Member-only story
The Ape-Brain Prison
Why our civilization is ending in populist mass-suicide
When we look around ourselves today we see a world of everyday miracles. As the novelist Terry Pratchett noted, “just because you know how something works doesn’t mean it’s not magic.” Consider the cellular phone. Not only does it permit voice-to-voice communication between people over potentially enormous distances but it is also a camera, a computer, a library, a gallery, a video communications device, a payment method, and a wide range of other capabilities. Consider the automobile. Even a relatively poor person can now travel vast distances in comfort unimaginable to even the wealthiest Emperor or Monarch a century ago. And of course we can step into an aluminum cylinder in one city and disembark a few hours later halfway round the globe.
These are magical accomplishments.
And they have all depended on the accumulation of intellectual efforts performed by millions of people around the world. Because we’re primates accustomed to playing follow-the-leader we focus on a few individuals such as Einstein (without General Relativity, GPS systems would be impossible) and Jobs (who stole all the ideas for the Apple Macintosh from Xerox PARC). But the reality is that everything we rely on is the result of millions of people’s collective actions.
