Albert-Laszlo Barabasi + James Fowler | Seed Salon
ALB: [M]y son doesn't want to be an astronaut any longer. I've asked him many times: "Would you like to go to the Moon?" And he says: "No. I don't care about that." But he cares deeply about Facebook and about the internet. He cares deeply about the web. At the same time, students who in the past would have gone to physics and math, now are enrolling in computer science and biology, or are trying to understand networks and complexity. So I think that this network explosion coincides with humanity turning inward.
I wondered if you felt the same?
JF: Yeah. Part of this turning inward is a function of the fact that people like you would be out of a job if you didn't start thinking about social science, right? So many of the outstanding questions in physics have been resolved that a lot of your colleagues are turning to other places to use their tools. The other part, I think, is that because we've already maxed out on the negative end of technology — with the creation of things like global warming and nuclear weapons — there has been a realization that maybe we ought to be putting our best and brightest minds at work on this question of how we all get along.
And it couldn't have come at a moment too soon. Because the challenges we are going to face this century are truly astounding. It's an open question whether or not we are going to make it until the end of the century. But I think that if we are going to make it, it's only because we're able to understand ourselves better by using this new technology. That's really going to be what helps us find solutions to these problems that we face in the century of networks.
ALB: Amen.
