| I liked this. A lot. I don't necessarily agree with it, but it brings up some great "deep thinking" conversations. Excellent HN fodder. It's ironic that this would be on the front page as the same time as "HTML 5 genetic cars" because the two are so related. I think an extended analogy is in order. Gray's first mistake is to do exactly what he accuses others of doing -- making a value statement about whether one society later in history is better than another, or whether there is some "direction of progress". Gray thinks there is not. Others think there is. What I've learned from political and systems theory is that small, self-optimizing systems always outperform other systems, because they are able to adapt better. Does evolution produce "better", "smarter", or "more perfect" creatures? No. It produces creatures better adapted to current conditions. So when you look at civilizations, you should think about those little cars. Sometimes early adaptations lead to performance problems later on. Many times there is no universal car. Different adaptations work at different times. The best we can hope for is a system where the cars adapt as they move along. Likewise, human systems will not get "better" -- that's a value judgment, akin to "I like chocolate ice cream". Such statements are impossible to argue one way or another. Human systems will always adapt. The key, critical question here is this: are we encouraging systems of humans in which small units adapt and self-optimize? Or are we trying to create universal rules for all humans, thereby decreasing our ability to adapt to what lies ahead of us? Moving farther to the right on the HTML5 cars app is not necessarily better or worse than spinning in place. But it does take us to places we haven't seen before. And that's pretty cool. |