HOW CAN HUMAN SOCIETY PROGRESS FURTHER?
I define Progress as our ability to solve problems that are more complicated than the problems we solved in the past.
Tens of thousands of years ago, the problem humans were trying to solve was procuring food. We had to put in a lot of effort to hunt our own food whereas now, we click a button on the phone and food comes to us. I call this as Progress, and it is a continuous process.
A problem might seem complicated when we are solving it for the first time but once we solve it, we learn something new and then we come up with a better way to solve the problem and eventually the problem becomes simple.
The more complicated problem the society solves, the more it progresses.
How can society solve more complicated problems?
Human society has two big assets, human brain power and time. A human being uses their brain power for some time to solve a problem and makes progress. Bigger and more complicated problems require more brain power or brain power applied for longer time to think of a solution.
So, more brain time means more complicated problems solved or more progress made.
Δ Progress ∝ Δ Brain Power. Δ Time
A society can progress faster if more brain power is applied on solving a problem or more time is spent on solving complicated problems or both.
Now that we have identified two main factors to play with, let’s understand them well so we can figure out how to manipulate them to progress faster
Let’s look at the first factor that can help human society to progress faster
Time:
Human brain has limited time available in which it can perform its best. After that it gets old and dies and is unable to perform. So, it is essential to use that limited time wisely.
If a human brain uses up all its time in solving simple problems, then it will lose the time/opportunity to solve complicated problems.
That is why humans divide tasks among each other so that with a limited number of tasks they get time to solve complicated problems.
Let’s bring back the food example:
Feeding oneself is a complicated problem. You buy ingredients, find a recipe, try it out multiple times until you get it right. It takes time. But feeding 100 humans is an even more complicated problem. So, to solve such complicated problems, we divide tasks.
There are some human brains (think restaurant owners) dedicated to solving the problem of feeding hundreds of humans. They can solve such complicated problem because some other human has taken some problems off of his plate like a school teacher is dedicated to solving the problem of educating the restaurant owner’s kid. Some other human is dedicated to solving the problem of how the restaurant owner will become healthy again after he/she falls sick. The restaurant owner himself takes away the problem of cooking food from someone else’s plate so that that person can dedicate their remaining time on solving some other complicated problem and so on.
Another way human society tries to save time is through innovation. Humans come up with creative ways to make sure they save time. For example — Developing faster means of transport. It ensures that humans will take less time and energy to travel from Point A to Point B. They can use that remaining time to solve a problem more complicated than travelling from Point A to Point B.
Let’s look at the second factor that can speed up the progress –
Brain power:
Brain power is directly proportional to the number of brains solving a problem and the quality of brains solving them.
Brainpower ∝ Quality. Number of brains
How to increase the number of brains to solve complicated problems:
Humans have some basic needs that should be fulfilled so they can function properly. Those needs are food, clothing, and shelter.
If those needs are not fulfilled, then the brain is engaged in solving the problems of survival. So, a brain dedicated to solving simple problems of survival is a brain not dedicated to solving complicated problems. Hence, it is essential to fulfill basic needs.
Improving the quality of a brain dedicated to solving complicated problems:
Once the basic necessities are fulfilled then the human brain can be dedicated to solving complex problems. If its quality is improved, then it can focus on solving even more complex problems.
How to improve the quality of the brain?
Two factors go into improving the quality of brain:
1. Improving emotional health of the brain: If a brain is emotionally damaged, it will require more downtime to function properly or will be consumed by emotional problems rather than thinking about progress.
2. Providing tools to brain to be able to do more: If a brain is not educated, aware and exposed to better tools for solving a problem then it will take more time to solve a problem which means poor quality.
Now that we understand the two factors, what can we do to progress?
The key takeaway is to do anything to increase brain power or time or both dedicated to solving complicated problems. Here are a few suggestions that can help us do that:
1. Stop putting unnecessary emotional pressure on fellow human beings-
We humans need to stop any practice that takes away brainpower and time from complicated problems. We can start by avoiding to put unnecessary emotional pressure on other human beings because putting unnecessary emotional pressure on any human being increases the downtime of that brainpower.
For example — Some people in our society think that being homosexual is wrong. Which in turn makes a homosexual person engage in a fight to prove that their existence is not wrong. That would be a loss of quality of their brain power and time. If we could be more accommodating and treat people equally, the brainpower of this person can also be put to good use.
We need to give more freedom to fellow human beings. Understand what they need and let them exercise their rights. If it does not hurt anyone or does not take away brainpower and time of another human being then what is wrong in that?
2. Control on capitalism -
Capitalism is an amazing way of making sure that brainpower and time on complicated problems keeps on increasing. Capitalism incentivizes humans to pick and solve more complicated problems through market forces. For example, feeding hundreds of humans can make you earn some resources but feeding millions of human beings can get you even more resources.
Humans are inherently motivated by greed for grabbing more resources and to do so they try to pick and solve complicated problems and society progresses.
However, Market forces does not always tell what humans need, it sometimes just tells what humans want.
Humans have a weakness of overindulgence. For example, the human brain needs some downtime/ entertainment to function properly, but it can very well overindulge, which dictates the market forces to provide more entertainment. The brainpower dedicated to solving the problem of providing entertainment is motivated by greed for more profits, so it will try to manipulate its customers into using its product more. This in turn means that their customers will spend more than required of their brain power on entertainment and less than required on solving problems that will lead to progress. So inherently the brainpower providing entertainment is taking away time from society thus hindering the progress. To control such dark side of capitalism -
1. Governments need to step in and control the practices that lead to loss of brainpower and time. Government should tax products that take away brain power and time from humans (cigarettes). Government should give tax breaks to products that facilitate the progress of society (computers, EVs).
2. Companies should become responsible for picking up more complicated problems and allocating resources in solving them rather than milking out more profits by exploiting human weaknesses.
3. Humans themselves should become more responsible in deciding how they want to use their time and brain power.
3. Help the less fortunate –
As mentioned earlier, there are a lot of humans on earth who are engaged in solving simple problems of survival. If we can collectively come up with creative ways to fulfill their basic needs, we will have more brains available to help us progress.
It will also be helpful if we can come up with creative ways to increase the quality of available brainpower. One such problem to think about is making education accessible.
4. Delegate simple problems to robots -
The biggest strength of the human brain is its creativity. We have come a long way by coming up with creative solutions to solve complicated problems.
We should focus on putting brain power on problems that require more creative solutions rather than repetitive work that will eat the quality of the human brain. Before the invention of computers, doing complex calculations was a big problem. We humans needed brainpower in focusing on what to do with the results of the calculations rather than wasting brainpower in doing the calculations. So, we invented computers. We can order computers to do calculations for us and we can focus on solving the problem of what to do with the results of those calculations.
Similarly, let robots drive the car for you so you can focus on thinking of a more complicated problem than driving.
5. Seek Complicated Problems to solve -
Look around yourself and evaluate if there is any problem out there that is more complicated than the one that you are so engaged in solving. Do you have enough tools and time to solve the complicated problem? If yes, then solve it. If you don’t have tools and time for solving a more complicated problem, then the problem you should be solving is acquiring tools and making time to be able to solve more complicated problems.
The problems we choose to solve define us, define our progress, and define progress of the human society. So, choose wisely. After all, you have limited time and limited brainpower.
