“If we could intentionally optimize the basic intelligence and heuristic value of the activity we organize here by as little as 10%, I believe that we could radically advance the nature of human intelligence and collective cognition in a month.

In a medium such as this, it is relatively easy to conceive of and implement a contagiously empowering set of activities and ideas that, without creating dogma, leads us into entirely new modes of human learning and cooperation.

But we are not inclined to do so. Yet.

If we could simply maintain a steady rhythm of such optimizing advancements in how we are social together — particularly electronically — we might actually begin to reach for and achieve some of the dreamlike fantasies my generation was sold in childhood. The end of war. Space colonization. Astonishing leaps in healthcare and education. Ecological recognition and integration.

What we have at the orders of our most powerful collectives are lethally clumsy, parasitic representations of intelligence. What we can authentically assemble together instead can easily outperform the finest of pretenders.

We are like infants playing with a relational spacecraft capable of translight velocity. We keep pushing the buttons to transmit selfies, images of pets, quotes, viral media of benign and toxic form, and news clips. We do not understand what the vehicle actually is or can do, or could become if we only understood -what to do with it- together.

I am reminded of the onset of representational language in our species.”

— an anonymous observer of moderns