This TED Talk features author Charlie Jane Anders, recorded live at TED Women 2019.

Hi there, I'm Chris Duffy, host of How to Be a Better Human, another TED podcast.

Most of us want to be better, but we're not quite sure where to begin, and our show is

here to help.

On our podcast, you'll hear from guests and TED speakers who might just make you a better

human.

From standing up for what you believe in to challenging conventional wisdom, embracing rejection, or

finding gratitude every day, our show is your guide to becoming a little less terrible.

Not that you're terrible right now, I think you're great, but it's helping me become a

little less terrible, and maybe you'll pick up something along the way.

You can find How to Be a Better Human Wherever You're Listening to This.

Every science fiction writer has a story about a time when the future arrived too soon.

I have a lot of those stories, like, okay, for example, years ago, I was writing a story

where the government starts using drones to kill people.

I thought that this was a really intense, futuristic idea, but by the time the story was

published, the government was already using drones to kill people.

Our world is changing so fast, and there's a kind of accelerating feedback loop where technological

change and social change feed on each other.

When I was a kid in the 1980s, we knew what the future was going to look like.

It was going to be some version of Judge Dread, or Blade Runner.

It was going to be neon mega cities and flying vehicles.

But now nobody knows what the world is going to look like even in just a couple of years.

...