Computers are cool. You’re cool.
Modern computers are so valuable to us because they are versatile. People all around the world can contribute a wide variety of useful computer applications- from communication tools, to video streaming, to search, to business applications, to databases, games, and beyond.
Computers weren’t always so versatile. The original computers in the mid 20th century required a painstaking process to be valuable, leading to way fewer applications being built. When we wanted to get those original computers to do a new useful task for us, each new application had to be programmed down to the hardware level, telling each physical part of the machine how to move.
To look at that idea of “down to the hardware level” for a quick second: a computer is a physical thing, a piece of “hardware” as we call it. We have to get that physical thing to behave in useful ways. We do that by instructing how we want electricity to flow through it. Modern computer chips have billions of transistors, or little switches, and each one can either be on (electricity flows through it) or off (no electricity). We call this “on” or “off” dynamic “binary,” which you’ve probably seen as a bunch of 00000s and 11111s, with 0 being off and 1 being on. Because there are so many transistors, we are able to represent complex information through our binary instructions.
Ok, back to building the metaphor. In the old days, programmers had to write binary applications that controlled the flow of electricity, which as you might imagine is a big hassle since it takes an insane amount of binary instructions to represent a complex command. Eventually, we learned to create “software” that can automatically translate the instructions to the hardware. We call this type of software an “operating system.”
The creation of operating systems enabled the wide array of applications we use computers for today. With an operating system automatically allocating the computer’s hardware to the right tasks, a programmer writes the code for a new application and doesn’t worry about translating that code all the way down to binary or “machine language.” Instead, the programmer writes code that resembles the English language and then the OS automatically translates this easier to write code down to the hardware level. That ease of programming opened the floodgates, enabling many more people to contribute new computer applications who would have been otherwise turned off by the complexity of having to directly control the hardware.
In a way, the OS renders the programmer an abstraction worker who sends commands to the operating system to then translate those commands to the machine. It’s as though the OS has as many direct reports as there are transistors, and the programmer just has to learn to manage this one super manager.
Civilization’s Operating System
Like a computer, human civilization is a complex physical entity. Instead of 8 billion transistors, we have 8 billion humans.
To send custom instructions from a centralized authority to every single person would be painstaking. If we could somehow figure out and communicate the perfect instruction to each person in one minute, it would still take 253 years to reach all 8 billion people.
Similar to how we created operating systems as an abstraction layer between the programmer and the hardware, we’ve done the same to simplify managing human civilization.
As an example, the economy is an abstraction layer that directs many people to adhere to the same instruction. When the federal reserve raises interest rates to confront inflation, they are acting as a programmer for American society, pushing an update that says “spend less money because it is now 7% more expensive.” Without an influential abstraction layer like the economy, getting 330 million people to spend less money would be practically impossible. Just like directing 330 million transistors in a computer would be a big hassle without an OS.
As of 2022, the global operating system that we rely on to direct our human energy is this somewhat randomly devised collection of economies, governments, and religions. This patchwork operating system has competing ideals, unhelpfully redundant processes, and no transparent process for upgrades. Civilization’s resources are not optimally allocated by our current OS.
To get the most out of ourselves, as both individuals and a collective, we need our best possible operating system. This abstraction layer should surface the most valuable tasks we can imagine and then push us to complete them. Our current OS falls short, as I explore here, here, and here. It’s time to create a new coordinating layer that can sustainably get the most out of civilization.
To return to the computer metaphor for a moment, there’s a certain beauty to an operating system. The relationship between an OS and the computer’s physical hardware is an honest one. The OS can only ask the hardware to do what the hardware is capable of doing, and the hardware can do no more than it’s asked to do. When creating the operating system, the programmer’s goal is to ask the hardware to do as much as is sustainably possible.
In that way, if the programmer does a good job, then the operating system will fulfill the hardware’s potential.
When it comes to our civilization, we similarly want an operating system that helps us fulfill our potential. We want to do the right things at the right times. From a collective perspective, an effective OS sets humanity on an existentially relevant course, and from an individual perspective, it makes living a meaningful life more likely.
Our 2022 operating system leaves room for improvement.
The Evolution of Civilization’s OS
While it can be hard to tell since we lack a transparent way to upgrade civilization, our operating system has gone through upgrades over the millennia.
Let’s look at the progression from religion to government to economy.
Complex spiritual explanations and customs came before complex governance mechanics and both came before complex economies.
This journey represents a series of operating system upgrades:
First we deciphered meaning via a prophet and then incentivized the pursuit of that meaning through religion.
Then we devised complex political processes and passed laws to inspire action, which is more reliable and transformative than a religious strategy.
Both religion and politics are less reliable and transformative than deciphering and pursuing meaning through the economic innovation of a supply and demand market based system.
Our civilization’s OS and therefore our ability to allocate our energy has been improving. One way to anecdotally confirm this operating system evolution that’s occurred over the last few thousand years is to ask yourself the question, “what takes up more mindshare- my economy, government, or religion?” 2,500 years ago, a person’s religion and their god would have been the day to day center of their life. 1,000 years ago a person’s king and their state would have been the day to day center. Today, a person trusts their economy as their life’s major influence more than the previous two.
Thanks to the technological infrastructure we’ve created over the past half century or so, namely computers, the internet, and AI, it’s time for the next improvement. This one is going to be different. It’s going to happen fast relative to the other improvements and it’s going to transform how our civilization operates more dramatically.
Next Up
I’m going to paint a picture of how this next OS upgrade will define a new paradigm for determining and pursuing meaning. I’ll explore what a “post-economic” operating system could look like and how it would leverage different forces than our economies, governments, and religions to direct our collective energy.
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What’s this substack all about?
We need to upgrade our civilization’s operating system. This newsletter explores how our current operating system came to be, which improvements would be helpful, and how we can make an upgrade happen.
I chose to write this publicly to get feedback on these ideas. Don’t hesitate to get in touch. Upgrading our OS and building our future is a team effort.
The government seeks to control spending behaviors and to do so, it has levers like inflation, interest rates, etc.
When it seeks to control moral behavior it has levers like incarceration, fines, etc.
When a new operating system seeks to control existential relevant behavior it has levers like.......
Excited for that next post. Really starting to see the architecture here.
Best blog yet. Probably for some it begins a bit simplistically but it benefited me. Then once I saw where you were going with the computer,hardware , software analogy to the existential construct and the hardware, software and OS it all made sense and fit together very well.
I have frequently thought that we as people tend to harken back to computer concepts as our best means of understanding things. Yet computer concepts we made up in the first instance using the human mind as a model.
Just a thought.