Is Mass Extinction Possible?

When we think about the future, and the vast array of dangers that we face as a society and a species, how big do we think? Is our future measured in days, weeks, hours or perhaps millennia? For Alvy Singer, the Woody Allen stand-in in Annie Hall, the future was far, far away as the young man worried about the “universe expanding” while sitting in Brooklyn.

The fact is that Alvy was thinking in species time, and history tells us that species do go extinct; that our day will come to an end and that maybe it is something we should be thinking about.

Science writer and blogger Annalee Newitz, has certainly been thinking about it, and she lays it out in Scatter, Adapt, and Remember: How Humans Will Survive a Mass Extinction.

My conversation with Annalee Newitz:

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Why Success Always Starts with Failure

Success, in William James phrase, "demands strange sacrifices from those who worship her." In today's complex times, one of those sacrifices is the ability to be willing to fail. Someone deep in the corporate world once said to me in response to a question about lack of performance, that “you can get into a lot of trouble by not doing anything, but you can get into more trouble by doing something.” The fact is, that in today high speed, high touch, high complexity world, that will not do. To counter this, we need not be afraid of the new or be afraid to fail. Tim Harford, the Undercover Economist at the Financial Times, lays it all out in his new book Adapt: Why Success Always Starts with Failure.

My conversation with Tim Harford:

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