Analog

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This is an excerpt from What Matters Now — Analog, by George Dyson.

Analog computing, once believed to be as extinct as the differential analyzer, has returned.

Digital computing can answer (almost) any question that can be stated precisely in language that a computer can understand. This leaves a vast range of real-world problems — especially ambiguous ones — in the analog domain. In an age of all things digital, who dares mention analog by name? "Web 2.0" is our code word for the analog increasingly supervening upon the digital—reversing how digital logic was embodied by analog components, the first time around.

Complex networks — of molecules, people, or ideas — constitute their own simplest behavioral descriptions. They are more easily approximated by analogy than defined by algorithmic code. Facebook, for example, although running on digital computers, constitutes an analog computer whose correspondence to the underlying network of human relationships now drives those relationships, the same way Google’s statistical approximation to meaning — allowing answers to find the questions, rather than the other way around — is now more a landscape than a map.

Pulse-frequency coding (where meaning is embodied by the statistical properties of connections between memory locations) and template-based addressing (where data structures are addressed by template rather than by precise numerical and temporal coordinates) are the means by which the analog will proliferate upon the digital.

Analog is back, and here to stay.

George Dyson is the author of Baidarka, Project Orion and Darwin Among the Machines, as well as a recent short story, "Engineers’ Dreams."

Nobody

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This is an excerpt from What Matters Now — Nobody, by Micah Sifry.

Nobody has the answers.
Nobody is listening to you.
Nobody is looking out for your interests.
Nobody will lower your taxes.
Nobody will fix the education system.
Nobody knows what he is doing in Washington.
Nobody will make us energy independent.
Nobody will cut government waste.
Nobody will clean up the environment.
Nobody will protect us against terrorist threats.
Nobody will tell the truth.
Nobody will avoid conflicts of interest.
Nobody will restore ethical behavior to the White House.
Nobody will get us out of Afghanistan.
Nobody understands farm subsidies.
Nobody will spend your tax dollars wisely.
Nobody feels your pain.
Nobody wants to give peace a chance.
Nobody predicted the Iraq War would be a disaster.
Nobody expected the levees to fail.
Nobody warned that the housing bubble would collapse.
Nobody will reform Wall Street.
Nobody will stand up for what’s right.
Nobody will be your voice.
Nobody will tell you what the others won’t.
Nobody has a handle on this.

Nobody, but you, that is.

Never forget, a small group of people can change the world.

No one else ever has.

Micah Sifry is co-founder of the Personal Democracy Forum. He tweets @mlsif.

Dumb

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This is an excerpt from What Matters Now — Dumb, by Dave Balter.

A long time ago, starting a company that made software for computers was dumb. Microsoft and Apple may beg to differ. A company that manufactures cars: dumb. Putting a college yearbook online: dumb. Limiting updates to just 140 characters: dumb.

Here’s what’s easy: to recognize a really smart new business concept as just that. What’s hard is recognizing that the idea you think is just plain dumb is really tomorrow’s huge breakthrough.

But what makes dumb, smart? The ability to look at the world through a different lens from everyone else. To ignore rules. To disregard the ‘why’s’ and ‘how’s’ and ‘never-succeeded-befores’. Then you need conviction, and the ability to stand by that conviction when other (smart) people look you in the eye and say, "no way, nuh uh."

So, how do you tell a good dumb idea from a bad dumb one? Good dumb ideas create polarization. Some people will get it immediately and shower it with praise and affection. Others will say it’s ignorant and impossible and run for the hills. The fiercer the polarization, the smarter your dumb idea.

Of course, dumb can be just dumb. You just have to be smart to tell the difference.

Dave Balter is a serial entrepreneur and most recently founder and CEO of BzzAgent. He’s written two books, Grapevine: Why Buzz Was a Fad but Word of Mouth is Forever and The Word of Mouth Manual: Volume II.