Quotes About Adaptation

What technology is really about is better ways to evolve. That is what we call an 'infinite game.' … A finite game is played to win, and an infinite game is played to keep playing.

Organisms by their design are not made to adapt too far.

Species go extinct because there are historical contraints built into a given body or a given design.

One of the functions of an organization, of any organism, is to anticipate the future, so that those relationships can persist over time.

The way that organizations and organisms anticipate the future is by taking signals from the past, most the time.

An organization's reason for being, like that of any organism, is to help the parts that are in relationship to each other, to be able to deal with change in the environment.

As a tool, evolution is good for three things: How to get somewhere you want but can't find the route to. How to get to somewhere you can't imagine. How to open up entirely new places to get to

Our lives are already significantly more complex than even five years ago. We need to pay attention to far more sources in order to do our jobs, to learn, to parent, or even to be entertained. The number of factors and possibilities we have to attend to rises each year almost exponentially. Thus our seemingly permanently distracted state and our endless flitting from one thing to another is not a sign of disaster, but is a necessary adaptation to this current environment.

We are reaching deep within ourselves to adjust the master knob.

Equilibrium is dead

Simple machines can be efficient, but complex adaptive machinery cannot be.

These startups try to exploit inefficiencies in novel ways.

But the general trends of the products and services in 30 years are currently visible. Their basic forms are rooted in directions generated by emerging technologies now on their way to ubiquity. This wide, fast-moving system of technology bends the culture subtly, but steadily, so it amplifies the following forces: Becoming, Cognifying, Flowing, Screening, Accessing, Sharing, Filtering, Remixing, Interacting, Tracking, Questioning, and then Beginning.

Get the ongoing process right and it will keep generating ongoing benefits. In our new era, processes trump products.

So I now see upgrading as a type of hygiene: You do it regularly to keep your tech healthy.

We are constantly surprised by things that have been happening for 20 years or longer. I

Heavily cognified, incredibly smart filters can be applied to any realm

Death is the only teacher in evolution

No matter how long you have been using a tool, endless upgrades make you into a newbie—the new user often seen as clueless. In this era of "becoming," everyone becomes a newbie. Worse, we will be newbies forever. That should keep us humble.

we can get the most from the technologies when we "listen" to the direction the technologies lean, and bend our expectations, regulations, and products to these fundamental tendencies within that technology.

The last 30 years has created a marvelous starting point, a solid platform to build truly great things. But what's coming will be different, beyond, and other. The things we will make will be constantly, relentlessly becoming something else. And the coolest stuff of all has not been invented yet. Today truly is a wide-open frontier. We are all becoming. It is the best time ever in human history to begin. You are not late.

Many of the jobs that politicians are fighting to keep away from robots are jobs that no one wakes up in the morning really wanting to do. Robots will do jobs we have been doing, and do them much better than we can. They will do jobs we can't do at all. They will do jobs we never imagined even needed to be done. And they will help us discover new jobs for ourselves, new tasks that expand who we are. They will let us focus on becoming more human than we were.

This is not a race against the machines. If we race against them, we lose. This is a race with the machines. You'll be paid in the future based on how well you work with robots.

processes—the engines of flux—are now more important than products.