Talking with the Whole World

Every so often I have one of those ideas that shakes you up a bit. You realize something fundamental. For me its the insight that the best solutions and meaningful ways of living are about talking, listening, and new ideas. Those three simple things can do so much. And from one point of view they are what makes us so revolutionary relative to all the other living things. So here is the case.

Apes in the Storm of Change

While watching a Nova presentation on Human origins I found out that Africa, particularly the rift valley, was a very varied place weather wise around the time that humans branched off from apes. You'd have floods, droughts that would last a decade or two, nice weather, and then repeat. So if you were a lion or a gazelle the whole ecosystem was getting rebooted every few years. No rain, grass dies, gazelles die, lions die, or move on. It rains grass grows, but no gazelles or lions. The ecosystem had opportunities caused by inconsistent weather. Or seen another way, grass can't evolve into gazelles, and gazelles into lions in a decade. But in comes a clever ape who figures out how to foridge for plants in a drought, hunt antelopes when they are around, and pass this info on to offspring. You have a opportunity for better communication between parent, offspring, and random people leading to better survival. How to hunt, what plants are safe to eat, etc. Human culture adapted 1000x faster than static gene-programmed animals. Changing culture is like installing new software on the same old hardware.

This starts to explain allot. Why do people like completely made up stories, particularly ones with hero's who learn how to overcome some evil foe ? Why do people enjoy hanging around and talking ? Why do children want to learn from their parents ? Why do fashions change ?

The Environment

So culture adapts to its "environment", but nobody really sets up the environment. Cultures will exist to the extent that they are allowed to exist. If we allow oppressive governments we might get oppressive governments. If you allow unfair and exploitative practices you will get unfair and exploitative practices.

A while back Carl Sagan's Cosmos series talked about ancient Greek culture, Leucippus (theory of atoms) Democritus (democracy and many other things). Greek culture was a result of the mixing of cultures that traded in the Mediterranean. A child growing up might hear about many religions and many leaders and governments. There was no "that's just the way it is kid". There were lots of answers to the same question. The result is the foundation of western society, a culture that can survive the chaos of cultural collisions.

Numbers

I really think most people do not see the vast expanse of information that is out there.
- What do you know ?
- What do other people know ?
- What % of what you don't know would revolutionize your thinking ?
- How much effort would you put toward searching for something really great ?

Somewhere in the mountains there is some monk pondering the questions of life and he might find something really great. He might tell a few other monks, and they might tell some friends but maybe it stopped there. The idea never hit the tipping point of finding the people that would take the idea and spread it. The monks got old and died and the idea went with them. So much of culture is just what survived. What got passed on, written down, or told at some party to entertain the guests. Everything else is gone, extinct.

Making Culture

So how do you make a kick ass culture. Some possibilities:
- have allot of people spend allot of time listening and reading. You might call this education, but maybe its something you really love.
- have allot of people talking and writing about what they think, hopefully some of which is original and creative.
- create an economy where doing the first two are valued and the people that do it best are recognized and can make a living at it and even the smallest and least valued participation can find an audience and learn.

If you were a kick ass idea how would you get recognized?
- find the people most likely to listen
- let the people who love the idea promote it to people they think would like it
- get saved in an organized way somewhere so that people can find you again and never get lost

Its worth noting that big professional corporate marketer types know all about culture and try to shape it to their benefit. Its every marketer's dream to create a cult following that makes your product an essential part of a happy life, even if its all a sham. But this is another topic.

Quality

Its worth saying that not all of culture is great. You have the junk-food-equivalent of conversation, and sensational stories. But I'd hope that people would find the balance when given lots of choices.

The Internet

So what happens when:
- millions of people talk
- millions of people listen
- software filters it, makes it searchable, lets people promote it to friends, and creates an economy where it has value.
- lots of people find cool stuff that they then participate in, creating grass roots institutions and businesses of passionate people
- this iterates for a while

What happens ? ... culture like the world has never seen happens.