Every. Twelve. Hours.
Jul 16, 2026
Have you ever felt like the information age is going too fast… for anyone to keep up?
You’re not imagining it. And a book from 1981 predicted exactly why.
I came across a fascinating idea this week from Buckminster Fuller- the architect and inventor who gave us the geodesic dome (Think the massive spikey-ball-thingy at Disney’s EPCOT Center in Orlando).
In his book Critical Path, he introduced something called the “Knowledge Doubling Curve.”
His theory was simple: at some point in human history, the total sum of what humanity knew would double… and then double again… and then double again.
The interesting part? The pace kept accelerating.
For most of human history, our collective knowledge doubled roughly every hundred years.
By the end of World War II, it was doubling every 25 years.
By 1980, when Fuller wrote the book, he predicted it would soon double every 12 months.
And today? Some estimates put it at every 12 hours.
Every. Twelve. Hours.
Read that again.
(Photo: The Geodesic Dome)
The sum of what humanity knows… what’s been written, published, uploaded, and archived… doubles faster than you can finish a good night’s sleep.
Which explains a lot about why you and I feel so exhausted trying to keep up.
But here’s what’s been rattling around in my head all week.
Buckminster Fuller predicted the flood of information.
What he DIDN’T predict… was the vacuum it would create.
Because as the amount of knowable stuff explodes exponentially… the value of KNOWING stuff… collapses.
Think about it.
In 1981, knowing something made you valuable.
In 2026, knowing someone deeply is what makes you unforgettable.
Because anyone with a phone can Google what you know in under two seconds.
The playing field on knowledge is flat.
But there’s one thing that hasn’t been touched by all this doubling, and the one thing no AI can replicate:
The ability to connect with another human being.
(Photo: Faster, faster, and faster)
Because here’s the paradox:
As information doubles every 12 hours… the human ability to notice… to listen… to care… to genuinely connect with another human being…
…becomes the last irreplaceable currency we have.
Which brings me to you.
In your line of work, you’re competing against AI, information overload, sixty tabs open in every browser, and a Google search away from the “answer” to whatever your client came to you for.
And you cannot win that fight with more information. Nobody can.
But you CAN win by being the one who actually stops, listens, and notices what the person across from you is really trying to say.
Even though Buckminster Fuller predicted that human knowledge would double faster than we could keep up, what he didn’t predict… was that the more it doubled… the more we would hunger for the one thing that can’t be doubled at all:
Connection.
(Photo: AI will never be able to do this)
So this week… let the world double all it wants.
You just focus on one soul at a time.
That’s your unfair advantage.
That’s your irreplaceable currency.
That’s how you become unforgettable… in a world drowning in information.
Christian
CHRISTIAN HANSEN has gone behind the scenes in some of the biggest organizations in the world to find out the reasons why some people get chosen and why others don’t. As the #1 bestselling and LinkedIn Top Ten ranked author of “The Influence Mindset: The Art & Science of Getting People to Choose You” Christian helps teams and organizations who want to stand out and be the obvious choice. With degrees from Brigham Young University and The London School of Economics, he’s helped thousands of individuals position and sell themselves. A fan of international communication, history, and choral music, he currently lives in Utah with his family. Reach him at: TheChristianHansen.com
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