I got to spend a fair bit of time with my friend Steven Johnson this past week, in preparation for our crypto talk on Thursday night and before and after that talk.
Steven has this wonderful quality of being able to observe both history and the present and make connections between the two and also to weave those observations into narratives that make for great stories.
A persistent theme in his work is the role of play in the advancement of society. He argued in Everything Bad Is Good For You that playing video games and watching TV are actually educational and productive uses of our time. And in Wonderland, he argued that play led to many important societal advances.
This talk at RSA, delivered in the wake of Wonderland, is a great articulation of the value of having fun to moving society forward.
I enjoyed it very much and I hope you do too.
