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The Social Supercomputer
Risk & Progress| A hub for essays that explore risk, human progress, and your potential. My mission is to educate, inspire, and invest in concepts that promote a better future. Subscriptions are free, paid subscribers gain access to the full archive, including the Pathways of Progress and Realize essay series.
Having traversed a brief history of human progress, it is time to step back and examine “how” it works. We conduct this examination by looking at the three necessary components of progress 1) matter 2) energy, 3) and knowledge. Matter is the clay from which we sculpt the physical world, energy is required to do the sculpting, and knowledge informs us how. Unlike matter and energy, which are finite, knowledge is limitless. Therefore, human wealth and progress are limited only by our ability to learn and discover.
A recent study published by David H. Wolpert and Kyle Harper examines human advancement from the perspective that both society and our biotic environments are “computers” that process inputs and produce outputs. Humans were the first species to develop culture, whereby we can pass advantageous information easily from one individual to the next, complementing the comparatively slow process of evolution, which passes information stored only in DNA.