With the launch of his new personal news site, The Gates Notes , Bill Gates has formally stepped into the popular blogging arena. His first power post, which just hit the front page of Huffington Post , addresses the the world's propensity to address short-term problems, such as climate change, with bubble gum and tape in lieu of tackling long-term goals by fostering meaningful new innovation. Gates: People often present two timeframes that we should have as goals for CO2 reduction -- 30% (off of some baseline) by 2025 and 80% by 2050. I believe the key one to achieve is 80% by 2050. Gates' logic is consistent with a recurring dialogue I've encountered in technology and forecasting circles: why waste time with incremental advances when we should be innovating technologies an order of magnitude more powerful than the previous generation. But as we enter the knee of some potent accelerating curves (technology, information, communication), it's become painfully ob
on the social consequences of emerging tech