I also wonder if, compared to some imaginary baseline, modern humans are unusual in the greatness of their intellectual power and understanding and the less impressive magnitude of its development in other ways.
Maybe a lot of our problems flow from being too smart in that sense, but I believe that our best hope is still not to fear our problematic intelligence, but rather to lean into it as a powerful tool for figuring out what to do from here.
If another imaginary species could get along by just instinctively being harmonious, humans might require a persuasive argument. But if you can actually articulate the truth of the even-selfish-superiority of harmony (especially right now), then maybe our species can do the right thing out of understanding rather than instinct.
And maybe that means we’re capable of unusually fast turnarounds as a species. Once we articulate the thing intelligently enough, it’s highly mass-scalable
I also wonder if, compared to some imaginary baseline, modern humans are unusual in the greatness of their intellectual power and understanding and the less impressive magnitude of its development in other ways.
Maybe a lot of our problems flow from being too smart in that sense, but I believe that our best hope is still not to fear our problematic intelligence, but rather to lean into it as a powerful tool for figuring out what to do from here.
If another imaginary species could get along by just instinctively being harmonious, humans might require a persuasive argument. But if you can actually articulate the truth of the even-selfish-superiority of harmony (especially right now), then maybe our species can do the right thing out of understanding rather than instinct.
And maybe that means we’re capable of unusually fast turnarounds as a species. Once we articulate the thing intelligently enough, it’s highly mass-scalable