[ASalazarMX]

Humans individually are pretty useless. Abandon a random human in a jungle and they will likely perish soon no matter how smart and well educated they are.

The strength of humanity is teamwork, working together to build things other groups can build things upon. Abandon 100 random humans in the same jungle and they will build a town.

[Lammy]

> The strength of humanity is teamwork, working together to build things other groups can build things upon.

This is why I don't trust anybody who tries to tell me that human population growth is an actual problem and not just our rulers' fear of irrelevance.

[scubbo]

It is possible for the two following statements to be simultaneously true:

* the ability of collaborating groups of humans to achieve/produce scales super-linearly with the number of humans[1]

* the growth of human population is causing problems, and is likely to cause more problems in the future

One reason is the scarcity of resources[2]; another is that "humanity" as a whole is not collaborating with all of itself.

[1] actually, I don't even think this is true, beyond some limit - but it's true for small groups

[2] which could be mitigated somewhat by fairer allocation of resources, or by process changes to focus more on fundamental needs; but, still the fact remains that the resources that we have access to on Planet Earth are limited, and access to extraterrestrial resources are extremely expensive

[malthuswaswrong]

What is a fairer way to allocate resources than you produce for me and I produce for you?

Seems to me any other system is open to being gamed. Sure there are people born into generational wealth. But those are like one in a million and generational wealth doesn't typically last more than a handful of generations as the number of descendants grows exponentially.

[robrorcroptrer]

How many would actually be able to build anything if it was purely random? How many tries of 100 people batches until they've built something?

Not arguing, just questions that came into my mind.

[ASalazarMX]

Random people would have the most varied set of skills. A single person can have skills that are useless for surviving in the jungle, but if any of the 100 people has a good enough idea of what to do, the rest can help.

Even non-random groups like your coworkers or immediate neighbors can have unexpected skills that will make you feel dumb.

[s_dev]

>Abandon 100 random humans in the same jungle and they will build a town.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_of_the_Flies

I'm not sure -- but I do think it would be interesting how that would turn out. Australia would founded in this sort of fashion. I think there's a bit more nuance though.

[gruez]

except that's fiction, and this is non-fiction: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tongan_castaways

[rektide]

I do think though that empowering individuals is key.

Teamwork is still the work of many individuals, and I think a person's upbringing & disposition & the capabilities they've developed are hugely influential on what kinds of teams are possible in the world. The world of computing today gives users interesting capabilities, but only shallowly, only on the surface; it denies us the view below, denies us the freedom to see, understand & explore, and humanity always being so yolked restrains human growth, restricts what I see as one of our key better nature from getting a chance to come out & thrive.

Sure, we are not going to all learn how to build apartment buildings; we will take much for granted. But many people do learn some home repair, or try their hand at fixing appliances. Sometimes just to save some money, but sometimes because it's interesting, & because there's videos showing them how to, because they can. But computer/information tech, in my view, has created a highly resistant unrepairable unviewable digitalia that is anathematic to this basic human engagement with the world about us. It is not just a built environment, but a built environment which resists real understanding, which prevents human empowerment.

Creating an accessible world, one where human's have a strong locus of control, where they have flexibility & options to experiment, to play, to try, to explore is absolutely capital to me. Humanity loses who humanity was when/if we view the world as prebuilt, as a creation of some wider us, that we are but tiny figures upon. Yes there are many things that we have to rely on groups for, but that ability to learn about the world, to understand it, to investigate & understand & experiment in the pieces of it we so choose- that spirit is the lifeblood of this planet, and it's that attitude & disposition that produces highly functional teams & groups. Which is something we will, best I can tell, always need.

To speak to technology & it's revelatory potential, to put it in scope here, I think it's important to review Ursala Franklin's dichotomy of technology. She divides tech into work & control related, work that helps individuals do things, control that regulates systems. Going further, she divides tech into holistic & prescriptive techologies- prescriptive technologies which break down work into fixed, predictable, deliberate steps & processes, and holistic technologies, which amplify the capabilities & prowess of the tool-bearer. There's a lot of tech on this planet, but even "creative" tech like a photo-sharing sight is mechanistic in nature, follows limited & fixed flows, & affords only superficial control to it's users. Where-as tech like Mess with DNS amplifiers human understanding, gives us the power to explore & test out what is possible, lets us set our own rules. This world is in need of techno-spiritual healing- computers are widely used but rebuff understanding, they have become overwhelming elements of control rather than empowerment. I look forward eagerly to a shift, to revelatory technology that abides different ends, that seeks a holism. Mess with DNS is "just" a little playground for some tech, hardly an attractive application on it's own, but I believe that individuals everywhere would be much better off- that teams would be much richer as a result- if tech worked to open up the engine-bay & allow some monkeying around.