Octavia Estelle Butler was born in 1947 in Pasadena, CA. Known in her early years as “Estelle,” she was raised by a single, widowed mother who worked domestic jobs to make ends meet. Painfully shy and introverted from a young age, Estelle became an easy target for bullying at school. Her shyness combined with slight…
We’ve been led to believe that we are at the precipice of an Artificial Intelligence explosion. Yet the progress in our digital assistants and self-driving cars seems to have stalled. Computers choke at even the simplest requests, and most of the digital world continues to be handcrafted by humans. But quietly, hidden in plain sight,…
One of my favorite science fiction books of all time is Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan. The series follows Takeshi Kovacs, an elite rebel fighter known as an “Envoy.” Takeshi lives hundreds of years in the future, at a time when a crucial invention has profoundly changed society: cortical stacks, known simply as “stacks.” They…
This essay was originally posted on the Ribbonfarm blog. The organizing principle of the modern world is pain. Avoiding it, yes. But also trading in it, taking refuge in it, and using it to justify our actions. Pain has so many uses. Why would you ever give up such a versatile tool? We trade in…
I’ve listed below all the science fiction books I’ve read that I can remember, in no particular order. I’ve included the names of authors, and any other titles they’ve written directly below their first mention. See my 2-part article What I Learned About the Future by Reading 100 Science Fiction Books for my insights and takeaways…
When I moved from San Francisco to Oakland in 2014, I was just trying to pay cheaper rent. I never expected to be influenced by the movements that flow through Oakland’s veins: the movements for social justice, for environmental justice, and for black liberation. I’ve since had the privilege of working with some of the…
I recently finished listening to the audiobook of Trekonomics: The Economics of Star Trek (Amazon Affiliate Link), by Manu Saadia. It was probably the most fun I’ve ever had thinking about economics, due to the outstanding premise: What if we treated the Star Trek universe as if it was real, and used it to draw…
This is the story of my experience at Burning Man 2017. The first day I ran around like a kid at Disneyland, poking my head into every corner, trying to see and try everything. Black Rock City (what the encampment is called for a few weeks each year) is indeed a theme park — except for adults,…
By Tiago Forte of Forte Labs We’ve been told for years now that what our parents and kindergarten teachers told us is not, in fact, true — we are not each and every one of us special unique snowflakes destined for greatness. In this essay I want to offer a new theory of productivity for those of…
By Tiago Forte of Forte Labs Now available in Russian. This is Part 2 of an experiment in science-fiction prototyping, in which I try to envision the future by examining the best ideas from 100 sci-fi novels. 4. The more advanced technology becomes, the less it matters Nearly every vision of the future I’ve come across…
By Tiago Forte of Forte Labs Now available in Russian, Portuguese, and Chinese. Over the past two years I’ve read 100 sci-fi novels, averaging about one per week. See the full list here, with my favorites. I started reading sci-fi to pass the time. I had good memories of reading Jurassic Park as a kid….