Milestones of technology

- Humans came on the scene ~ 200,000 years ago.

- Language is thought to be ~ 50,000 years old

- Farming first occurred ~ 12,000 years ago.

- Writing, arguably one of our best technologies is ~ 5,000 years old

- Science is ~ 500 years old (really more like 150-years in it's current refined form)

- The Enlightenment occurred about ~ 200 years ago, helping to shed religious

control over society

- Electricity has only been around for ~150 years.

Humans accomplishments over the past 100 years dwarfs everything in the previous 200,000 years combined. Why?

I'd give most of the credit to the scientific method. Political and economic institutions have certainly provided the foundations to allow scientific progress to growth at a rate it could not without said institutions, but the mental models that makes science possible, have allowed humans to literally rocket forward.

There is a problem we have not yet solved however and it not only holds us back, but it has the potential to be the root of our destruction. While our models of the external world are amazing, our models of how best to organize society are woefully inadequate.

If you read the book Zealot—The life and times of Jesus of Nazareth by Reza Azlan, or if you watch the PBS series The Roosevelts by Ken Burns, or if you follow the politics of today, the political landscapes that span 2,000 years are remarkably similar. Why?

Is the answer simply human nature, or are we stuck in a cycle of cultural thought similar to the 188,000-years of hunter-gather mode of operation, or the 4,500-years of civilization without science? I hypothesize the core issue that makes the politics of the last 2,000 years very similar is that humans have not figured out how best to model society. It is not an easy problem to solve but it is one we should put apply the scientific method to trying to optimize.

Human nature has not changed much over time. We can read the Iliad and relate. Aristotle's wisdom still rings true in many respects. The UFC is less gruesome than the events held at the Roman Colosseum, but the violence on display still entertains, gets cheers, and generates profits. With this being the case, can we hope that our cultures and social systems will evolve to allow the better angels of our nature to be present more of the time? I think so.

Star Trek the next generation provided a model of human evolution with greatly reduced conflict. The Replicator and Holodeck are arguably two pieces of technology that would provide a calming effect. The ability to have your basic needs met by the Replicator, and your wildest desires fulfilled by the Holodeck calms the inner destroyer, leaving the inner preserver and explorer time and energy to pursue their passions. Technology is getting to the point where providing basic needs and immersion in fantasy worlds could be readily available to the masses. That said, most science fiction is rather dystopia and inertia can bring us to places we'd rather not go. Progress does not just happen, it takes new thoughts and a lot of effort to push things in a better direction.

Personal development is possible and ought to be a life long goal for all. Societal development is possible. The Japanese transitioned themselves from a warrior culture to a culture of peace in one generation after WWII. They did this largely through cultural introspection, sending historians to Korea, China, the US, etc. to record the impacts of their imperial conquests on those affected by them, and teaching Peace as a subject in K-12 schools. Introspection, be it personal or cultural, has the power to shift paradigms.

Economic development is possible. China transitioned to a quasi-capatalist economic model in one generation. Large shifts require large masses of people to share a common paradigm shift; i.e. adopting new models of the world.

We currently require several paradigm shifts.

The realities of climate change requires us to face several inconvenient truths. We need to take personal responsibility for our actions. We should consider having less children, eating less meat, and consuming less (which includes small things like giving needless gifts, with needless packaging, etc.). Little things matter when multiplied by 7-billion. The cultural norms around family planning, food, gift giving, etc. are as much biological as cultural. Changes to these things are easy to conceptualize, but much harder to accept emotionally and instill into our culture. Culture is a powerful force, it has the power to bend the desires of our biology.

From an industrial perspective, we need to develop better chemicals, packaging and consumables that are fully recyclable or biodegradable. We need serious investment in technology to deal with trash. Designing with materials that factor in lifecycle issues would be a good start.

We need new economic paradigms. We need to properly value "the commons" i.e. our environment into our products. Currently little or no cost is factored in for materials and practices that harm the commons.

We need better economic models. The excesses of unrestrained Capitalism are a real problem, the unnatural and largely unethical realities of Communism make it nonviable. Socialism if done right can be good but the balance is hard to get right. AI and automation may render all three of these economic models obsolete. Our economic and political structures are not model correctly to respond to our new landscape.

We need a new body of politics. The forces that are driving our politics are parasitic. We need to rethink how we structure things to provide for a functioning government that seeks to solve the problems only government can solve.

Reactive leadership that looks to the past to solve today's problems will not work. Virtually every civilization that has failed has followed the same playbook. When their environment changes, they look to what made them successful in the past and double down on that, which only serves to accelerate their demise.

Looking at our big problems may be scary, but we can use concepts like Idealized Design to help model better solutions. If we can create more accurate models of our world and implement them, the future is bright.

Every generation faces existential threats. Going back a few generations, we had M.A.D.D. (still sort of do, but it died down a bit), a few generations before that we had Communism to deal with, before that Fascism and World Wars, Imperialism before that, Feudalism further back, roaming hordes of vandals, etc.

Today our existential threat is ecological destruction. It's a tough but solvable problem. We know what the problems are, we have many ways to tackle them, but modifying our nature to ensure our survival will prove the most difficult task. Ultimately, modifying our nature is our key existential threat, but that too is doable. We can't have faith it will all work out, we need to design our way out of these problem; we need to science the shit out of it :-)