however the same outcome is observed. The thinking developed in The Mind is Flat and The Inflamed Mind both show that we need the tech and data to help us understand for more about who we are and how we think. When this is put into context of The Strange Order of Things: Life, feeling and the making of cultures by Antonio Damasio is highlights that much of our social being is chemistry and we should not confuse feelings/ emotions with what the brain is trying to make sense from. Local is going to be a massive factor, I prefer the analysis in Designing reality as it is detailed in how local will come about. It all leaves a gap on leadership which is something that needs to be explored further
I am sure that some aspects of cognitive bias, coding, algorithms, behavioral economics ,ethics, new company structures, effects on funding, investment, gig economy and policy will be developed further but this is a great start to the story.
What does all this highlight, it is up to us and we cannot blame technology. Thank you Douglas
----
Some arguments that you will get more context when you read the book
Humans are seen as a problem and tech is the solution
Interfaces to control us and intelligence to replace us
Evolution is about competition ( survival of the fittest)
We need to learn how to get along again
We find it easy to connect - but tech has meant we don't need to physically
Reciprocal altruism - we only do it because we get a reward ( one model but not the only one)
How we learn - fire is hot we don’t repeat and how sensors feedback how will this effect AI
How we came to be what we are ( really need Spaians as a long thread here)
We need society to tame autonomy and create self awareness
Self is stronger than group today
Automoney with interdependence leads to isolation or narcissism
Personal data has value ( and can we use it to our own gain) even through it comes from being together
Internet changed from supporting knowledge to gaining attention ( and we have got good at finding how to control attention - personalisation?
Behavioural economics and nudge thinking and how to control people
How our language became the language of the the machine - efficiency and effectiveness
Technology needs humans
Corporations exist for a reason and that reason was profit
Digital capitalism = substitute trust for cash
Humans will end up in service - leaving machines to do everything else
Humans embrace ambiguity - this gives us the edge
AR is not the solution - what was the question
Inflammation and cytokine - how these affect thinking
We are not great followers of instructions from a king, ceo or algorithm - we need values
Local is going to be the new global