If the world we live in is increasingly complex, and that seems to be the case, and our individual intelligence remains limited, we are facing a dilemma: either we increase our collective intelligence or our society will collapse.

Although we do not have a metric of societal complexity, almost everyone agrees that more people, more knowledge, more technology, more products and services, more laws, more and more increase our society’s complexity. Today, an expert in any area of ​​knowledge is unable to keep up to date with all the publications in his or her area of ​​expertise. The dynamics of complexity growth and social collapse is an exciting and complex 😉 subject of study.

On the other hand, it is evident that, leaving aside minor statistical effects, the intellectual capacity of the average person has not changed over time. Very likely, the average Homo Sapiens of 5,000 years ago would have had not much difficulty in understanding most or all of the knowledge and technology available 5,000 years ago. 500 years ago, it was no longer possible. Today nobody knows all the necessary details to manufacture and market even the simplest product we use in our day to day.

In Memorias de un dragón (Memoirs of a dragon, for the time being, only in Spanish^(*)), I wonder whether it is possible to increase our collective intelligence. But I do not do it in the abstract, I wonder how to do it in the real world, one overwhelmed by increasing competitive pressures.

Eric Steel is an experienced executive who receives an offer to lead an ambitious project promoted by the European Commission. The United States, China and CAN’s aggressively compete for the mastery of key technologies in the development of synthetic biology and quantum information. Europe still has an option to make its welfare social model succeed. Eric knows he will have to face possibly insurmountable difficulties without anyone to rely on. But he is a resourceful guy and knows that he has no other choice. Because what is at stake is a lot more than the competitiveness of the European economy. It is the way of understanding progress and the future of humanity …

Memorias de un Dragón

The story speculate with a possible future scenario. New technological options for not so new philosophical debates. With almost total security, it will not happen exactly that way, but it will happen. It is already happening… can’t you hear that hissing sound?

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Cover by Daniel Cadenas Pacinelli

This post was originally posted in Alienimagina, Memorias de un dragón

(*) Do you want to translate it? Contact me.