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In this episode I'm continuing my series on human enhancement. I've previously interviewed Guilia Dominijanni on her experiments on how people adapt successfully to adding a third robotic arm. Technology continues to advance in robotics, computing, and brain-machine interfaces opening a huge pandora's box on the potential for future enhancements. To explore this I'm going to chat with a distinguished author who has explored the issue in depth. Joel Garreau is an explorer of culture, values, and change. He has published several books, including The Nine Nations of North America. Edge City: Life on the New Frontier, and Radical Evolution: The Promise and Peril of Enhancing Our Minds, Our Bodies—and What It Means to Be Human. A long-time reporter and editor at The Washington Post, Joel is now Professor of Culture, Values and Emerging Technologies Emeritus at Arizona State University. Joel has served as a Future Tense Fellow at New America in Washington, D.C., and a fellow at Cambridge University, Oxford, the University of California at Berkeley and George Mason University and a Science Journalism Laureate at Purdue. He was a long-time member of Global Business Network, the pioneering scenario-planning organization, and is the troll of a small forest in the foothills of Virginia's Blue Ridge.
Katherine Mangu-Ward is editor in chief of Reason, the magazine of “free minds and free markets.” Her writing has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, Slate, and numerous other publications. She is a frequent commentator on radio and television networks such as National Public Radio, CNBC, C-SPAN, Fox Business, Fox News Channel, and MSNBC. She is a Future Tense Fellow at New America. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Our guest today is Jamie Holmes, a former Research Coordinator at Harvard University in the Department of Economics and a Future Tense Fellow at New America . His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Slate, Politico, the Christian Science Monitor, The New Republic and The Atlantic and he's here to talk to us today about his new book Nonsense: The Power of Not Knowing.
No one likes uncertainty, yet our success may depend on it. In the bestseller, Nonsense: The Power of Not Knowing, Jamie Holmes argues that uncertainty and ambiguity are invaluable mindsets in an increasingly complex world. In fact, he wants us to rethink our desire for order and closure, so that we can be better leaders, decision makers, and innovators. A recent Future Tense Fellow at New America, Jamie has written for the New York Times, the New Yorker, the Philadelphia Inquirer, CNN, the Huffington Post, POLITICO, the Christian Science Monitor, the New Republic, the Atlantic, Slate, Foreign Policy, and the Daily Beast. In this episode you will learn: the reasons why a high tolerance for uncertainty is so valuable right now the ways we can use uncertainty to avoid bad decisions how our need for closure and order drives so much of what we do the value of uncertainty for innovation and creativity strategies for guarding against negative behaviors associated with certainty when (and how) to hire employees who thrive on uncertainty the kinds of leaders we prefer versus need in times of uncertainty how successful, innovative companies incorporate uncertainty into their business models what this means for educators and learners the real-world disorder and chaos associated with innovation, discovery, and creativity concrete strategies to help students get more comfortable with uncertainty what a renowned golf instructor can teach us about feedback the power of travel and bilingualism for building this capacity the power of reading fiction for helping us strengthen our tolerance for uncertainty Jamie also shares how uncertainty, ambiguity and not knowing make us better leaders and expand our capacity for innovation and creativity. Links to Topics Mentioned in this Podcast Jerome Bruner Leo Postman Travis Proulx Jordan Peterson Arie Kruglanski Need for Closure scale Stalling for Time by Gary Noesner Ambiguity Intolerance Zara Inditex Amancio Ortega Jim Lang Assumption College Brilliant Blunders by Mario Livio Bob Christina Dean Simonton If you enjoyed the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. Thanks for listening! Thank you to Emmy-award-winning Creative Director Vanida Vae for designing the Curious Minds logo! @GAllenTC www.gayleallen.net LinkedIn
As part of the Emory Williams Lecture Series, Christine Rosen, senior editor of "The New Atlantis," gives a talk entitled "The Changing Role of the Bible in America" (November 20, 2013). Rosen writes about the social and cultural impact of technology, as well as bioethics and the history of genetics. As a Future Tense Fellow at the New America Foundation, she is working on her forthcoming book, "The Extinction of Experience," to be published by W. W. Norton in 2014. The Emory Williams Lectures in the Liberal Arts have been made possible by a generous gift from Mr. Emory Williams (Emory College '32 and Trustee Emeritus, Emory University). http://college.emory.edu/home/academic/voluntary-core-program/lectures
As part of the Emory Williams Lecture Series, Christine Rosen, senior editor of "The New Atlantis," gives a talk entitled "The Changing Role of the Bible in America" (November 20, 2013). Rosen writes about the social and cultural impact of technology, as well as bioethics and the history of genetics. As a Future Tense Fellow at the New America Foundation, she is working on her forthcoming book, "The Extinction of Experience," to be published by W. W. Norton in 2014. The Emory Williams Lectures in the Liberal Arts have been made possible by a generous gift from Mr. Emory Williams (Emory College '32 and Trustee Emeritus, Emory University). http://college.emory.edu/home/academic/voluntary-core-program/lectures