The Unseen Architecture of Survival- Part 2: The Genius of the "Dumb" Collective
The Unseen Architecture of Survival 1 Why Predictable Systems Collapse 2 The Genius of the "Dumb" Collective 3 Rites of Terror as Social Superglue 4 Mindful Organizing Against Normalization 5 The Ethos of Optionality ← Series Home Intelligence Is a Shared Resource Humanity’s immense ecological success is not owed to raw, individual brainpower or superior innate intellect. When stripped of culturally acquired knowledge, humans are not significantly more impressive than other large-brained apes in tasks related to causality, quantities, or space. Our secret lies instead in the collective brain: the flow and recombination of ideas, skills, and practices among interconnected individuals across generations. This process, known as cumulative cultural evolution, is “smarter than we are” because it aggregates insights without requiring any single person to fully grasp the entire system. ...