Training · Day-by-Day
Daily Exercise · 5 to 10 minutes

Possibility/Exponentiality
Training

Retraining the two reflexes that cost the most right now. The instinct to call something impossible. The instinct to assume change is linear. Both were usually right for most of human history. Both are now usually wrong.

A training exercise
for a world moving exponentially
Before you start

Discipline. Training. Effort.

The world is changing faster than at any point in human history. Not linearly. Exponentially. A hockey stick. And the human brain, mine included, was not built for this.

We are linear thinkers evolved for a linear world, now living in an exponential one. That gap is the most expensive cognitive bias of our moment.

So I train. Every day. The way an athlete trains muscle, I train the two instincts that cost the most right now... the instinct to call something impossible, and the instinct to assume change is linear.

Retraining them is hard because they are older than we are.

One of the exercises is reading the quotes below. Slowly. Letting them do their work.

Scroll
I
Part One

On the word impossible

Unless physics forbids it, it's an engineering problem.

Engineering problems are soluble. The rate at which they become soluble is itself accelerating.

01

To declare that something is impossible is to assume a knowledge of everything.

David Deutsch
02

The only thing that is impossible is impossibility.

Michio Kaku
03

I only want people around me who can do the impossible.

Elizabeth Arden
04

Impossible is not a fact. It's an opinion.

Muhammad Ali
05

The impossible often has a kind of integrity which the merely improbable lacks.

Douglas Adams
06

Physics is the law, everything else is a recommendation.

Elon Musk
07

When we find that something isn't forbidden by the over-arching laws of physics we usually eventually find a technological way of doing it.

David Deutsch
08

It always seems impossible until it's done.

Nelson Mandela
09

Never tell a young person that anything cannot be done. God may have been waiting centuries for someone ignorant enough of the impossible to do that very thing.

G. M. Trevelyan
10

The word impossible is not in my dictionary.

Napoleon Bonaparte
11

So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable.

Christopher Reeve
12

Sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.

Lewis Carroll
13

Everything that is not forbidden by laws of nature is achievable, given the right knowledge.

David Deutsch
14

To the timid and hesitating everything is impossible because it seems so.

Sir Walter Scott
15

We have more power than will; and it is often by way of excuse to ourselves that we fancy things are impossible.

Francois Duc De la Rochefoucauld
16

Everything is theoretically impossible, until it is done.

Robert A. Heinlein
17

If something is permitted by the laws of physics, then the only thing that can prevent it from being technologically possible is not knowing how.

David Deutsch
18

Whether you think you can or think you can't, you're right.

Henry Ford
19

Impossible only means that you haven't found the solution yet.

Anonymous
20

No one gets very far unless he accomplishes the impossible at least once a day.

Elbert Hubbard
21

Because a thing seems difficult for you, do not think it impossible for anyone to accomplish.

Marcus Aurelius
22

What we can or cannot do, what we consider possible or impossible, is rarely a function of our true capability. It is more likely a function of our beliefs about who we are.

Anthony Robbins
23

We would accomplish many more things if we did not think of them as impossible.

Vince Lombardi
24

The only place where your dream becomes impossible is in your own thinking.

Robert Schuller
25

The positive thinker sees the invisible, feels the intangible and achieves the impossible.

Anonymous
26

I have learned to use the word 'impossible' with the greatest caution.

Wernher von Braun
27

In order to attain the impossible, one must attempt the absurd.

Miguel de Cervantes
28

There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.

Paulo Coelho
29

Believe and act as if it were impossible to fail.

Charles F. Kettering
30

Every noble work is at first impossible.

Thomas Carlyle
31

There is nothing impossible to him who will try.

Alexander the Great
32

Either something is impossible, or it is achievable with knowledge.

David Deutsch
33

It's kind of fun to do the impossible.

Walt Disney
34

Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they've been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It's an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It's a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.

Muhammad Ali
35

The Romans could have had the telephone; the Greeks could have had the cinema; the Babylonians could have had the automobile, had they been mentally ready. The laws of nature were the same in those ages as in ours, the same materials were in the ground, but the minds of the Ancients were not ready for those things, and so they had to go without them.

Emmet Fox
36

I myself believe that there will one day be time travel because when we find that something isn't forbidden by the over-arching laws of physics we usually eventually find a technological way of doing it.

David Deutsch
37

If at first, the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it.

Albert Einstein
38

The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible.

Arthur C. Clarke
The anchor for Part One

If it isn't forbidden by physics, it is an engineering problem. And engineering problems are soluble.

II
Part Two

On the word linear

Most of human history was linear. The last 50 years were not. The last 5 were not. The last 5 months were not.

Linear thinking aimed at an exponential world arrives years behind where the world actually ends up.

01

The problem is that humans think in slow, incremental steps, while technology leaps exponentially. If we don't adjust our thinking and systems to match the speed of AI and automation, we'll be left behind.

Tim Urban
02

Humans are linear thinkers in an exponential world. Our challenge is to overcome this cognitive bias and match the pace of technological growth, or we risk being left behind.

Ray Kurzweil
03

We are at an inflection point where the gap between those who can adapt to technology and those who can't is widening rapidly. The faster we can adjust, the more inclusive and fair the future will be.

Ginni Rometty
04

In an era of exponential technology, the only way society can thrive is by accelerating how we learn and adapt. Slow human thinking won't suffice in an age of rapid technological deployment.

Satya Nadella
05

The world is moving at an exponential pace, and the winners will be those who can adapt, experiment, and innovate at the same rate.

Peter Diamandis
06

We need to move from linear models of development to exponential thinking... If we continue to think in a linear way, we will never catch up to the pace of change we are experiencing.

Joi Ito
07

The future belongs to those who can learn faster than the rate of change in their industry.

Tim O'Reilly
08

We stand on the threshold of a brave new world... Our only hope is to move quickly and align our development with these new technologies, lest they surpass our understanding and control.

Stephen Hawking
09

The companies and countries that can move the fastest will win in this digital age. The slow will fall behind and get disrupted. It's a race against time.

John Chambers
10

The rate at which technology is expanding is only limited by our ability to adapt and comprehend it. If we don't increase our ability to handle this expansion, it will soon outstrip us.

Douglas Engelbart
11

We are living in an age of information overload and rapid technological change. The only way to survive is to enhance human adaptability through faster learning and more dynamic thinking.

Yuval Noah Harari
12

What we should be more concerned about is not necessarily the exponential change in artificial intelligence or robotics, but about the stagnant response in human intelligence.

Anders Sorman-Nillson
13

The AI runs on a different timescale than you do; by the time your neurons finish thinking the words "I should do something" you have already lost.

Eliezer Yudkowsky
14

We are at a turning point. The tools of AI are improving exponentially, but our societal systems, education, law, ethics, are changing far too slowly to keep up. The faster we act, the better chance we have to shape a positive future.

Max Tegmark
15

Technology is accelerating so fast, it's outpacing our human ability to think linearly. We need to shift our mindset and speed up how we govern, adapt, and educate ourselves.

Kevin Kelly
16

Artificial intelligence, big data, and machine learning are progressing faster than most people realize. Our challenge is to understand these technologies fast enough and apply them before we fall behind.

Jack Ma
17

The only way to keep up with an exponential world is to embrace continuous learning and rapid innovation. Society needs to build faster systems to manage and deploy these advances.

Sebastian Thrun
18

As always, there's good news and there's bad news. The bad news is, we seem incapable of solving our more pressing or persistent problems. The good news is, we're getting closer to building a machine that might do it for us.

Jim Vibert
19

Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking of them.

Alfred North Whitehead
20

In the Fourth Industrial Revolution, change is happening faster than ever, and we are struggling to keep up. We must upgrade our institutions and thinking to keep pace with these technologies, or we risk creating a deeply divided society.

Klaus Schwab
21

The future belongs to those who can think exponentially, not linearly. If we continue to think in outdated models, we'll never keep pace with the technological changes happening around us.

Tim O'Reilly
22

We are entering an era where machines may think faster than us. To stay relevant, humans will need to enhance their cognitive capabilities and work in tandem with AI to leverage the full potential of these technologies.

Michio Kaku
23

Just like we had to electrify factories during the industrial revolution, we now have to 'AI-ify' industries. The sooner companies and societies understand this, the better positioned they will be to thrive.

Andrew Ng
24

In this Fourth Industrial Revolution, speed and agility are critical to success. Governments and businesses must adapt to exponential technologies faster than ever before or risk irrelevance.

Marc Benioff
25

Our biggest challenge in the age of AI is not creating the technology, but adapting our workforce and society to it. The gap between technological progress and our ability to respond is widening, and we must close that gap quickly.

Erik Brynjolfsson
26

AI will have a bigger impact than electricity or fire, but society needs to catch up. It's critical to educate people about AI's potential and risks so we can harness it for good.

Sundar Pichai
27

The future of AI depends not just on building more powerful algorithms, but on how quickly humans can adapt to working alongside them. We need to prepare society for this partnership to avoid disruption.

Fei-Fei Li
28

The Fourth Industrial Revolution will require humanity to think faster and act more creatively. We must prepare future generations to be ready for a world where machines are smarter and faster than ever.

Jack Ma
29

The biggest transformation in technology is not AI itself, but how fast we need to learn and adjust our ways of thinking. If humans don't adjust, technology will simply leave them behind.

Kevin Kelly
30

We are seeing technological advancements moving at an exponential rate, yet our social systems, education, policy, and labor, are evolving linearly. This gap will only widen unless we rethink how quickly we adapt.

Kai-Fu Lee
31

The key to thriving in the future will be the speed of adaptation. In a world where technology and AI advance exponentially, those who learn and adapt faster will have the upper hand.

Ray Dalio
32

In a world where AI is accelerating at breakneck speed, we have to act faster than ever before to keep up.

Elon Musk
33

In a world of rapid technological progress, speed in decision-making and adaptation is the new currency of success. The slower you move, the more likely you are to fall behind.

Jeff Bezos
34

Technology's exponential growth is rewriting the rules of how we live and work. It's no longer a matter of catching up. We need to anticipate where things are going and adapt even faster.

Marc Andreessen
35

The pace of technological innovation is not just fast, it's accelerating. In the digital era, those who move the quickest to adopt new technology will be the ones who define the future.

Mark Zuckerberg
36

The speed at which new technologies are evolving is creating a new breed of exponential organizations. The question is, can society move at the same pace to embrace and integrate these changes?

Peter Diamandis
37

The pace of change today is unprecedented, and society needs to move faster to close the gap between what technology can do and what society can handle.

Tim Berners-Lee
38

In this era of acceleration, it's not just about the speed of innovation, but how fast individuals, businesses, and governments can learn and adjust. The faster you adapt, the more successful you will be.

Thomas Friedman
39

The world is changing very fast. Big will not beat small anymore. It will be the fast beating the slow.

Rupert Murdoch
The puck now accelerates

The Gretzky line everyone quotes...

I skate to where the puck will be, not to where it is.

Wayne Gretzky

He said that when the puck moved at linear speed.

The puck now accelerates.

A skater aimed at today's puck arrives years behind where the puck actually ends up.

We have to skate to where the puck will be in an exponential world.

That is a different aim point. And it requires a different brain.

Why am I trying to think and move so fast?

The puck is moving faster.

Read the quotes. Not once. Daily, or weekly, for a while.

Notice what happens to the reflex that says that's impossible or that's a long way off.

Those reflexes were trained over decades. They take time to retrain. The retraining is the work.

If anyone has a proof from first principles that something we're building violates physics, send it.

I will read it carefully and change course if it holds.

Until then, let's build... fast, at the speed physics allows, with brains that are learning to match the world as it actually is.

Onward. Upward.
Climb. Climb. Climb.
— Jed