Reason Iteration: 03
Wednesday, 30 August 2017
Rejecting technology.
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Invest one million dollars for 1% of my company.
That’s what I want to convince you to do.
I am going to make an argument that I consider to be a rational and independent justification for a capitalist to invest.
That’s right, for a capitalist to invest, for selfish reasons. But it is not going to be a normal argument that you’ve heard other companies make. It is going to be a strange argument.
This is the argument:
This company is a technology company.
That’s it. That’s my claim. It is so simple, it sounds absurd. You would be right to ask: Why is this claim significant? There are one hundred thousand companies in the United States alone that claim to be technology companies. On its face, this claim is undifferentiated and should be rejected.
I will not go so far as to say:
This company is the only technology company.
Because that is perhaps going too far, and cannot be defended as strongly. But that is the thrust of my claim. Perhaps I should state it thus:
This company is a technology company, one of the few that remain.
That is my claim. And it is a bold claim. It is a bold claim, resting on other bold claims, which are:
- Man is the measure of technology.
Technology is the measure of man. - Technical is not technological.
Non-technical is not non-technological. - The most technological thing in our technological era
is still not considered technology.
The least technological things in our technological era
are considered technology.
These three claims support my claim:
This company is a technology company.
Not only do they support the claim, they support the boldness of the claim. They support the claim’s legitimacy as a rational and independent and selfish reason to invest.
Briefly,
What is “this company”?
This company, my company, our company, Invisible Technologies, Inc., is building the world’s first general Synthetic Intelligence. Synthetic Intelligence is not Artificial Intelligence. Synthetic Intelligence does not do work, it coordinates humans.
Our nascent Synthetic Intelligence allows us to run the world’s first Digital Assembly Line. Humans do the work, technology coordinates the humans.
What work do the humans do? Clients pay us to design, build and run Processes for them. Anything that can be turned into a set of instructions, can be made into a Process. Processes can organize your data, manage your vendors, use your apps, coordinate your team, or operate core enterprise systems. Clients pay per Process, from $250/m for their first process, to $10/m at scale.
What’s the point? Our essential value claim is this: We do your work for you, so you can do your real work. Your work is anything that can be turned into instructions, and it holds you back from your real work. Your real work is creative, it cannot be reduced.
According to the technology industry:
This company is NOT a technology company.
According to me:
This company IS a technology company.
Unknown investor, consider my argument.
I will reject technology as defined by the technology industry.
I will claim technology as defined by an ancient tradition.
First,
Man is the measure of technology.
Technology is the measure of man.
“Man is the measure of technology.”
What does this mean?
Technology, as we take it to mean in common speech, is progress measured by technological metrics. A new engine technology innovates on old engine technology, as measured by engine metrics. A new computer innovates on computing, as measured by computing metrics.
Venture capitalists who are “serious” about technology, who eschew investing in any company unless it involves “intensive” science and engineering, unless it is breaking fundamental ground, technically speaking — work harder than venture capitalists that don’t.
They have to work harder, because it is difficult to understand technical innovation, by virtue of its technicality. To invest across a range of technology categories, then, requires tremendous breadth and depth of research. To succeed, these investors don’t need to innovate themselves, but they do need to understand innovation — what is fundamental and what is not, and invest accordingly. Although secondary, this is impressive.
This strategy is likely to outperform. Outperform why? Because they are investing in companies building technology qua technology metrics. Outperform who? Outperform venture capitalists who invest in companies building technology qua market metrics. A new dating app innovates on old dating apps. A new laundry service innovates on old laundry services.
Fundamental innovation outperforms market innovation. Technology outperforms apps. Apps are, at best, convenient utilities, and at worst, fashion. Success in fashion is dangerous, because form is easy to copy, and so success is always precarious and limited. Function, on the other hand, is easier to defend because it is difficult to copy and delivers some fundamental value.
But what is an app? An app is an application. Apps are where technology becomes real to humans. Apps are where technology is applied.
Ultimately, all economic dimensions derive from the consumer dimension. The consumer dimension is the primary dimension. Consumer demand is the primary demand. And consumer supply is the primary supply.
Enterprises may build technology for other enterprises. These enterprises, in turn, may provide products and services to other enterprises. But ultimately, enterprises provide technology, products and services to consumers. Consumers are the source of truth.
But I am using common speech. What is a consumer? What is an enterprise? An enterprise is a company. A consumer is an individual. That is, a human.
Ultimately, enterprise interests serve consumer interests; all enterprises are for consumers. Ultimately, all technology is consumer technology; all technology is for consumers. Ultimately, all products are consumer products; all products are for consumers. Ultimately, all services are consumer services; all services are for consumers.
Restated:
Ultimately, all company interests serve individual interests; all companies are for individuals. Ultimately, all technology is human technology; all technology is for individuals. Ultimately, all products are human products; all products are for individuals. Ultimately, all services are human services; all services are for individuals.
Technology exists for individuals.
Technology is for humans.
Technology: for humans.
Man is the measure of technology.
So how is it that the best venture capitalists invest in ‘hard’ technology companies, as opposed to ‘application-layer’ companies? If man is the measure of technology, then it would stand to reason that the reverse would be true: that the best venture capitalists would be investing in ‘application-layer’ companies, and that ‘hard’ technology companies would only be interesting insofar as they enable new applications. Yet this is not the case.
This is thought-provoking.
A secret lies herein.
Following the way of questioning leads to the second statement:
“Technology is the measure of man.”
What does this mean?
Progress, the progress of humanity, is typically measured statistically. Humans are measured qua human statistics. And the most measurable human statistics are economic.
By what measure is the man or woman of the early 21st century superior to his forbears? Is the exceptional person of today, more exceptional than Edison, than Rockefeller, than Jefferson, than Napoleon, than Rembrandt, than da Vinci, than Averroes, than Mohammad, than Caesar, than Aristotle — to name but a few of the great men of history?
I include names offensive and names inoffensive to modern sensibilities to highlight the chronological snobbery that prevents us from seeing basic human accomplishment. Even assuming that our morals are superior, which is questionable but beyond the scope of this essay, what man or woman alive today could have persuaded, commanded, conquered and reorganized as Caesar or Napoleon? In Mohammad’s case, a reorganization of values itself occurred, in one of the great upheavals of religion, politics and culture in all of history. So too in the case of Christ or in the case of Buddha or Confucius. Even figures of non-violence, such as Martin Luther King and Gandhi, in achieving power in one dimension, influenced many dimensions.
Perhaps we have our Edison and Rockefeller, in our Musk and Bezos. But if these men equal the past, do they exceed it? By what measure do we compare the significance of their inventions to the inventions of the past?
The statistical way of measuring progress shows that the standard of living in the 21st century, as measured by our eccentric orthodox economic indicators, is superior to that of any prior century.
But this “standard of living” is a “basket of goods”. If the standard of living is to be measured against the quality of achievement of a human life, are we superior? Do we produce greater poets, greater artists, greater warriors, greater statesmen, greater philosophers, greater scientists, greater inventors?
The reason these qualitative dimensions of progress are not discussed, is that they are not objective. They produce arguments that are inconclusive, that rely on the individual to determine, based on his or her values.
But simply because achievement is subjective, it should not be dismissed as invalid. It is valid by virtue of its subjectivity. Conflicts of subjectivity are valid conflicts. Precisely because we cannot agree on it, it should be intensely debated.
Yet such debates are absent. “What are we building?” as in, “Why are we building it?”, as in “What is the significance of what we are building?” These are important questions that are not investigated.
What is invalid, what is conspicuous, is the absence of subjective conflict. In our debates, we do not essentially debate. The primary debate in the technology industry is about the dangers of technology: about whether autonomous vehicles will create structural unemployment, about whether robotic weapons will be wielded by rogue artificial intelligences. These dangers, if they are dangers, are inevitable, because of the nature of technology. ‘Public policy’ cannot stop them, because ‘public policy’ is violence itself — it is the legal use of force, wielded by Leviathan, that is, The State. Government itself is a technology. It is Leviathan, the Titan Oceanus. Every bit as much of a Titan as the Titans that we call by the names “Artificial Intelligence”, “Robotics” and “Autonomous Vehicles” — which the Greeks called by other names.
In ‘debating’ the dangers of these technologies, we do not really debate. Everyone, right and left, is in unanimous agreement that technology should be banned, regulated, centralized and controlled. Nobody is unafraid of technology. Nobody, that is, very few. For there are those lonely contrarians — “the voice of one crying in the wilderness” — who possess a radically alternative narrative.
Let me present such a narrative. “Technology is the measure of man”. Of all the achievements of civilization, the only ones that mattered were technologies. That is: Achievements, insofar as they are achievements, are technologies. Poetry, if it is a technology, is an achievement. Poetry that is not a technology, is not even poetry.
What, then, qualifies as a technology? A technology is an essential improvement to human experience. An essential improvement is systemic, structural, sustained — and above all qualitative.
Qualitative, as determined by whom? By individuals, and by individuals persuading individuals in intense debates which are absent. This absence points to a lack of direction in civilization, a lack of identity and vision and plan: a confusion about who we are, where we are going, and how we are going to get there.
In the achievement of universal literacy, for example, there is a debate to be had, that is not being had. I would argue that, in our age of universal literacy, the most striking thing is our universal illiteracy. Not only, I would argue, are we not superior to previous centuries, we are inferior in our literacy. There are less learned men, less who read Hölderlin’s “sign that is not read”, the sign of history and the history of thought, in particular.
The reasons for this phenomena are a history unto themselves, and beyond the scope of this essay. I will only list them. They are: 1) supplanting the values of the nobility with the values of the commoner, 2) subversive, insidious and pervasive ideological indoctrination by the state, in a coercive state-run education system, 3) the failure of the great men of our era to realize that the economy is a war of values, and that in that war, supply leads demand; instead, they accommodate demand, which sinks supply to the lowest common denominator, preventing fundamental progress; or perhaps, creating fundamental regress.
Preventing fundamental progress, I could have said, preventing technological progress. A technology is an essential improvement to human experience. So if ours is an era that is ennobling, enforcing, and supplying the lowest common denominator, then even if statistical measures of progress such as the cost of living or the gross domestic product are improving, the qualitative measure of progress is not improving.
Just as I have challenged our assumption of universal literacy, so might I challenge our assumption of material wealth. There is no claim to progress that is harder to refute than our superior material wealth. For example, it is a fact that a smaller percentage of humanity is required than ever before to farm the fields, to generate our food supply. But qualitatively, is the human experience of a middle class person in a mass-produced suburban home superior to his farming ancestors? Perhaps.
I won’t debate this, I will only point to a debate that is not being had. But the position I would take in such a debate is: that the farming tools which have liberated our time, are only technologies, insofar as they liberate our humanity. Liberating time itself is of no inherent value, unless we assume that with that time, essential value is being created. But if we are not becoming essentially better as humans, but instead, watching Netflix, then it is possible that no progress has occurred. Indeed, a serf may have been more noble, and appreciated iBooks more than us. For iBooks, he would have seen, yes, require time and money to read, but their value is not in saving time and money, but in expanding the soul, in expanding the capacity of the human mind, and in inspiring greatness.
Groups are imaginary. I have never met an average person. I have only met individuals. So it is difficult to debate groups of people without resorting to statistics. But with individuals, the qualitative assessment presents itself for debate.
There are some great individuals who are alive in our era, and we have compared them to the great individuals of the past, and asked ourselves: are we superior yet?
If we believe that ours is an era of superior technology, then we should also believe that ours is an era of superior individuals. And yet, I find myself beaten by da Vinci at every turn. Polymaths of centuries past achieved greatness in many dimensions, greatness of a kind that I have yet to achieve in any single dimension. And yet they have an enormous handicap. I have, available to me, the greatest library of information in the history of the world. I have tools for creation, for thinking, for art, for design — for any endeavor of the mind — that so far surpass theirs, so as to make the contest akin to a chariot against a tank. The contest is unfair, in my favor and yet still I cannot win. I have cheap food, made for me. I have cheap transportation available to nearly anywhere on the globe. I have so many advantages, and yet — I am not the superman. Compared to me, da Vinci was the superman.
“Technology is the measure of man”, so we see in da Vinci’s greatness, a focus on making essential improvements to the human experience. Creator da Vinci was a technologist, par excellence.
“Man is the measure of technology”, so we see in da Vinci’s greatness, an exploration of human potential, a focus on applying the technologies available to him, to expand his range of possibilities. User da Vinci ennobled his tools, turned them into technologies, in the way he used them.
To turn a tool into a technology, one must use it in such a way that it extends your humanity. In expressing the potentialities within, it is measuring your nature, and proving its own.
This is the proof of technology. A tool is not a technology until it is wielded by a human, measured against a human life. Before, my wingspan was thus. After, my wingspan doubled. That is the improvement.
The technological nature of a tool is revealed by the man who uses it. Revealed in its application, in its utility. Measured against the values of that man. If technology is a means, it is a means to an end set by man.
Man is the evaluator. The potential of technology is measured against the potential of man. Dynamis, the word of the ancient Greeks, is the potential that exists within things. What is the dynamis of a computer? The dynamis of a computer is the potential of all the things that man can do with a computer. That potential is infinite. But it is only infinite if man makes it so.
If man does not use technology, then it is not technology. If man only uses technology in a certain way, then it is only technology in that way.
Progress, then, is not just creating tools, even dynamic tools, as in, tools with great potential. Progress, technological and human progress, is in the application, the actual usage, of these tools, to achieve great things. Greatness, a value set, and debated, by man.
The question returns:
So how is it that the best venture capitalists invest in ‘hard’ technology companies, as opposed to ‘application-layer’ companies? If man is the measure of technology, then it would stand to reason that the reverse would be true: that the best venture capitalists would be investing in ‘application-layer’ companies, and that ‘hard’ technology companies would only be interesting insofar as they enable new applications. Yet this is not the case.
The industry of venture capital is itself captured. It is captured by values that are not debated. It is captured by profit.
But what is profit? Is there anything more appropriate than for venture capital to be captured by profit? The capitalist seeks profit. Seeks his own profit. And if the capitalist deploys the capital of others, so as to secure a percentage of the return, the capitalist is incentivized to seek their profit.
Nothing is wrong with profit. Profit is the great glory of capitalism. But profit is not measured by money. Man is the measure of profit. Money is merely a currency of exchange.
Values underlie all prices, all transactions. The economy is a war of all values against all values. If I value this above that, I price this above that. If I value this above all else, I price this above all else. Therefore, if I possess that which I most value, then I have secured the greatest profit.
But in our economy, which is the economy of the lowest common denominator, nobody is setting values. Consumers look to celebrities and celebrities look to consumers. There is a chaotic noise-making, and the bleating of sheep. Our economy itself is captured, captured by ignorance. Profit is captured by ignorance, by the values of the ignorant. That which commands the highest price, is that which the ignorant prize.
But we are yet free to choose. Signal comes from the few who do not chase the herd, but who define for themselves what is valuable, and who arbitrage the market.
Those who make the most money do not necessarily profit the most. Those who make the most money supply what is demanded by the lowest common denominator. But to a man who truly seeks profit, such things are not desirable, either to make or to buy. To that man who sets his own values, the economy is a wasteland, filled with useless things. In that wasteland, however, there are those few companies that remain that dedicate themselves to making technologies. True technologies, technologies that he desires, desires because they will enable him to be greater than he is.
Man is the measure of profit. Man is the measure of technology. Technology is the measure of man. Therefore, technology is the measure of profit. Technology is profit. A technology is an essential improvement to human experience. To make such an improvement is to profit, is to make progress. Progress, a value set, and debated, by man.
Values are nowhere debated. Profit is nowhere debated. Progress is nowhere debated. Technology is nowhere debated. Man is nowhere debated. I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, screaming into the silent realm.
I set my own values, define my own profit, determine my own progress. I value, above all, expressing, exploring and expanding my own potential, as an individual. So all technologies I build, I build for myself. I sell them to others, so that I may have more resources to invest in building technologies, for myself. I measure all of these technologies against myself, against my own potential.
To measure myself against, I have set for myself a simple goal. It is a goal so outrageous, that it cannot even be called arrogant, and — according to the values, or rather, the absence of values, in our era, our era of the lowest common denominator — my goal will be called insane, even dangerous. And yet to me, this is the only goal that is sane, that is safe.
This is my one and only goal:
To be the greatest man who ever lived.
I shudder even to mention it. But if you are a man or a woman of ambition, and you look within yourself, you will find it there, within yourself, beating wild but unexpressed. And you will find that it underlies your very being, your every thought and action. That is the dynamis within you, seeking its expression. This is the drive to create technology, technē, fire within the heart of man.
But what is greatness? Certainly, I measure myself against the great men of the past. Even against the greatest: I measure myself against da Vinci. Of course, in that measurement, I am far from being megalomaniacal: I am weak compared to them, but at least the comparison calls me to be stronger.
But relative comparison begs for fundamental analysis. What is it that makes a great man great, what is at the root of their greatness? It is not only that they used technology, that they created technology. A technology is an essential improvement to human experience. But what is an improvement?
Man is man insofar as he is an artist. Technology is technology insofar as it is a tool used by man for art. Technē is technē insofar as it enables poēsis.
What is art, poēsis? Art, poēsis, is revelation, expression — manifesting, exploring and expanding the possibilities that exist. That exist, that exist within me, a human, an individual, but also that exist within humanity, within Civilization, but also that exist within earth, within the Cosmos itself. Thinking and Doing manipulate, explore, express and expand Being.
So the greatest man who ever lived, is the one who most and best explored, expressed and expanded being — both his own being, that of all individuals, and that of the cosmos. Being, what is that? That is yet-to-be-determined, or it is unknown. So the greatest man, is the greatest expression of technology, and technology itself is an exploration of the unknown.
The greatest man, the Superman, is an explorer, an expresser, and expander. So too, the greatest woman. She builds technology to explore, so that she might explore. She builds technology to express, so that she might express. She builds technology to expand her capabilities, so that she might do more, think more, be more. And in so doing, thinking and being, she may further explore, express and expand herself, civilization and the cosmos itself.
This is a contest I am happy to lose. The point is not to be the greatest man who ever lived, per se, although that formulation is important. The point is to be the greatest man that I can be. If others are even greater, then that is progress. For greatness honors greatness, and does not despise competition, but celebrates it, encourages it, and supports it magnanimously.
Then why say, to be the greatest man who ever lived? Because it is competitive, and the joyous competition itself needs to happen, and happen vigorously. Because comparison, although secondary and not essential, illuminates how far we are from where we could be.
There need not be one superman, or one superwoman. The superman, insofar as he is superman, desires a rebirth of the human spirit. Desires all individuals to be freely, fully expressed. Desires all men to be supermen, all women to be superwomen. There is no jealousy, nor desire to change the past. There is only this great assertion of the future, this great emphasis on humanity, on technology, on profit, on progress.
Anything less ambitious than to be the greatest man who ever lived, is not ambitious enough. Is indeed cowardly. Cowardly, because it is to stand on the precipice of the pinnacle of history, and not reach higher, but instead stop and rest, and spend a lifetime admiring the view, or worse, climbing back down, or worse, falling.
Anything less than radical striving for greatness is cowardice, because we have every advantage that those who came before strove to win. To possess such vast dynamis and to squander it, that is a sin of the soul. Indeed, perhaps that is the one, the only, true sin: to not seek, to stop seeking, to say “I have found it”. To be Nietzsche’s Last Man.
“We have invented happiness”, says the Last Man, and blinks.
Billionaires are not sufficiently wealthy. The biggest problem in the world is that billionaires don’t spend enough money on themselves. Despite all of their money, they don’t have profit, they don’t have progress — they are not living meaningfully happier and more fulfilled lives, because they do not have access to superior technology, nor do they use technology in a superior way.
I will not defend this claim now. I will only make it. It is tied to an identical claim I will also make. The biggest problem in the world is solutions. This is the same claim. I will explain later.
Technical is not technological.
Non-technical is not non-technological.
The most technological thing in our technological era
is still not considered technology.
The least technological things in our technological era
are considered technology.
These are bold claims I will explore in future essays. But when I do explore them, you will see that they support this claim I have made This company is a technology company. Indeed, perhaps one of the few that remain.
I reject most technologies, not because they aren’t tools, or even powerful tools. But because they aren’t applied to the expression of human potential. This is through no fault of their own. But because of coordination costs, and other factors, which explain why the biggest problem in the world is solutions.
Unknown investor, if you value progress, as measured by man; if you personally desire to profit from technologies that will empower you to live up to your fullest potential as an individual; then what other company can claim to liberate you as much as I have done. We will do your work for you, so you can do your real work. We will do civilization’s work for it, so it can do its real work. What is your real work? What is civilization’s work? That is a dynamis as-yet-undetermined. To be determined. To be determined by who? By you. By you, if you become our client. By man, set free by technology, set free to do real work.
Invest if you value this future.
