H Maxim
Have you ever wondered what factor, aside from DNA, is primarily responsible for the rise of humanity? I would like to think that factor is unimpeded technological progress - new ideas come from expressed ideas and tangible (or experienced) outcomes. For example, a tangible outcome may be from driving a car and thinking of a way to improve that experience. Another may be reviewing an established mathematical formula and creating a different formula using it as inspiration.
The one thing technological progress is dependent and, indeed, humanity as a whole is the mind; unique, original and innovative ideas that keep that march of technological progress moving forward comes from a range minds across the planet with their unique experiences. Sometimes contributions to that progress occur by accident or by those looking to solve a problem without the limitations of a specific field of thought (or training). But, what disturbed me was a study completed in 2019A.D. which indicates that IQs are beginning to decline regardless of genetic disposition or geographic location. While several potential causes of that decline were introduced (from food supply, flattened education, search knowledge, geopolitics, et al), no single one was pointed to as the main cause. That aside, let's focus on planetary declining IQ. Whether you are at the top of the socio-economic scale, middle, or bottom I postulate that a collective declining IQ will make your life more difficult along with everyone else...a race to the bottom, as it were, in thinking ability and, with that, the decline of humanity to a more primitive self-serving state. Could the ups and downs of IQ be part of a long cycle that we are not currently aware of - perhaps a causality of the position of our solar system in relation to something else? That may be, and while I do not know - and I doubt any institution or state is pursuing that question - it is known that the planets in our solar system have been undergoing observable changes over the past few decades.
I have seen countless articles touting an amazing technological future and ways to control just about everything. Yet, there seems to be little - if anything - on how we actually get to that point or how we recover from a disaster that could set humanity back centuries in terms of technological progress - something I find to be rather repulsive. I like to think I have awesome ideas along with everyone else, but I'm more interested in quantifying (or creating) those ideas into our reality - which means "how do we get there" rather than "imagine the shiny thing". That is the purpose of the "H Maxim" (H equaling Human) - to get more people thinking about how we get there - and doing it. From my perspective, ensuring unimpeded technological progress fundamentally boils down to how to allow and stimulate mental activity and disposition; the former being the method to achieve the latter which I believe, if you did not quite see what I was referring to, usually equates to the inherent drive for favorable self circumstance...that "favor" may be mental, material or a combination of both.
How is the H Maxim achieved? Another way to cast that question is to say, "How is critical thinking and innovation accomplished to ensure unimpeded technological progress?" From my perspective there are a few interlinked processes which contribute to answering that question because, ultimately, you are dealing with an individual who is constrained to a relatively small area of the planet but which, collectively, can have the biggest impact. Let me begin:
#1. Equally present the opportunity to exercise and develop the mind in exchange for favorable self circumstance - for all minds. This by itself will be a challenge to accomplish. Not because we don't have the technological capability to teach others (we do have the capability) in order to develop their minds, but because of a system-driven infrastructure to hoard value for favorable self circumstance of, usually, an entity of one form or another. Let me clarify hoarding for a moment. In today's world, an age-old, simple tactic (when we were much less connected technologically and physically) was to produce something as cheap as possible in one area to turn around and sell it for as much as possible in another, thereby allowing the hoarding of the difference in value (that is, the accumulated value others - customers - would give up minus the value of the labor to produce plus material and transport). However, in today's interconnected world, that approach is actually an excellent way to shut the door to developing minds in a scalar manner - and technological progress for humanity as a whole - while actually stimulating the race to the bottom. An alternative would be to allow more production of value (whether a product or service) originate in the same region where the value is surrendered. This allows individuals in a region to compete in the same environment to offer value for work and accumulated value for exchange. Because constraints on developing the individual are regional and not severely distorted by global "hidden" constraints, the individual can more easily adapt to the region that they must actually live in, offering a stabilization mechanism for that individual to develop thier mind and contribute to technological progress (such as education, ability to acquire resources for research and development, start a business and so on) in exchange for favorable self circumstance regardless of the geographic region in which they live.
For some, the first reactive impulse would be to proclaim that is nationalism. From my perspective it is quite the contrary and resides more under the "flag" of common sense. For those few, let me take a moment to explain. This would not make a global "merchant" any less global in reach or influence; influence and image may, infact, be greater under a regional paradigm. As it is now, instead of resource hoarding occuring unchecked by leveraging disparate geographic differences, that leverage is limited to what each geographic region can actually sustain given the capacity of the individuals in each region and becomes relative between regions; long-term I would posit that the amount to be hoarded would be the same, if not greater (because instability is not being introduced). To wit, because a wide array of external limitations and cultural influences impact the physical mobility of an individual - the ultimate source and consumer of value, an individual in one geographic location (or state) will not have the same value as an intellectually or physically equal individual in a different state, thus productive favoribility under the age-old tactic will lean toward the individual that will produce value for the least amount of unrecoverable or lost value - e.g., labor. Over time that imbalance will grow, effectively placing additional limitations upon the individual surrendering value until the geographic region itself has collapsed which forces individuals to pursue survival behavior over behavior contributing to continued technological progress. There may be some temporary buoyancy of the geographic region where individuals are producing - which would also tempoarily stimulate technological progress in that same geograhic region - but only for as long as the non-value competitive individual has value for exchange...once that individual has no value for exchange, that formerly "productive" geographic region will collapse as well. At this point it should be evident that, in the long run, both individuals (and regions) lose and, more importantly, unimpeded technological progress itself is depressed or interrupted which I am not interested in seeing. As mentioned earlier, a regional approach not only would be more sustainable long-term for the global "merchant", it would also help foster technological progress with inputs from minds across regions (instead of minds having been "stockpiled" at a single region with only inputs/influences of that region). Finally, it is more reasonable that the impact of a disaster in a geographic region can be limited to that geographic region instead of having a significant impact on unimpeded technological progress or, in simple terms, seizing up planetary supply lines of labor, goods or services.
#2. Along the same lines as #1, let's look at a distressed company or government department. When an entity is distressed, it seems to be common practice to lay off a portion of the workforce to compensate for the distress rather than train that workforce for other positions inside the entity. One of the things that may be worth considering is stretching out or completing mass layoffs in such a way as to minimize impact to the broader job market so that those laid off individiuals have some time to find another job without getting closed out of the job market for a given (and perhaps extended) period of time. Along with that, since the entity is distressed, I would also consider reducing the pay and benefits of each of those reviewing/approving the layoffs up the leadership chain starting from the direct report manager or supervisor that the laid off employee reported to. For example, let's say an entity lays off 10% of its workforce then 10% of pay and 10% of benefits are removed from the applicable individuals in that chain. At first glance it may be assumed such an action is a penalty. That is not how I see it. It is well known that all leadership in entities do not work purely for the pay and benefits but, rather, the overarching work ethic is that of the interest in the well being of the entity and its preservation. It is a logical conclusion then, in order to recover the entity from distress, not only are expenses immediately reduced by reducing the workforce (via layoffs), a hidden expense can also be collectively returned to the entity from the chain of individuals which, based on head count and pay / benefits can be a substantial amount of immediate term assets (such as in the form of money), and benefits which may be stock or, in some cases, long term financial liabilities for the entity. The faster the entity can recover, the lesser the impact on the economy and lesser direct or indirect impact on others.
#3. Leverage the wheels of finance to service the maximum amount of individuals and businesses regionally in a sustainable fashion. Financial institutions and infrastructure (control mechanisms, exchanges, etc) have already been established throughout the planet so why not make them available to more individuals and businesses and add some unique features to them? The first is to offer micro-loans to borrowers (whether an individual or business); just because a borrower may only need a small loan today does not mean they will never need one or more larger loans in the future during their lifespan. The second thing is to host a credit system for each borrower (whether an individual or business) that would award credits for each successful repayment cycle of the loan - say, each month the borrower makes a complete payment on time then they are awarded credits. Then, after credits have accrued over a period of time, perhaps every three months, apply those credits toward reducing the interest rate applied against the loan. Naturally, you would likely not want to reduce the interest rate over time to zero, as a financial institution, so there would probably be a interest rate floor that would not be breached but the take-away for proposing this is that the borrower is likely to be more biased towards using your financial institution versus some other because you are actually providing an incentive by making it easier for the borrower to repay a loan (meaning greater financial stability of the system as a whole), the borrower may be more likely to repay the loan, and, the borrower returning for future loans during their lifespan. If not credits, then why not take that concept and apply that to APR directly. At first, it may seem like a outlandish concept - but, is it really?
#4. Rollout more technological innovation at a faster pace. There are technologies that, for example, can help with providing cleaner energy production such as Thorium today. Why not focus on those for future energy production and move away from less destructive methods such as those that failed in Japan from a natural disaster which polluted an appreciable amount of ocean water...just because it happened there does not mean the negative effects stay there or that it won't happen again. Along with that, why not release variations of technology that may seem "sensitive" in the short-term, so that they may be used by industry / individuals. For example, why not incorporate a variant of frictionless levitation, say magnetics, into elevators and load-lifting applications to begin with and observe how that is transformed into a larger societal context and, perhaps more importantly, the techniques used which can be applied to further the original "sensitive" technology given the volume of minds leveraged against the variant.
#5. Develop more medical technology to cure instead of treat conditions such as cancer. The first thing to consider is that the rate of cancer is growing globally; while there is a lot of money to be made by continually treating a condition in the short-term until the means of revenue dies, which requires no additional research or development, what are the effects of increasing numbers of deaths from those conditions over the long-term? Many regions of the planet, from what I understand, are also actually experiencing declining birth rates which would be an indicator that a "treat condition" method is not a viable business solution long-term because the source population for such a product is declining. From my perspective, how many minds are being lost prematurally (for example, before offspring are produced) that have a direct or indirect impact on the capacity of other minds to contribute to technological progress of the whole? Equally, however, at first sight "curing" may well seem an unviable business solution long-term as well because an increasingly limited number of the current population would need your product - until you consider a population not constrained to a single planet and will contract new conditions that may well require prerequisite knowledge of how other conditions were actually cured.
#6. Establish an innate drive to experience and live beyond our planet. While there is a little practical effort being applied to establishing a few tiny bases on a few planetary bodies in our solar system beginning around the mid 2020's, I believe substantial effort should be made now, as to how to establish entire cities with peak populations of 100,000 individuals on other planetary bodies in our solar system and shuttling starter resources and engineer populations to them - with the target to begin construction of those cities within 5 years of establishing a base on a planetary body and no later than 10 years after that, shuttling less "space engineering" specialized populations to them (individuals with skill sets more varied to support businesses and individuals) with the goal of reaching a population density 50,000 within 25 years of when construction began. There will undoubtedly be those which will say 25 years is not long enough or we don't have the technological means for some aspect of such an endeavor and, they may be right - today. However, one thing to consider is that technology is continually evolving to solve the needs (or shortcomings) of our current experiences. And, as long as efforts are made to maximize the number of minds contributing to continued technological progress, the "can't do" becomes "when do" sooner than later (take a moment to consider where our technology may have been at today if, effectively, an entire generation of people over the passage of decades were not - for lack of a better word - shut out from space). And lastly in that regard, there will be some aspects we will not be able to solve until we've actually experienced them - just as it is today with the planet we have already inhabited for thousands of years.
#7. If we "make contact" with some other form of life, if it is not malevolent then why not embrace it; that form of life may be different from us, but then again we're different amongst ourselves and we've largely learned how to live and continue life together. In retrospect, perhaps that's a good reason we do not all think, act and look the same. Humanity may or may not get technological trinkets or volumes of knowledge from such an encounter but I don't think that should be the primary purpose of such an encounter...though merely observing something that may be more technologically advanced could lead to new ideas and our own continued technological progress in solving needs that we may have. From my perspective it is more about adding a contact to our galactic Rolodex (old school term), or Address List (new term) and expanding our knowledge of the space we live in and - as the relationship improved - trading things of value. Ergo, why fear something that is different if it is not malevolent; if it is malevolent then fear is not the primitive reaction that will save humanity - the only thing that will save humanity from an equal or superior mind would be another mind of such intellect or developed, thinking, and innovative minds of our own.
Those seven points constitute the H Maxim. I hope that, regardless of where you are, you will think about and discuss them with the idea of how to ensure unimpeded technological progress both in the short and long term along our collective journey of evolution and maturation.
