- Interview (Video)
Perspectives Matter #2910 AI How It's Changing Our Future
In Byron’s most recent book, “We Are Agora,” Byron looks at superorganisms, such as ant hills and bee colonies, and considers if humans could also be part of a superorganism. He asks, are we unknowingly parts of the inner workings of a larger being? And, if so? As our cells fail to understand us, are we also unaware of what compels our behavior? In his prior book, “Stories, Dice, and Rocks That Think,” Byron argues that our ability to imagine the future and recall the past allowed us to escape the perpetual present that all other living creatures are trapped in.
Byron has also authored “Wasted, How We Squander Time, Money, and Natural Resources and What We Can Do About It,” “The Fourth Age: How Technology and the Internet Will End Ignorance, Disease, Hunger, Poverty, and War,” and “Infinite Progress, How the Internet and Technology Will End Ignorance, Disease, Poverty, Hunger, and War.”
Beehives, ant colonies and termite mounds are superorganisms, that is, creatures made up of other creatures. They evolved this way millions of years ago. Are human cities also superorganisms? That’s the question We Are Agora tries to answer.
See the Introduction
When a system takes on characteristics that none of its parts have, we call that emergence. No gear can track time, but all the gears together can. Humanity is an emergent organism – together we can do things that no individual can.
See Chapter on Emergence
Around the last ice age, humans started working together to accomplish things no individual could do, such as take down a wooly mammoth. This was our first step towards becoming a superorganism.
See Chapter on Mammoth Hunters
This is the fascinating theory from author and futurist Byron Reese, who calls this human superorganism “Agora.”
In We Are Agora, Reese starts by asking the question, “What is life and how did it form?” From there, he looks at how multicellular life came about, how consciousness emerged, and examines other superorganisms in nature to figure out how they form. Then, Reese poses eight big questions based on the Agora theory, including:
In this unique and ambitious work that spans all of human history and looks boldly into its future, Reese melds science and history to look at the human species from a fresh new perspective. Told with his characteristic wit and compulsive readability, We Are Agora gives readers a better understanding of where we’ve been, where we’re going, and how our fates are intertwined.
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When not writing, Byron delights audiences around the world, and has been invited to share his reasoned optimism and vivid and energetic presentations on the future with audiences on every continent but Antartica (coming January 2024). Known as the “Future of” guy, Byron has spoken on the future of A.I., the future of work, the future of banking, the future of education, the future of the planet, the future of agriculture, the future of finance, and the list goes on.
Bloomberg Businessweek credits Byron with having “quietly pioneered a new breed of media company.” The Financial Times of London reported that he “is typical of the new wave of internet entrepreneurs out to turn the economics of the media industry on its head.”
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