The Book
In A Categorical Defense of Our Future, authors Esteban Montero and Brandon Baylor lean in to their common experience of being human in the face of uncertainty. They reflect on how our everyday struggles are not what isolates us but what connects us all. As two senior engineers, they bring together everything they know from their relationships to their work projects as well as many other aspects of the world around them and convert them into a commitment to advance the science and technology of how we make collective decisions.
There is no perfect way to utilize the intelligence of a global company that spans countries, time zones, cultures, capabilities, processes, incentives, and more. The final results emerge from collaboration, coordination, and negotiation between many different people and areas of expertise. But modern systems have become so complex and interrelated that it’s no longer possible to create a solution without also creating a dozen unintended problems, some of them damaging or even catastrophic.
No human, or group of humans, can effectively handle the new levels of complexity we face. But that is like saying that humans cannot fly or hear the heart of a baby while still in the womb. We can achieve this with the help of the right science and technologies.
In this important new book, Montero and Baylor point the way toward the complete paradigm shift that is required in order to save us from ourselves. However, they also assure us that there’s no simple answer. There’s just complexity—inescapable, irreducible, and driven in ungovernable ways by population growth coupled with new types of connectivity, new technologies, and new forms of communication and social engagement.
It is true that advances in technology have helped humanity to progress significantly. The authors are proud of the previous generation for giving us the tools and technologies that make this world so fun and exciting to be a part of. But the future needs something different, something more: a technology that allows us to see ourselves and our world in all of its complexity and move forward together.
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In A Categorical Defense of Our Future, authors Esteban Montero and Brandon Baylor lean in to their common experience of being human in the face of uncertainty. They reflect on how our everyday struggles are not what isolates us but what connects us all. As two senior engineers, they bring together everything they know from their relationships to their work projects as well as many other aspects of the world around them and convert them into a commitment to advance the science and technology of how we make collective decisions.
There is no perfect way to utilize the intelligence of a global company that spans countries, time zones, cultures, capabilities, processes, incentives, and more. The final results emerge from collaboration, coordination, and negotiation between many different people and areas of expertise. But modern systems have become so complex and interrelated that it’s no longer possible to create a solution without also creating a dozen unintended problems, some of them damaging or even catastrophic.
No human, or group of humans, can effectively handle the new levels of complexity we face. But that is like saying that humans cannot fly or hear the heart of a baby while still in the womb. We can achieve this with the help of the right science and technologies.
In this important new book, Montero and Baylor point the way toward the complete paradigm shift that is required in order to save us from ourselves. However, they also assure us that there’s no simple answer. There’s just complexity—inescapable, irreducible, and driven in ungovernable ways by population growth coupled with new types of connectivity, new technologies, and new forms of communication and social engagement.
It is true that advances in technology have helped humanity to progress significantly. The authors are proud of the previous generation for giving us the tools and technologies that make this world so fun and exciting to be a part of. But the future needs something different, something more: a technology that allows us to see ourselves and our world in all of its complexity and move forward together.