

Humans: Why They Triumphed (May 2010) - skmurphy
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703691804575254533386933138.html

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skmurphy
opening paragraphs:

Human evolution presents a puzzle. Nothing seems to explain the sudden takeoff
of the last 45,000 years--the conversion of just another rare predatory ape
into a planet dominator with rapidly progressing technologies. Once "progress"
started to produce new tools, different ways of life and burgeoning
populations, it accelerated all over the world, culminating in agriculture,
cities, literacy and all the rest. Yet all the ingredients of human success--
tool making, big brains, culture, fire, even language--seem to have been in
place half a million years before and nothing happened.

The answer lies in a new idea, borrowed from economics, known as collective
intelligence: the notion that what determines the inventiveness and rate of
cultural change of a population is the amount of interaction between
individuals. Even as it explains very old patterns in prehistory, this idea
holds out hope that the human race will prosper mightily in the years ahead

~~~
6ren
_The Rational Optimist_ expounds this theme at length. A summary is: produce
narrowly, consume widely.

Surprisingly, it benefits everyone to produce what they are best at and trade
for the rest, _even when you trade for something that you are better at
producing (i.e you are even better at producing something else)_. Thus, people
can optimize locally.

 _EDIT_ uh, article is by the same guy. Great book though he gets a bit rabid
at the end. There's an especially striking story of skill loss in Tasmanian
native Australians, due to being cut off from the mainland and having too
small a population for the requisite collection intelligence to maintain those
skills (doesn't prove it of course). Just now, I'm reminded of what someone
said of MS: because millions of people use it, it's worth it to work on little
details - so you can have a menu specialist. IIRC, collective intelligence
isn't so much about how many people put their intelligence into it, but how
many people need it (i.e. the market). The collectivity comes in in that other
people similarly specialize in something else.

~~~
brevitae
Could one also get away with the inverse of this idea?

Produce Widely, and Consume Narrowly?

At least, at first. Dip your toe in a couple of pools before choosing which
ones to dive in to.

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mathgladiator
We win because we ran: [http://www.amazon.com/Born-Run-Hidden-Superathletes-
Greatest...](http://www.amazon.com/Born-Run-Hidden-Superathletes-
Greatest/dp/0307266303)

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iwwr
Perhaps trade is the carrot humans needed to go 'have sex' on a social level.

~~~
zby
I've just finished <http://szabo.best.vwh.net/shell.html> \- it's pretty
convincing that money is really what differentiates us from the other primate
competing species (like neanderthals).

~~~
iwwr
That's very interesting, thank you!

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jrvarela56
Web 2.0 is the consolidation of this process... get ready for singularity

