In this episode, John and Kevin traverse the breakneck changes of the digital landscape and how they are affecting our society. Join us to explore the future of digital identity far beyond the dreaded password, the growing polarization of our news consumption, and learn about the Squatty Potty that stalked John through the entire internet.

Relevant links:

Join the Wordfire Readers Group

Pre-buy John's book "Breaking Digital Gridlock"

Buy Kevin's latest book "Tastes Like Chicken"

Transcript:

 

Kevin:

Hello, and welcome to the Creative Futurism podcast. This is Kevin J. Anderson.

 

John:

And this is John Best.

 

Kevin:

And we’re going to be talking about the future and creativity and business and everything you need to know to survive until tomorrow when something’s going to change. John and I got together because we have wildly different interests and wildly similar interests. And we have interesting approaches to our world. I’m a best-selling writer. John’s a financial tech guru. And together we’re looking toward the future. And so today we’ve got just the two of us talking about things that bug us. And one of the things that-this is after the Equifax breach and all that. It’s data being taken and wondering well what do people do with all that stuff and how do you ensure your privacy? And we don’t want to sound like we’re survivalists living in a bunker somewhere. But these are issues that we need to deal with that we never needed to deal with before.

 

John:

Well, they’re modern issues, right? They’re issues that now-that were never a big- because in the past when you had your passport or something like that you would share it with someone who would then validate it and give it back to you. But they wouldn’t sort of snapshot that information and then store it somewhere. Now that was the difference. And here we live in a world where when you share information with somebody it then becomes part of their archive. And then that’s something that becomes a weakness or a threat to you later on if someone gets their hands on it.

 

Kevin:

Well, the biggest security issue that I used to have to deal with was making sure that the bully down the hall didn’t get my high school locker combination. I mean the high school locker-the bicycle locker combination, those were the things that we used to have to remember. My grandfather never had to worry about somebody stealing his password or his social security.

 

John:

And if he did have a password it might be one. Not 400 of them.

 

Kevin:

Well, and I was realizing the tipping point where at one point I used to know all of my passwords because you only had a handful of them. And then it started to get so many passwords that of course you had to write them all down. And of course you wrote them all down and taped them on the inside of the drawer in your desk. So that any idiot could come in and find your passwords and put them in. And then it got to the point where there are so many passwords everywhere. Then they would be-Safari would generate the password for you. Which is an unbreakable password. But it’s also anybody can remember. So therefore, you have to store it somewhere. So, we have this thing called One Password which is a locker of all of our passwords that has a master password.

 

John:

And you’re not the only one.