Rebecca D. Costa - On the Verge
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The author of The Watchmans Rattlehas done it again.On the Vergeshows how predictive technologies and science are redefining modern leadership (George Mitchell, former Senate Majority Leader).
There can be no greater advantage than certainty of the future. Not in nature. Not in business. Not in governance.
So begins Rebecca Costas much-awaited exploration of foresight: the crowning achievement of human ambition. According to Costa, advances in Big Data, predictive analytics, genomics, artificial intelligence, and other breakthroughs have made it possible to pinpoint future results with mind-blowing accuracycracking the door to what Costa calls predaptation: the ability to adapt before the fact. Never before has the information needed to avert danger, get the jump ahead of others, or prepare for the inevitable been so clearly within grasp.
Through fascinating real-life examples, Costa reveals how technology has brought nations, businesses, and individuals to the edge of clairvoyance. Yet, our ability to act on foreknowledge often falls shortcausing leaders to squander the advantage of preemption. To counteract this failure, Costa illuminates 12 principles of adaptation, and predaptation, used to succeed in fast-moving environments. In the spirit of the best in popular science, On the Verge is a landmark examination of big-picture forces affecting society today. Costas unique sociobiological perspective, combined with her ability to blend humor, breaking science, and insightful personal stories, distinguishes her as one of the most important thought leaders of our time.
If you have an insatiable curiosity about the impact of innovation on our world ahead and how the future can be manipulated, you will love this book.John Sculley, former CEO of Apple and President of Pepsi-Cola
There can be no greater advantage than certainty of the future. Not in nature. Not in business. Not in governance.
So begins Rebecca Costas much-awaited exploration of foresight: the crowning achievement of human ambition. According to Costa, advances in Big Data, predictive analytics, genomics, artificial intelligence, and other breakthroughs have made it possible to pinpoint future results with mind-blowing accuracycracking the door to what Costa calls predaptation: the ability to adapt before the fact. Never before has the information needed to avert danger, get the jump ahead of others, or prepare for the inevitable been so clearly within grasp.
Through fascinating real-life examples, Costa reveals how technology has brought nations, businesses, and individuals to the edge of clairvoyance. Yet, our ability to act on foreknowledge often falls shortcausing leaders to squander the advantage of preemption. To counteract this failure, Costa illuminates 12 principles of adaptation, and predaptation, used to succeed in fast-moving environments. In the spirit of the best in popular science, On the Verge is a landmark examination of big-picture forces affecting society today. Costas unique sociobiological perspective, combined with her ability to blend humor, breaking science, and insightful personal stories, distinguishes her as one of the most important thought leaders of our time.
If you have an insatiable curiosity about the impact of innovation on our world ahead and how the future can be manipulated, you will love this book.John Sculley, former CEO of Apple and President of Pepsi-Cola
Rebecca D. Costa: author's other books
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Rebecca D. Costa
Rebecca D. Costa
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Unknown
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Rebecca D. Costa
author of The Watchmans Rattle
NEW YORK, 2017
On the Verge
Copyright 2017 by Rebecca D. Costa
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher.
For information, please contact RosettaBooks at production@rosettabooks.com, or by mail at One Exchange Plaza, Suite 2002, 55 Broadway, New York, NY 10006.
RosettaBooks editions are available to the trade through Ingram distribution services, ipage.ingramcontent.com or (844) 749-4857.
For special orders, catalogues, events, or other information, please write to production@rosettabooks.com.
First edition published 2017 by RosettaBooks
Cover art by RichVintage/Vetta/Getty Images
Cover design by Christian Fuenfhausen and Brehanna Ramirez
Interior design by Brehanna Ramirez
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017940684
ISBN-13 (print): 978-0-7953-5057-3
ISBN-13 (epub): 978-0-7953-5060-3
www.RosettaBooks.com
For Edward O. Wilson
PREFACE
Ask anyone on the street Whats the single most important attributethe one above all othersvital to success? The first answer youll get is money or power. A few may say persistence or a good education. And, some will throw in family and strong role models for good measure.
But is this really true?
Not from a sociobiologists perspective.
For it is not the wealthiest, strongest, fastest, or most
cunningnot the most educated or experiencedwhich prevail when the environment takes a turn. More than a hundred fifty years ago, Charles Darwin revealed that it is our ability to adapt that is the determining factor. And while that may not sound like news today, when you stop and think about it, our attitudes toward adaptation havent changed in more than a century. We continue to treat adaptation the way nature doesas some random roll-of-the-dice over which we have little or no control. When the environment changes, some individuals and groups thrive, some hang on for dear life, and others perish. And thats that.
cunningnot the most educated or experiencedwhich prevail when the environment takes a turn. More than a hundred fifty years ago, Charles Darwin revealed that it is our ability to adapt that is the determining factor. And while that may not sound like news today, when you stop and think about it, our attitudes toward adaptation havent changed in more than a century. We continue to treat adaptation the way nature doesas some random roll-of-the-dice over which we have little or no control. When the environment changes, some individuals and groups thrive, some hang on for dear life, and others perish. And thats that.
In truth, we understand very little about how to make ourselves, our workplace, our economy or government more adaptable. For exampleis there any one skill that matters more than others when it comes to responding more quickly, more precisely, more successfully to change?
It turns out there is.
For it is the organism with the greatest foresight that has the upper hand in any situation.
Foresight allows us to make plans, avert danger, get the jump ahead of others. Foresight commands us to fashion the spear before the attack, sell a stock before it tumbles, cut a cancer before it spreads. Foresight is the precursor to opportunity, the warning before the storm, the salvation before the sin.
There can be no greater advantage than certainty of the future.
And when it comes to mans prophetic powers, this book could not arrive at a better time. Recent breakthroughs in technologysuch as the proliferation of predictive analytics, Big Data, and sensor and satellite technologieshave made it possible to anticipate future outcomes with unprecedented accuracy. With every passing moment our forecasts grow more robust, more consequential, more intrusive. Thats because foreknowledge has turned previous notions about adaptation on its head. We are no longer adapting to changes in the environment. We stand on the cusp of changing the environment to which we must adapt.
And by environment, I mean every environment: physical, economic, political, social every aspect of human life is affected by our ability to foretell future consequencesand the growing burden to avert antagonistic events before they occur.
Darwins world is no more. Even a stalwart theory like evolution must yield to changing circumstance. And while it may seem sacrilegious for a sociobiologist to claim science and technology have brought humankind to the brink of transcending laws that have governed life for billions of years, the truth has no obligation to conform with previous precedent. The world has changed. Humans have changed it. And we must now come to terms with the deeper meaning of that change.
On the Verge is the story of tilting the odds in our favor, manipulating outcomes before the fact, and preempting failure. It is the story of how we rose to become the most elastic organism on Earth and, along the way, unlocked the secret to eternal prosperity. It is the story of where we have been, and where we are headed . It is the story of foresight: the crowning achievement of human ambition .
Rebecca D. Costa
November 10, 2016
Big Sur, California
November 10, 2016
Big Sur, California
Want of foresight,
unwillingness to act when action
would be simple and effective,
lack of clear thinking,
confusion of counsel until the emergency comes,
until self-preservation strikes its jarring gong,
these are the features which constitute
the endless repetition of history.
unwillingness to act when action
would be simple and effective,
lack of clear thinking,
confusion of counsel until the emergency comes,
until self-preservation strikes its jarring gong,
these are the features which constitute
the endless repetition of history.
- Winston Churchill
CHAPTER ONE
Imagine a world where a handful of businesses and governments could foresee the future. In the beginning, they could see to the end of the block. A little later, the end of the street. Then all at once, around the corner, down the highway, across the ocean, and beyond the curvature of the Earth.
Now imagine for a moment their prognostications were right.
Not right once or twice. Right every single time. Imagine anticipating future events with such precision that a threat could be quashed before it had opportunity to materialize; shortages and surpluses could be managed in advance; public opinion shaped beforehand.
Well, imagine no more.
This phenomenon is underwaya shift so subtle it feels like no more than a hand gently ushering us across a crowded room. That crowded room is the Information Ageand we are slowly making our way to the other side to a future that is knowable .
A knowable future? Have I lost my mind?
Perhaps.
But consider the evidence. Fifty years ago, the sex of a newborn was a surprise revealed only at birth. A few decades ago, we didnt know whether a person was predisposed to breast cancer, baldness, Alzheimers, or depression. We didnt have the meteorological models, instrumentation, or satellite imagery to evacuate an entire city in advance of a hurricane. And no way to know when a countrys currency was on the verge of collapse. Never mind how oil production in the Middle East will affect banana prices in Tokyo
Every day our ability to anticipate future outcomes grows more acute, more all-encompassing, and extends further out. This sea change has equipped todays leaders with a previously unimaginable powerthe power to respond to and shape events before they occur. We stand on the cusp of what Darwin himself might have called predaptation : the ability to adapt a priori.
Similar to other leaps in human evolution, this capability did not occur overnight. Following millions of years of trial and errorand the failure of over 99 percent of the species that once inhabited EarthMother Nature saw fit to bless a single organism with the aptitude to understand tomorrow. Our adeptness at conducting sophisticated thought experimentsour ability to assess risk and prioritize complex scenarios in rapid fireis unique to Homo sapiens. Not only is this faculty unequalled, it is also, without question, the most powerful asset nature has produced to date. For there is no greater advantage than the ability to abate danger or seize opportunity which has yet to manifest. Not in nature. Not in business. Not in governance.
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