30 Days of Genius- Kevin Kelly

Kevin's words are in bold. My own comments are in italics

• Technology is part of a long tradition, dating back to the big bang
• Technology is a useful tool. It has been used since the start of time, and is nothing new. What is new is humanity's challenges in coping with it's rapid growth rate within our own lives, and facing the challenges in finding balance between us using it and it owning us.

• Today, there is a young person whose genius is waiting for a technology to be invented right now
• We need to constantly keep innovating. There is a genius somewhere who cannot perform because another genius (maybe you) has not worked hard enough to bring the tools into existence that the former needs. Isn't that a fun thought? Your work today can, through its application by another, change millions of lives.

• Make as many mistakes as possible, and just keep doing it again and again and again and again. Try to fail.
• Do we see a theme among these genius? Try, fail, learn. Try, fail, learn. Try, fail, succeed. Try, fail learn.

• 1000 true fans
• You only need 1000 true fans of your work to live a financially and emotionally fulfilled life. Think about it. 1000 fans who appreciate your work so much they put out $100 a year for it. Bam- that's comfort of the 3%. 

• "The next thing is going to be a collaboration engine"
• The future is about working together better than we currently do. As people create platforms and technologies to unite designers in Poland with engineers in Australia, crossing barriers of distance, profession, and language, the world will leap forward.

• Technology is additive
• Technology is built off of itself. Nothing is new- *poof* it exists. Everything is in steps. So if you want to look forward, first learn to look backward. 

• "Creativity begets creativity" 
• There is not an "amount" of creativity that gets used up over time. The more creative work you do in any discipline, the more creative it makes you in any other.
• Chase's example is "taking pictures with your iPhone can make you a better brain surgeon." How? I have no idea. Ask him, he's the genius. 

• "Any job measured in productivity should be done by robots. Humans should be doing jobs that are inefficient." 
• Yes, technology takes away jobs. Yes, it forces people out. But out of what? Out of jobs that do little of value beyond provide money. There are other, better ways to create the emotional satisfaction of being a part of something. There are better ways to spend time, at any level, then screwing in 100 nails/minute. Once money is taken care of, the challenge becomes how to get people to partake in fulfilling work.
• I've had this thought for a long time. In a utopia, we all live comfortably and work solely on our passions. If, for some, that means sitting on their couch doing nothing, great. That makes differentiating those who care about they do much easier. The difficult part is the transition. If 1 million people in labor-intensive work lose their jobs to go pursue "something higher," how do you pay them, motivate them, support them.

• "Answers are cheap. What is valuable? Questions."
• Answers mean little, because every answer in the world already exists. What doesn't exist, and what can't be "discovered," are questions. Learning to ask the right questions is the most powerful skill to be acquired.