It's amazing to be living in this epoch of humanity. Being born in 1992, I am fortunate to remember life when the "Internet" was a vague household word that was associated with clunky computers and the mutually exclusive option of using the home telephone or browsing the web. Just thinking about it makes me shudder. Although I'm 20 years old, I've witnessed a privatized company launching rockets into space, 140-letter words inciting a widespread democratic revolution, and inordinate computing power reduced to a microchip. I don't think people question the transformative power of technology; rather, people question the benefits of this transformative power. A fundamental paradigm shift has occurred in the way people think about things. Barack Obama's 2010 campaign for President hit home to my heart. I saw our fundamental political system, a system always known for being unmoving and old-fashioned, embrace technology to inspire millions of Americans to vote for the first African-American president in our nation's history. This fascinates me.
Throughout the past three years I've had several formative experiences that I've adopted into my own thesis about the existence of humanity, mankind's collective purpose, and our future. So I'm going to catalogue a quasi-proof I've created that has helped me assemble my thoughts into a rational structure. My fundamental belief that drives every professional decision I make in life is this: the creation and adoption of new technology is perhaps the single most important factor to our collective future. I can make the greatest impact on the world during my life my engaging in the aforementioned process.The proof is based off the Kardashev Scale and goes like this:
1. Humanity is currently a Type 0 civilization
2. Humanity is transitioning into a Type 1 civilization
3. The inflection point of transition will happen within the next 100-200 years
- Total planetary energy output is measured by
where K is a civilization's Kardashev's rating and P is the power it uses in Watts - Planetary energy output grows at an average rate 3% per year
- This yields a projection of 100-200 years for humanity's transition into a Type I civilization
4. Mankind's discovery of nuclear fission is the first time we have created a mechanism to destroy ourselves. The direction of this inflection point is subject to how humanity uses this mechanism.
5. This inflection point will yield society into one of two outputs: a scientifically-driven, humanistic civilization OR a fundamentalist, sectarian, monocultural society.
- There are people out there (religious fundamentalists, extreme conservatives, etc.) that would rather have humanity stick with the status quo or perhaps revert back to a more fundamentalist state.
- A successful transition into a type 1 civilization requires a scientific, humanistic civilization to chart the course.
- Sidenote: a reason why alien civilizations "near" Earth may have not contacted us yet is that they fell into the latter output; that is, the civilization destroyed itself.
A Framework
I think it's important to distinguish thinking about the distant future (1000 years from now) from the near future (20-50 years from now). The latter is more realistic and provides a better framework for analyzing how present-day trends will influence our lifetime. We tend to think very statistically about the future. And statistics tells us that it's random. We can't predict the future; we can only think probabilistically. But there is an alternative metaphor we can use – calculus. This asks whether and how we can figure out exactly what's going to happen. If you were to ask me, "when will I have a robot like Rosie from the Jetsons?", I can probably give you a timeframe estimate by calculating current computing innovation and applying market analysis to determine when it would be commoditized into an intelligent AI robot that does all your chores. If you were to ask me, "will mankind destroy itself within the next 200 years?", that's a much harder question that will force me to naturally default to a sketchy statistical analysis to answer.
An Observation
Here's an interesting observation: isn't the whole concept of credit predicated on a better future? That is, by giving you a loan today, I rationally expect a return on investment tomorrow. This is predicated by the fact that I believe tomorrow is better than today. The fundamental notion that I'm placing blind faith in tomorrow is what drives our entire capitalistic system and the forces of supply and demand. To bring this observation back to the thesis of this essay, the whole concept of credit is what drives technological innovation. Believing that tomorrow will be better than today and then placing an investment in that notion is tied to the fundamental human belief of hope and progress. This observation is no different from the slaves working in cotton fields before the American Civil War – they excruciatingly toiled each day in order to create a better future for their posterity. I would argue that this is what also drives me – by committing myself to the advancement of technology to solve problems, I'm directly creating a better future for my posterity.
Why Companies?
It is possible after all, to imagine a society wherein everyone works for the government. Or conversely, wherein everyone is an independent contractor. Why are companies the solution for technological progress? Peter Thiel, one of the most brilliant minds in Silicon Valley, often writes about the future of technology and it's impact on various industries. He puts the answer to this question very succinctly, using the Coase Theorem – "Companies exist because they optimally address internal and external coordination costs. Central planning doesn't work. With a massive government you have optimal external costs but massive internal costs. The converse is true with being an independent contractor; you have zero internal costs, but high external coordination costs that creates a paralyzed state." Startups have EXTREMELY low internal coordination costs since teams are so small and bureaucratic bullshit is non-existent. This is why startups, in oppose to large corporations, have an economic advantage in the free market.
Driving It Home
There is a reason man has been able to accomplish so much more in the past 100 years than in the past 3000. The diversity of intelligent life is still constrained by evolution, chemistry, and biology. Computers aren't. The range and diversity of possible computers is actually much bigger than the range of possible life forms under known rules. It is for this reason that faster iteration, faster paradigm shifts, faster transparency, faster EVERYTHING occurs. Isaac Asimov has put it best – "Humanity has the starts in its future, and that future is too important to be lost under the burden of juvenile folly and ignorant superstition."
So whether you're an entrpreneur, an engineer, a money-allocator, or just a plain-old person with ambition, I respect you. You're doing great things for the world and our collective future, and you should be proud of that.