My mental models on Technology and Progress.

A Quick Thread.

1/N

Technology is anything that helps us become more efficient.

Fire is a piece of technology. By cooking raw meat, it allowed early Homo Sapiens to efficiently process nutrients, enabling a larger prefrontal-cortex.

2/N

Technology is the biggest driver of human progress. Other drivers include:

-Religion
-Institutions
-Free-markets

None of these come close to how profound the impact of Technology can be.

3/N

The printing press, vaccines, The Pill, nuclear energy, rockets that escape earth's gravity well, transistors, chips, cameras, smartphones, The Internet, cryptography – the list goes on.

Technological progress enables paradigm-shifts.

4/N

Without technological progress, we would just be monkeys sitting in a cave afraid of external predators.

With technology, we are still monkeys but now we look to the stars with the hope of reaching them someday.

5/N

Ignore the modern Luddites. They are simply those who love technology just from 10 years ago.

6/N

Hard technological challenges are worth solving not only because they are hard, but because they often produce spin-off tech that advances humanity.

7/N

@elonmusk "putting a Tesla in space" is remarkably admirable because it requires:

1) Inventing a Tesla
2) Inventing a SpaceX

If you think it's trivial, try putting a car in space for yourself.

8/N

If we waited to work on "flashy technology" like going to space until all "earthly" problems are solved, we'd never get to space.

9/N

Technological progress is extremely counter-intuitive and unpredictable.

What starts as a toy/experiment can end up changing the world. See: GPS and The Internet.

10/N

Despite the all-too-common criticisms against tech, I sincerely believe in technology and that it's really the only way to drive progress by unlocking zero-sum games.

11/N

Think of it this way: The Universe gives us near-infinite energy which we can transform into wealth/prosperity using the right knowledge. But it also binds us with the 2nd law of thermodynamics.

Technology is how we get out of this bind.

12/N

There are over 7BN people on Earth, with about 10BN projected by 2050. Most of them want to attain first-world living standards.

Without technology, we'd just destroy the planet in trying to keep up.

13/N