| From the page you linked: > The better we could communicate on a mass scale, the more our species began to function like a single organism, with humanity’s collective knowledge tower as its brain and each individual human brain like a nerve or a muscle fiber in its body. With the era of mass communication upon us, the collective human organism—the Human Colossus—rose into existence. I like thinking about us this way too, as being both individuals but at the same time also forming a sorts of organism together. What originally got me thinking about us this way was something that Sun Tzu wrote in his book The Art of War. I think this might be the part of that book that made me think of it like this: > The skillful tactician may be likened to the shuai-jan. Now the shuai-jan is a snake that is found in the ChUng mountains. Strike at its head, and you will be attacked by its tail; strike at its tail, and you will be attacked by its head; strike at its middle, and you will be attacked by head and tail both. > Asked if an army can be made to imitate the shuai-jan, I should answer, Yes. For the men of Wu and the men of Yueh are enemies; yet if they are crossing a river in the same boat and are caught by a storm, they will come to each other's assistance just as the left hand helps the right. http://classics.mit.edu/Tzu/artwar.html |
> I like thinking about us this way too, as being both individuals but at the same time also forming a sorts of organism together.
You may be interested in Paul Stamets' thoughts on this, essentially, that the invention of the Internet was an evolutionary inevitability.
https://youtu.be/90vhfdj1zic?t=977