I help companies & other organizations understand the impacts that rapid changes in technology, the climate, economics & society might have on them & the world
Joined November 2008
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My new book
The Pattern of Progress: How Radically Cheaper, Easier, Faster, Better Technologies and Ideas Rapidly Change the World
is now available in printed form on Amazon
amazon.com/Pattern-Progress-…
Oxford Explains What Happens After The Technological Singularity
youtube.com/watch?v=jS8L3ftX…
I put 2000+ of what I think are the biggest technologies in history in Claude to make a map of the innovation ‘Center of Gravity’
It was in about Turkey in the BC days, moved to China and then Europe. Now it is in the US, but presumably will move halfway between the US and China
Wonderful video on how disruptive innovations are typically a convergence of technologies. In this case, how ChatGPT came to be
But there are many other examples: Li-ion batteries were invented for electronics, not cars. Pneumatic rubber tires were for bicycles, not cars, etc.
Another convergence: An article The Economist describes how Ecuador used innovations - including underwater microphone to control automatic feeders, disease-resistant prawns, aerators, filters, etc - to become the world’s largest king prawn producer
xitter.cf/trungtphan/status/2096…
TIL Ecuador is now by far top prawn exporter in the world. In 2025, it sold >$8B worth (more than India, Vietnam and Indonesia combined).
Technology helped country rise to the top (especially past 5 years):
▫️bred disease-resistant prawns
▫️invented automatic shrimp feeders that drop pellets every 3 minutes (a lot of farmers in Asia still canoe out to site and toss bags of pellets)
▫️use underwater microphones to hear if prawns are full from feed (based on click-click chewing sounds)
▫️growing ponds optimized by pumping oxygen and through special filtration
Tech has improved output. 95% of prawns harvested in Ecuador are alive (vs. 80% in Asia).
Prawn industry now employs 1.6% of the country and is 6% of GDP (for comparison: this is higher contribution than carmaking in Germany).
Being close to American market really helps. The country eats more prawns from Ecuador than anywhere else.
Also learned the product goes by an incredible acronym: “HOSO” (head-on, shell-on).
***
Full read here: economist.com/the-americas/2…
Happy Dieselgate Days to all those who celebrate
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volksw…
A piece of a Russian drone (or Ukrainian interceptor) that I got on Thursday at Natalka Park in Kyiv
On Saturday, two days later, a two-year-old girl was killed at that same park in a different drone strike
xitter.cf/CrimeanVoyager/status/…
If Trump renames Lake Ontario to Lake America, then the acronym HOMES for remembering the names of the lakes would become SHAME
Bradd Libby retweeted
What was the secret behind the rise of the Tiwanaku people, many centuries ago, that allowed them to produce 10X the food of flat fields, on the harsh and unforgiving high plains of Bolivia?
It's called 'waru waru', and the idea is deceptively simple…
youtube.com/shorts/mupMRTfBq…
Bradd Libby retweeted
In 1884, Marie Doughty arrived at Fort Brown, Texas, to visit her sister. Then a Yellow Fever epidemic struck. Marie was among the first to fall ill
They were kind enough to dig a grave for her on an island in river, but yet she refused to get into it…
youtube.com/shorts/Lrba0pZGM…
Bradd Libby retweeted
When Mehmed the Conqueror attacked Constantinople in 1453, he succeeded where many predecessors had failed. But that is because he had a tool that was ten times better than what they used. And when we use better tools, they can rapidly change the world
youtube.com/shorts/T-ll9_sZb…
Bradd Libby retweeted
Since Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022, Ukraine's power output has been cut in half.
Our new short documentary explores how decentralised energy solutions are helping communities cope today while strengthening 🇺🇦's energy security for the future 👉 iea.li/4hidHbL
Bradd Libby retweeted
Caesar Augustus reportedly once said: “I found Rome a city of brick and left it a city of marble”, attesting to his own greatness
But if you want a city of marble, you need more than a ruler as great as Augustus, you also need machines that can cut stone
youtube.com/shorts/jY0Xu5HZL…
Bradd Libby retweeted
Tony Seba's Massive 2026 Warning: Get out of FOSSIL FUELS Immediately...
youtu.be/ORu53NHcuig
#tonyseba #fossilfuels #ev #renewableenergy
Bradd Libby retweeted
In ancient Rome, aqueducts brought clean water to the city. Having enough water for the hottest time of the year meant that a super-supply was available at all other times, helping to give rise to the largest city the world had seen until that point
youtube.com/shorts/MU_7N3dKe…
Well, I’ve lived to see another horror beyond my imagination. “Russian company Neiry claims to have directly implanted neural devices in the brains of dairy cows to stimulate lactation”
sentientmedia.org/neurotech-…
Or, we could use precision fermentation to get dairy proteins
Bradd Libby retweeted
The low-spiciness TAM Jalapeño-1 pepper turned Mexican salsa into a beloved American staple over just a couple of decades by enabling "base plus" manufacturing or "late-stage differentiation"
The same idea is used in a wide variety of products
youtube.com/shorts/Kc6-BUYr9…
Bradd Libby retweeted
Using Claude’s Fable 5 and Google’s NotebookLM to visualize all of the locations mentioned in Mark Kurlansky’s 2002 book ‘Salt: A World History’ and to see the key relations to food, energy, and mining
youtube.com/shorts/C5bTYUSXm…
In my book ‘The Pattern of Progress’ I talked about how the rise of trucks ended the supply of donkey milk
Now, Nestle is looking to use precision fermentation to bring donkey milk proteins back to market
greenqueen.com.hk/nestle-pre…
