Luís M. A. Bettencourt

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816 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Jul 2026 last heard 27 Jul

Luís M. A. Bettencourt’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas · 362 | Luis Bettencourt on the Universal Properties of Self-Organizing Cities · 27 Jul 2026 podcast

So, yes, probably.

Certainly, now we have these new channels, which have to do with cell phones and internet and everything else, right?

That we now have telecommunications, as it used to be said.

And these are also networks.

So,

To take a step back, to just refocus again, the central problem of humans, if you will, is the ability to create these networks where we can become interdependent and specialize.

And this leads to more knowledge in the network, a greater ability of groups of people to do more things.

And this leads to gains in economic productivity, but also just general innovation across many fields.

But also to a group of people being able to hold more culture, more knowledge.

Okay, that's the picture.

So therefore, we need to find ways to build these networks.

Or if we do, and the networks are good, these things are going to grow.

So the old age way to do it is cities or settlements and then cities through space.

and time.

But increasingly now we have these ways of making networks not through space, right?

So I think these networks are good for many things, but they're not so good at others, right?

So you cannot get a haircut on the internet yet, right?

Or a delicious meal, maybe increasingly you can call it in, but still within your city, right?

It's not going to be yet.

I mean, unless you're crazy rich, it's not going to come from across the world.

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