The Network Garden - Mark Sigal's Blog

Transformation Ahead: Ruminations on 2016 and Beyond

"Technology becomes widespread not by being dumbed down for normals, but by turning normals into nerds."               - Marc Andreessen

With the year 2015 coming to an end, I find myself reflecting on what feels like the end of one era, and the beginning of another.

New technology begins as the proverbial "dog that walks on its hind legs."

It's sort of capable, but also clearly NOT designed for the task at hand. More parlor trick than perfection.

Over time, use cases are vetted, design improves and technology matures into reliable goods, services and experiences. This is the utility age.

Ultimately, these things get to be so good, and so mass consumer as to be affordable to pretty much everyone everywhere.

At this point, the technology becomes ubiquitous, perpetual and deeply integrated into society.

It is thought to be 'embedded' to the point of invisibility (i.e., so ubiquitous that it is invisible).

As these capabilities become stitched together, a singularity occurs, creating new experiences and fertile ground for innovation and delight (look at how Uber combines smart phone, maps, proximity and real time as one simple example).

With that progression in mind, consider the 15 items below as the 'power tools' of the coming Transformation.

Follow their evolution from the dog on its hind legs, to reliable, to awesome, to ubiquitous, and finally, to singularity:

1. The Internet of Things - Billions of interconnected Sensors, Capture Devices, Controls and Control Systems
2. Drones
3. Virtual Reality
4. Siri, and natural language, voice-driven personal assistants
5. Google Maps
6. Native App Stores
7. iTunes
8. Amazon Prime
9. Uber
10. AirBNB
11. Tesla - Software eating the automobile
12. Self Driving Cars
13. Robotics
14. Big Data - Data Warehousing, Predictive, Personalized, Real Time Intelligence
15. Wireless Mobile Broadband Everywhere

What's telling about the above list is that none of these items are 'reaches' or evenly overly futuristic. Minimally, the dog on its hind legs already exists for each of these items, and many are already at the awesome stage.

But, know this. The full realization of this wave, its execution and application, is coming, and it's going to be pretty wondrous.

 

The True Believers — Making Sense of the Islamic State

Is there a more ALL or NONE topic than the question of whether extremist organizations like Al Qaeda and the ISIS are natural offsprings of the Islamic religion (read: logical) or gross bastardizations of the Islamic religion (read: unnatural outliers)?

Heck, we can’t even conflate the terms ‘Islamic’ and ‘Extremism’ without crossing some boundary of political correctness, and any attempt to place real numbers on the percentage of 1.6 Billion Muslims worldwide that sympathize with or formally support Suicide Bombings and Terrorist Attacks on Non Believer quickly results in the broad brush hominen that one is a hater, or worse, a racist.

Towards that end, Sam Harris, who is one of the most well-versed, articulate writers on Islamic extremism, recently interviewed Graeme Wood, who writes for The Atlantic, on this same topic. Read the full article, which is thought provoking and not sensationalist in the least.

What follows are the excerpts that stood out most for me…

“But if there is anything in this world that is not a secret…it is this question of what is appealing about joining a group like the Islamic State for a person who actually believes in the Islamic doctrines of martyrdom and jihad.”

“So, for instance, when it says in the Qur’an (8:12), “Smite the necks of the infidels,” some people may read that metaphorically, but it’s always tempting to read it literally. In fact, a line like that fairly cries out for a literal reading. Of course, some Muslims believe that such violent passages must be read in their historical context. But it seems even more natural to assume that the words of God apply for all time. So it’s no accident that the Islamic State has made a cottage industry of decapitation.”

“But, like you, I don’t take a position on there being one true interpretation of scripture. It’s just that there are plausible readings and less so, and to my eye the Islamic State is giving a very plausible reading of the Qur’an and the hadīth. That’s a terrible problem, because one can’t stand up and say that this behavior is un-Islamic.”

“The other side of this coin, of course, is that even the most grotesque, seemingly nihilistic actions of the Islamic State become perfectly rational — which is to say, straightforwardly self-interested — given the requisite beliefs. Once you imagine what it would be like to actually believe in paradise, and in martyrdom as the surest way of getting there, it becomes obvious why someone would want to join the Islamic State. If a person truly believes that the Creator of the universe wants him to wage war against the evil of unbelief and that the Islamic State is the very tip of His spear, he has to be insane not to join the cause.”

“I see no reason to think that most jihadis are psychologically abnormal. The truth is far more depressing: These are mostly normal people — fully capable of love, empathy, altruism, and so forth — who simply believe what they say they believe.”

“In fact, the lowest percentage I’ve ever seen in support of suicide bombing against civilians in defense of Islam has been 3 percent (in Pakistan). Most Muslim countries profess far greater approval than that. In fact, it would be conservative to say that 10 percent of Muslims worldwide support suicide bombing against civilians in defense of the faith — please note the terms “suicide,” “civilians,” and “faith” in that sentence. We are, by definition, talking about religiously motivated terrorism. A hundred and sixty million supporters of that worldwide is terrible to contemplate.”