Welcome to New World Same Humans, a weekly newsletter on trends, technology, and society by David Mattin.
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This instalment of NWSH is brought to you by Skillful.
Starting from this newsletter’s earliest days, I’ve written often about the changing future of work and the disruption of higher education.
A single thread has run through much of that: a changing economy demands radical new visions of learning. Visions that are decentralised, life-long, and peer-led.
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This week, reflections on the deep human past. And on the prospect of a post-human future. All thanks to an amazing discovery in China’s Heilongjiang province.
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If you’d prefer to read this week’s instalment, go here for the text version of The End of History.
Links in this week’s instalment
1. Scientists say the Dragon Man – Heilongjiang means Black Dragon River – poses a challenge to the story of human evolution as we know it.
2. In 2018, Chinese biologist He Jiankui shocked the world with claims that he had created the world’s first CRISPR-edited babies.
3. Meanwhile, the emergence of new forms of human-machine interface – see Elon Musk’s Neuralink for an example – point to a future in which we merge with our technologies.
4. In his 2016 blockbuster Homo Deus, he argues that human history as we know it is about to end, because we sapiens are about to upgrade ourselves and become something else entirely.
5. Researchers believe our sapiens ancestors killed off the Neanderthals in a long war of attrition that raged on and off for over 60,000 years.
Random access humans
Thanks for listening to a particularly philosophical NWSH this week.
This newsletter will continue to investigate the implications of genetic technologies, human-machine interfaces, and the post-human era that so many futurists seem keen to usher us into.
And there’s one thing you can do to help: share!
If this week’s instalment resonated with you, why not consider spreading the word? You could forward the email to someone who’d also enjoy it. Or share across one of your social networks. Remember: the larger and more diverse the NWSH community becomes, the better for all of us.
I’ll be back on Wednesday with New Week Same Humans. Until then, be well,
David.
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