Quotes About Change

That's how history unfolds. People weave a web of meaning, believe in it with all their heart, but sooner or later the web unravels, and when we look back we cannot understand how anybody could have taken it seriously.

While he originally sang about 'a coloured boy named Johnny B. Goode', under pressure from white-owned radio stations Berry changed the lyrics to 'a country boy named Johnny B. Goode'. As

The liberal story was the story of ordinary people. How can it remain relevant to a world of cyborgs and networked algorithms?

Donald Trump warned voters that the Mexicans and Chinese would take their jobs, and that they should therefore build a wall on the Mexican border.4 He never warned voters that algorithms would take their jobs, nor did he suggest building a firewall on the border with California.

history does not tolerate a vacuum. If incidences of famine, plague and war are decreasing, something is bound to take their place on the human agenda. We

The immense diversity of imagined realities that Sapiens invented, and the resulting diversity of behaviour patterns, are the main components of what we call 'cultures'. Once cultures appeared, they never ceased to change and develop, and these unstoppable alterations are what we call 'history'.

Instead of praying for miracles, we need to ask what we can do to help.

most importantly, this prediction is less of a prophecy and more a way of discussing our present choices. If the discussion makes us choose differently, so that the prediction is proven wrong, all the better. What's the point of making predictions if they cannot change anything?

This is the paradox of historical knowledge. Knowledge that does not change behaviour is useless. But knowledge that changes behaviour loses its relevance. The more data we have and the better we understand history, the faster history alters its course, and the faster our knowledge becomes outdated.

any attempt to define the characteristics of modern society is akin to defining the color of a chameleon.

In 1938 humans were offered three global stories to choose from, in 1968 just two, and in 1998 a single story seemed to prevail. In 2018 we are down to zero.

Technology has changed everything by creating a set of global existential threats that no nation can solve on its own.

When we adopt the proverbial bird's-eye view of history, which examines developments in terms of decades or centuries, it's hard to say whether history moves in the direction of unity or of diversity.

The Cognitive Revolution is accordingly the point when history declared its independence from biology.

The average person in Jericho of 8500 BC lived a harder life than the average person in Jericho of 9500 BC or 13,000 BC. But nobody realised what was happening. Every generation continued to live like the previous generation, making only small improvements here and there in the way things were done. Paradoxically, a series of 'improvements', each of which was meant to make life easier, added up to a millstone around the necks of these farmers.

Movements seeking to change the world often begin by rewriting history, thereby enabling people to reimagine the future.

Today science fiction is the most important artistic genre. It shapes the understanding of the public on things like artificial intelligence and biotechnology, which are likely to change our lives and society more than anything else in the coming decades.

Cuanto más hemos trabajado para construir algo, más difícil es abandonarlo y hacer sitio a algo nuevo.

it is far from clear that billions of people would be able to repeatedly reinvent themselves without losing their mental balance.

we would have to explore new models for post-work societies, post-work economies, and post-work politics.

In 1938 humans were offered three global stories to choose from, in 1968 just two, in 1998 a single story seemed to prevail; in 2018 we are down to zero.

drivers and traffic police (since when rowdy humans are replaced by obedient algorithms, traffic police will be redundant). However, there might be some new openings for philosophers, because their skills—until now devoid of much market value—will suddenly be in very high demand. So if you want to study something that will guarantee a good job in the future, maybe philosophy is not such a bad gamble.

Over the last seventy years humankind has broken not only the Law of the Jungle, but also the Chekhov Law. Anton Chekhov famously said that a gun appearing in the first act of a play will inevitably be fired in the third. Throughout

H}umankind ascended to the top so quickly that the ecosystem was not given time to adjust. Moreover, humans themselves failed to adjust.