by Zoë Pollock
Kevin Kelly is awed by our collective knowledge:
A single bee lives 6 weeks, so a memory of several years is impossible, but that's how long a hive of individual bees can remember. Humanity is migrating towards its hive mind. Most of what "everybody knows" about us is based on the human individual. Collectively, connected humans will be capable of things we cannot imagine right now. These future phenomenon will rightly seem impossible. What's coming is so unimaginable that the impossibility of wikipedia will recede into outright obviousness. Connected, in real time, in multiple dimensions, at an increasingly global scale, in matters large and small, with our permission, we will operate at a new level, and we won't cease surprising ourselves with impossible achievements.
Relatedly, Richard MacManus argues that collective intelligence projects need more women.
(Image by French sculptor Edouard Martinet, constructed using old bicycles, cars, and mopeds)
The Dish 