They Didn’t Know What They Were Doing
“They didn’t know what they were doing.” That’s what future anthropologists— should we be so lucky — will say with a tinge of concern as they ponder the vast carcass of our civilization. Our only hope is to immediately and intensely make knowing — truly knowing — our collective focus.
We could say the Roman Empire didn’t know what they were doing; they knew for a while, and then they lost it. Same with Enron, Lehman Brothers, Blockbuster, and Sears. It turns out they all didn’t know what they were doing. Every failure gets branded with that phrase, and it’s usually true. But it applies also to the living, not only to the dead or dying.
We think we know — and we always know a little — but it’s rarely enough to avoid devastating consequences. We don’t see the consequences because we don’t know enough about what we are doing. Our culture, civilization, and organizations tend to relieve us of these concerns.
We’ve pumped oil, strip-mined the coal, and sucked out the gas for a century now. Burned it all and demanded more. Now we all face the Big Problems of climate change, ocean acidification, and rising carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
In the past, we slurped up laudanum, smoked copious amounts of tobacco and opium, and didn’t wash our hands between autopsy and delivery. We didn’t know what we were doing. Today we’ve fallen in love with prescription drugs, over-processed food, and Netflix. We still don’t know, so we should expect serious consequences. Not because any of these things are inherently bad, but because we don’t know and we don’t really want to know. It feels too good to risk stopping and thinking.
It seems that there’s always a group who foresees the Big Problems that befall us. The oil companies knew long ago about climate change and the tobacco companies long knew about their link to cancer. But they fought hard against awareness because profits felt so good. Today, we see the big profits are in computer technology. What’s happening there?
Our seers tend to look at how the problems of the past happened, at the accumulating evidence, and at the inevitabilities arising from the basics of physics. We dismiss those people as lacking boldness and courage and as belonging to an earlier age. Luddites. Pessimists. Naysayers. Unless these seers can persuade the majority to behave differently, they might as well belong to an earlier age because they too don’t know enough to persuade.
Let’s say we wanted our civilization, culture, company, family, or self to avoid the ignominious fate of “they didn’t know what they were doing”. What should we do?
The answer is clear: we must learn as much as possible, in detail, in depth, and across scope and time, about what we are doing. We must shift the balance from not-knowing to knowing. Of course, we already know this.
We see successful cultures, companies, executives, politicians, artists, and professionals focusing intently on knowing in depth and detail what they’re doing. That they do this is documented in all sorts of books, movies, and articles. Everyone else must do the same thing but often cannot because the tools they need are not available.
What if our next big technological revolution was, instead of AI or robots or nanotechnology or genetic engineering, an intense focus on each person knowing ever more about what they are doing? When we drive our cars to work, what are the consequences? When we eat fast food, or binge Netflix, or flush expired prescription drugs, or under-report our nation’s fish catch, what happens? What are the consequences to us, our family, fellow citizens, and our environment?
We know what happens “now” because we feel it. The feedback is immediate. Commuting costs time and money, fast food is convenient and cheap and tastes good enough, Netflix helps us unwind and kill time. But what happens tomorrow, in a month, or in ten years? Most people don’t know; it’s too complicated and demanding to make the connections. It doesn’t feel good to do. We leave that dirty work to others and then dismiss their findings if any discomfort is implied.
This is a hard problem. A specialized tool is called for.
Thankfully, the perfect foundation for such a tool already exists: a global Internet of programmable computers backed by a creative and ambitious industry. So far this industry has been obsessed with layering on new ideas and technologies in as many minor variations as can possibly be funded, often with the thought of making the world a better place. Well, that’s Silicon Valley anyway, the trend-master.
To actually make the world a better place, we must apply what we’ve learned about design, sales, marketing, and psychology to promote “knowing what we’re doing”. This is possible. We must also develop tools — methods, software, hardware — that help people to know what they’re doing in a way that feels good for anyone, not only the technically minded. The tools must be rewarding, comforting, connective, trustworthy, and fulfilling. This is also possible.
Above all we must make sure these ideas and tools operate at the level of the individual and for the benefit of the individual. Bottom up, not top down. “Knowing” must not be monopolized by unaccountable organizations of dubious intent; they already know plenty. Think of the overall idea as a democratized enrichment of knowledge, in active form rather than the passive and misleading form of “everything we need to know is on the Internet”.
If we don’t do this, it will soon be painfully clear that we didn’t know what we were doing. Painfully clear that not a single person knew enough to alter the trajectory of our civilization away from its finally fatal Big Problem. We became too complex for anyone to fully understand. So we end up on the trash heap of history, leaving a deep scar on the earth to remind our successors to never loosen their grasp on exactly what they are doing.
On the other hand, if we do this, we might be able to look back and say “There! That’s when we figured it out!” and live happily ever after until we forget again.
Anyway, we can do this. It’s possible. There’s no better time.
