Chapter 110: Kevin Kelly on quashing quandaries with curiosity and creativity

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Kevin Kelly is a man of many titles.

Krista Tippett calls him a ‘philosopher technologist’, Tim Ferriss calls him ‘the world’s most interesting man’, and Stephen J. Dubner says simply, “If I was the Queen, I would want Kevin Kelly on my Privy Council.”

Kevin Kelly is the first person — ever! — to be hired online. When? 1983. For what job? A fascinating one! We’re going to talk about it. He dropped out of college after a year to spend ten years backpacking around Asia. (His photos have just been released in a wonderful paperweight-dwarfing book called Vanishing Asia.) In the same breath he might drop stories of spending time with the Amish just as easily as chatting with Google’s founders in the late 90s. His online home, kk.org, is a fountain of deeply insightful and wise blog posts, such as, 1000 True Fans and his annual bits of birthday advice (which are coming out as a book next year!)

Kevin Kelly’s library

Kevin also edited The Whole Earth Catalog, founded The Hacker’s Conference, and is Co-chair of the Board of the Long Now Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to encouraging long term thinking and which is, right now, building a clock in a mountain that will tick for 10,000 years.

See why titles don’t really work with Kevin? I mean, sure, he calls himself a ‘packager of ideas’ and the Internet may know him best as ‘Senior Maverick at Wired Magazine’ (which he cofounded in 1993.) But he’s also written a series of prophetic bestsellers including: What Technology Wants (2010) and The Inevitable (2016). That last book came out six years ago but it lays out the future of technology over the next thirty. Clear and clairvoyant, Kevin’s words helped me feel more positive about the omnipresent magnetic pull of technology we’re all breathing in today. I would recommend it especially if, like me, you’re occasionally prone to digging your heels in the dirt, throwing your smartphone out the window, and screaming “I don’t wanna!”

Kevin Kelly is a kind, wise, and optimistic finger-pointer. And, unlike most mystics, fortune tellers, and futurists, he’s got a long track record of being right.

We are very lucky to have Kevin Kelly join us on 3 Books.

Let’s flip the page into Chapter 110 now…

Chapter 110: Kevin Kelly on quashing quandaries with curiosity and creativity

 

What You'll Learn:

  • What makes for a good podcast conversation?

  • What are the different types of vacation?

  • How might you plan a vacation to optimize learning?

  • Why are books a long-term technology?

  • What does technology want?

  • How might AI change us?

  • How do you define optimism?

  • How is technology both the problem and the solution?

  • How do we learn to think longer term?

  • What are recursive loops and how do they help explain the world?

  • Why should we strive to engage in infinite games for growth?

  • Why is population a concern?

Notable quotes from kevin:

“Maximization and optimization revolve around learning.” Kevin Kelly #3bookspodcast

“We travel to be confronted with otherness.” Kevin Kelly #3bookspodcast

“The Whole Earth Catalog gave me permission to invent my life.” Kevin Kelly #3bookspodcast

“Books want to take you to this thinking space, this literary space, which is a place that you can't get to in ordinary life.” Kevin Kelly #3bookspodcast

“Technology, like wood, has grains, and we have to work with these grains to get better results.” Kevin Kelly #3bookspodcast

“We  humans have a very peculiar  relationship with technology in that we are both the parent and the child, the master and the servant, the creator and the creator at the same time.” Kevin Kelly #3bookspodcast

“Optimism is a greater focus on opportunities rather than the problems.” Kevin Kelly #3bookspodcast

“I believe that problems are actually the path to progress. We get to progress through problems because they open up possibilities that we had not even thought of before.” Kevin Kelly #3bookspodcast

“If we want to make a world that is friendly to us it will not happen inadvertently. We have to actually deliberately envision it first in order to make it.” Kevin Kelly #3bookspodcast

“We need brakes to steer us but you just want to make sure that the engine is stronger than the brakes.” Kevin Kelly #3bookspodcast

“Problems are in the service of progress.” Kevin Kelly #3bookspodcast

“Every really important person that I admire reads more than I do.” Kevin Kelly #3bookspodcast

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