• for: debt trap, economic colonialism, progress trap, JETP, UETP, Invesitgate, investigate - JETP
• progress trap
  • in building out renewable infrastructure, these loans and grants may further increase debt to disenfranchised countries
  • then it is no longer Just energy transition but becomes Unjust Energy Transition Partnerships (UETP)
  • if not done right, JETP can turn into UETP
  • This definitely requires further investigation!
• investigate
  • whether JETP are REALLY JUST!

• for: fossil capitalism, progress trap, intersectionality, social norms, social norms - waste, externalization, capitalism

• title

  • Waves of Abandonment
    • The Permian Basin is ground zero for a billion-dollar surge of zombie oil wells

• summary

  • a story that illustrates the intersectionality of fossil capitalism
    • progress trap
    • exploitation
    • tragedy of the commons
    • fossil fuel industry
    • gold rush
    • externalization
    • fossil capitalism

• Comment

  • Yet another example of capitalism's tendency to externalize manifests at the most basic level.
  • The tendency to treat nature as an inexhaustable garbage dumping ground seems to be built into our culture's economic norms taught to us by most parents and society at large.
  • There are not enough parents that teach their children to love, respect and feel that they are an intrinsic part of nature.
  • The externalization our society teaches us in the form of destructive, widely-accepted social norms of waste such as::
    • having the concept of waste and garbage
    • garbage taken out once a week
    • waste bins everywhere
    • keep our backyard clean, but at the expense of trucking out our garbage to some unknown place
  • has been enculturated into us from early age

• for: misinformation, disinformation, fake news, quote, quote - Greg Shatan, quote - misinformation, progress trap - misinformation, progress trap - digital technology, indyweb - support
• quote
  • The instinctual BS-meter is not enough.
  • The next version of the ‘BS-meter’ will need to be technologically based.
  • The tricks of misinformation have far outstripped the ability of people to reliably tell whether they are receiving BS or not
• author: Greg Shatan
  • lawyer, Moses & Singer LLP
    • not to mention that it requires a constant state of vigilance that’s exhausting to maintain.
  • I think that the ability and usefulness of the web to enable positive grassroots civic communication will be harnessed,
    • moving beyond mailing lists and fairly static one-way websites.

• for: gig economy, progress trap, unintended consequence, quote, quote - unintended consequence, quote - progress trap, quote James Mickens
• quote
  • the gig economy is enabled by technology;
  • technology finds buyers for workers and their services.
  • However, given the choice between
    • an economy with many gig workers and
    • an economy with an equivalent number of traditional middle-class jobs,
  • I think that most people would prefer the latter.
• author: James Mickens
  • associate professor of computer science, Harvard University

• for: progress trap, quote, quote - progress trap, unintended consequence, quotation - unintended consequence
• quote
  • Technology and social innovation intended to overcome the negatives of the digital age
    • will likely cause additional negative consequences. Examples include:
      • the decentralized web,
      • end-to-end encryption,
      • AI and machine learning,
      • social media.
• author: Larry Masinter -internet pioneer, formerly with Adobe, AT&T Labs and Xerox PARC, who helped create internet and web standards with IETF and W3C

• for: progress trap, unintended consequences, Indyweb - justifiication
• description
  • a great source of quotations by thought leaders on the unintended consequences of technology,
    • in other words, progress traps
• comment
  • also a lot of rich material to justify the Indyweb's design ethos

• for: progress trap, quote, quote - progress trap, quote Brian Southwell, Science in the Public Sphere Program, RTI International

• quote

  • We are likely to make some gains in personal health, are likely to face some collective concerns in terms of environmental health and
  • are not likely to cope with the alienation and despair that is a part of a life lived largely online.
  • In the latter case, there is a disconnect between the long period of evolution that honed our humanity and
  • the short period of rapid technology change we are facing.

• author: Brian Southwell

  • director, Science in the Public Sphere Program, RTI International

• for: quote, quote - Stowe Boyd, quote - progress trap, quote - unintended consequences, unintended consequences, progress trap, cultural evolution, technology - futures, futures - technology, progress trap
• quote:
  • Technological change is an accelerant and acts on the social ills like pouring gasoline on a fire
• author: Sowe Boyd
  • consulting futurist on technological evolution and the future of work
• paraphrase
  • In an uncontrolled hyper-capitalist society,
    • the explosion in technologies over the past 30 years has only
      • widened inequality,
      • concentrated wealth and
      • led to greater social division.
    • And it is speeding up with the rise of artificial intelligence,
      • which like globalization has destabilized Western industrial economies while admittedly pulling hundreds of millions elsewhere out of poverty.
  • And the boiling exhaust of this set of forces is pushing the planet into a climate catastrophe. -The world is as unready for hundreds of millions of climate refugees as it was for the plague.
  • However, some variant of social media will likely form the context for the rise of a global movement to stop the madness
    • which I call the Human Spring
  • which will be more like
    • Occupy or
    • the Yellow Vests
  • than traditional politics.
  • I anticipate a grassroots movement
    • characterized by
      • general strikes,
      • political action,
      • protest and
      • widespread disruption of the economy
    • that will confront the economic and political system of the West.
  • Lead by the young, ultimately this will lead to large-scale political reforms, such as
    • universal health care,
    • direct democracy,
    • a new set of rights for individuals and
    • a large set of checks on the power of
      • corporations and
      • political parties.
  • For example,
    • eliminating corporate contributions to political campaigns,
    • countering monopolies and
    • effectively accounting for economic externalities, like carbon.

-for: quote, quote - Jennifer Jarratt, quote - progress trap, progress trap, unintended consequences, technology - unintended consequences, quote - unintended consequences, cultural evolution, technology - futures, futures - technology, progress trap - quote: with new technologies come new crimes and criminals – opportunities for all! - author: Jennifer Jarratt - co-principal of Leading Futurists LLC

• for: quote, quote - Robert Epstein, quote - search engine bias,quote - future of democracy, quote - tilting elections, quote - progress trap, progress trap, cultural evolution, technology - futures, futures - technology, progress trap, indyweb - support, future - education
• quote
  • The big tech companies, left to their own devices , have already had a net negative effect on societies worldwide.
  • At the moment, the three big threats these companies pose
    • aggressive surveillance,
    • arbitrary suppression of content,
      • the censorship problem, and
    • the subtle manipulation of
      • thoughts,
      • behaviors,
      • votes,
      • purchases,
      • attitudes and
      • beliefs
    • are unchecked worldwide
• author: Robert Epstein
  • senior research psychologist at American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology
• paraphrase
  • Epstein's organization is building two technologies that assist in combating these problems:
    • passively monitor what big tech companies are showing people online,
    • smart algorithms that will ultimately be able to identify online manipulations in realtime:
      • biased search results,
      • biased search suggestions,
      • biased newsfeeds,
      • platform-generated targeted messages,
      • platform-engineered virality,
      • shadow-banning,
      • email suppression, etc.
  • Tech evolves too quickly to be managed by laws and regulations,
    • but monitoring systems are tech, and they can and will be used to curtail the destructive and dangerous powers of companies like Google and Facebook on an ongoing basis.
• reference
  • seminar paper on monitoring systems, ‘Taming Big Tech -: https://is.gd/K4caTW.

• for: progress traps, progress, unintended consequences, technology - unintended consequences, unintended consequences - technology, unintended consequences - digital technology, progress trap - quotations, quote, quote - progress trap
• title: Experts Predict More Digital Innovation by 2030 Aimed at Enhancing Democracy
• authors: emily A Vogels, Lee Rainie, Janna Anderson
• year: June 30, 2020
• description: a good source of quotations on progress traps / unintended consequences of digital technology from this Pew Research 2020 report on the future of the digital technology and democracy.
  • the Pew Research Center interviewed a lot of experts in the field
  • in particular, section 5 of the report entitled
    • "Tech causes more problems than it can solve" is quite salient for the topic of progress traps
  • The Indyweb actually addresses many of these problems:
    • https://opencollective.com/open-learning-commons/projects/indy-learning-commons

• for: quote, quote - Barry Chudakov, quote - progress trap, progress trap, cultural evolution, technology - futures, futures - technology, progress trap, indyweb - support, future - education
• quote
• paraphrase
  • Technology’s greatest contribution to social and civic innovation in the next decade
  • will be to provide
    • accurate, user-friendly context and
    • honest assessment of
      • issues,
      • problems and
      • potential solutions / comment - indyweb /
  • We are facing greater accelerations of
    • climate change,
    • social mobility,
    • pollution,
    • immigration and
    • resource issues.
  • Our problems have gone from complicated to wicked.
  • We need
    • clear answers and
    • discussions that are
      • cogent,
      • relevant and
      • true to facts.
  • Technology must guard against becoming a platform to enable targeted chaos,
  • that is, using technology as a means to
    • obfuscate and
    • manipulate.
  • We are all now living in Sim City:
  • The digital world is showing us a sim,
    • or digital mirror,
  • of each aspect of reality.
  • The most successful social and civic innovation I expect to see by 2030
  • is a massive restructuring of our educational systems based on new and emerging mirror digital worlds. / comment: This bodes well for Indyweb for education/
  • We will then need to expand our information presentations to include
    • verifiable factfulness that ensures any digital presentation faithfully and
    • accurately matches the physical realities.
  • Just as medicine went from
    • bloodletting and leeches and lobotomies to
    • open-heart surgery and artificial limbs,
  • technology will begin to modernize information flows around core issues: urgent need, future implications, accurate assessment.
  • Technology can play a crucial role to move humanity
    • from blame fantasies
    • to focused attention and working solutions.”

• for: corporate power, technology - capitalism, capitalism - exploitation, Danah Boyd, progress trap
• paraphrase
• quote
  • technology in the U.S. is caught up in American late-stage (or financialized) capitalism
    • where profitability isn’t the goal;
    • perpetual return on investment is.
  • Given this, the tools that we’re seeing developed by corporations
  • reinforce capitalist agendas.
  • Innovation will require pushing past this capitalist infrastructure to achieve the social benefits and civic innovation that will work in the United States.
  • China is a whole other ball of wax.
  • If you want to go there, follow up with me. But pay attention to Taobao centers.
  • We haven’t hit peak awful yet.
  • I have every confidence that social and civic innovation can be beneficial in the long run
    • with a caveat that I think that climate change dynamics might ruin all of that
  • but no matter what, I don’t think we’re going to see significant positive change by 2030.
  • I think things are going to get much worse before they start to get better.
  • I should also note that I don’t think that many players have taken responsibility for what’s unfolding. -Yes, tech companies are starting to see that things might be a problem,
    • but that’s only on the surface. -News media does not at all acknowledge its role in amplifying discord,
    • or its financialized dynamics.
  • The major financiers of this economy don’t take any responsibility for what’s unfolding. Etc.
• author: Dana Boyd
  • principal researcher, Microsoft Research
  • founder, Data & Society

• for: progress trap, unintended consequence, unintended consequence - digital technology, quote, quote - progress trap, quote - Doc Searls
• quote
  • What won’t change is people’s tendency toward gossip,
    • tribalism driven by gossip and the ability of anybody to inform anybody else about anything,
      • including wrongly.
  • The only places where news won’t skew fake will be localities in the natural world.
  • That’s where the digital and the physical connect best.
  • Also expect the internet to break into pieces, with
    • the U.S.,
    • Europe and
    • China
  • becoming increasingly isolated by different value systems and governance approaches toward
    • networks and
    • what runs on them.

• for: progress trap, unintended consequence, unintended consequence - digital technology, quote, quote - progress trap, quote - David Weinberger
• quote: I see no reason to think that the current situation will change:
  • Tech will cause problems that require innovative solutions and
  • tech will be part of those solutions.
  • Machine learning (ML) is right now an example of this
• author: David Weinberger
  • senior researcher at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society

• for: progress trap, unintended consequence, unintended consequence - digital technology, quote, quote - progress trap, quote - Jonathan Grudin
• quote: Can our fundamental human need for close community be restored or
  • will we become more isolated, anxious and susceptible to manipulation?
• author: Jonathan Grudin
  • principal researcher, Microsoft

• for: quote, quote - Esther Dyson, quote - progress trap, quote - progress traps, progress trap,
• quote: "If tech doesn’t contribute to solving some of the problems it creates, we are doomed"
• author: Esther Dyson
  • internet pioneer
  • journalist
  • entrepreneur
  • executive founder of Way to Wellville

• for: progress, progress trap, exponential growth - knowledge, exponential growth - technology, technology - exponential growth, US patents, patents, intellectual property -description: GIF graph of US patents from the start in 1825 to 2021

• for: transition, transition - energy, progress, progress traps
• title: The Energy Transition Is a Technological Revolution — with a Deadline
• subtitle: What historical transitions — from water wheels to semiconductors — can teach us about today’s energy transition.
• authors
  • Yuki Numata
  • Laurens Speelman
• date: Aug 10, 2023
• source: https://rmi.org/the-energy-transition-is-a-technological-revolution-with-a-deadline/

• for: progress trap, cumulative cultural evolution, gene-culture co-evolution, speed of cultural evolution, human genome project
• paraphrase
  • the human genome project took 10 years and cost 3 billion dollars
  • with NGS technology, 10 years later, the same job takes 1 day and costs $15,000 dollars

• for: indyweb, silos, emptiness - example, entanglement - example, progress trap
• paraphrase
• quote
  • all the problems I've mentioned are being tackled by groups of people
  • sad thing is those people are often operating in silos just concerned to solve their particular problem
    • not realizing that if they don't have the whole picture they may solve their problem
    • and cause problems in other places
• author
  • Jane Goodall
• comment
  • the Indyweb and SRG strategy is designed specifically to mitigate progress traps through radical collaboration built into the communication and information system itself.

• for: progress trap, sense of lack, the lack project, collective lack project, individual lack project
• key insight
  • progress, and the shadow side, the progress trap
  • is the collective lack project, that corresponds to the individual's lack project

• for: for: ecological collapse, overshoot, progress trap, progress trap - cultural evolution, ultra-sociality, Lotka's maximum power, gene culture coevolution
• key finding
  • paraphrase
    • In AET,
      • multi-level selection acting on the genome and
      • occurring in concert with selective and non-selective mechanisms acting on culture and technology
    • results in a species that is prone to
      • niche construction and
      • ecosystem engineering,
    • and the scale of these processes continues to increase as the population rises.
    • This increasing scale
      • coupled with human propensity for niche construction
    • leads to human unsustainability

• for: ecological collapse, overshoot, progress trap, progress trap - cultural evolution, ultra-sociality, Lotka's maximum power
• paraphrase
  • to Gowdy and Krall, the ultra-social nature of human groups allowed for a shift in the primary level of selection
    • from the individual level
    • to the group level.
  • Thus, “With the transition to agriculture the group as an adaptive unit comes to constitute a wholly different gestalt
    • driven by the imperative to produce surplus

• for: AET, Anthroecological theory, anthropocene - causes, ecological crisis - roots, overshoot
• paraphrase
  • Anthroecological theory (AET) hypothesizes that
    • human social and cultural evolution is the ultimate cause of the ecological crises currently damaging earth systems

• for: gene culture coevolution, carrying capacity, unsustainability, overshoot, cultural evolution, progress trap

• Title: The genetic and cultural evolution of unsustainability

• Author: Brian F. Snyder

• Abstract

• Summary
• Paraphrase
  • Anthropogenic changes are accelerating and threaten the future of life on earth.
  • While the proximate mechanisms of these anthropogenic changes are well studied
    • climate change,
    • biodiversity loss,
    • population growth
  • the evolutionary causality of these anthropogenic changes have been largely ignored.
  • Anthroecological theory (AET) proposes that the ultimate cause of anthropogenic environmental change is
    • multi-level selection for niche construction and ecosystem engineering.
  • Here, we integrate this theory with
    • Lotka’s Maximum Power Principle
  • and propose a model linking
    • energy extraction from the environment with
    • genetic, technological and cultural evolution
  • to increase human ecosystem carrying capacity.
  • Carrying capacity is partially determined by energetic factors such as
    • the net energy a population can acquire from its environment and
    • the efficiency of conversion from energy input to offspring output.
  • These factors are under Darwinian genetic selection
  • in all species,
  • but in humans, they are also determined by
    • technology and
    • culture.
  • If there is genetic or non-genetic heritable variation in
    • the ability of an individual or social group
  • to increase its carrying capacity,
  • then we hypothesize that - selection or cultural evolution will act - to increase carrying capacity.
  • Furthermore, if this evolution of carrying capacity occurs - faster than the biotic components of the ecological system can respond via their own evolution,
    • then we hypothesize that unsustainable ecological changes will result.

• for cultural evolution, speed of cultural evolution, cumulative cultural evolution, progress trap, Freeman Dyson,
• comment
  • Freeman Dyson opines that cultural evolution of humans now determines the genetic fate of all species on the planet
    • and gives a warning of how human cumulative cultural evolution now has the potential to threaten, via genetic sciences to play God over biology itself -reference
  • Musician Yoyo Ma quotes Freeman:
  • https://hyp.is/go?url=http%3A%2F%2Fdocdrop.org%2Fvideo%2F2fBmGXqHvk8%2F&group=world

• for: cultural evolution, cumulative cultural evolution, speed of cultural evolution, progress trap, Freeman Dyson, Anthropocene
• comment
  • while Freeman spoke to the direct dangers of genetic engineering,
    • he neglected to point out the broader threat of progress itself, which has already placed our species in the position
      • of playing God with the evolution of many species on the planet already, via the enormous impacts of organized human activity - ie. the Anthropocene

• for: human impacts, MET, major evolutionary transition, progress trap, human responsibility to life, CCE, cumulative cultural evolution, playing God
• comment
  • Very true, in fact our species is in the unprecedented position that
  • human activity, and specifically our cumulative cultural evolution (CCE) now determines the biological / genetic evolutionary future not only of our own species, but of all life on earth.
  • In other words, of evolution itself! -This is an awkward position as we have nowhere near the wisdom to play God and determine the future direction of evolution!
• References
  • Cumulative Cultural Evolution
    • https://jonudell.info/h/facet/?max=100&expanded=true&user=stopresetgo&exactTagSearch=true&any=cumulative%2Bcultural%2Bevolution

• for: progress trap, unintended consequence, ecological realization, ecological awakening
  • claim
    • the idea that we need a profound, sudden and massive change in ourselves in a dangerous notion
    • comment
      • why?
      • it presumes we have a deficit as an ecological being
      • when in actual fact, we cannot be otherwise
      • so instead, our job is to awaken our already ecological nature
      • by this, we mean our deep, intrinsic ecological nature as ecological (interdependent) beings
      • we humans have a strange and very limited kind of interdependence, which is exploitative to other people and other species
      • we have to become aware of that culturally conditioned limitation

• for: progress trap

• example

  • progress trap
    • quote
      • Where we get caught is thinking that we can identify a static snapshot in an ecological process
      • and get control over it, we can enact something upon it,
      • and thinking that we can do that toward what has been perceived as a positive outcome.
      • Without recognizing that with all of these different organisms that are changing each other all the time,
      • we're actually going to make a mess. -author
      • Nora Bateson

• for Indra's Net of Jewels, progress trap
• definition
  • Muir Web
    • A diagram that shows all the relationships between species of a particular ecological habitat

• for: progress trap
• definition
• quote
  • progress trap
    • A progress trap is the condition in which we find ourselves when science, technology and industry create more problems than they can solve. Often inadvertently.
• author
  • Dan O'Leary
• source
  • https://www.progresstrap.org/2010/02/12/the-progress-trap/

• for: progress trap
• quote
  • Since humanity is a small product of nature, he can by definition not control nature. To believe that he can is a delusion.
• Author
  • Dan O'Leary

• for: progress trap, progress traps

• Tttle

  • Escaping The Progress Trap
• Author
  • Gordon Kubanek
• Source
  • Canadian Association for the Club of Rome
  • https://canadiancor.com/escaping-the-progress-trap/
• Description
  • Gordon Kubanek shares his review of Dan O'Leary's book, "Escaping the Progress Trap"

• If we magically transformed the global economy overnight, and air pollution fell to near zero, we’d get:
  • an immediate rise in global temperatures of between 0.5 and 1.1 degrees Celsius, according to the new study.
    • (For reference: The climate has warmed about 1.2 degrees Celsius since the start of the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century.)
  • The warming would be concentrated over the major cities of the northern hemisphere,
    • close to where most aerosols are emitted.
  • In the hardest hit parts of highly-urbanized East Asia, for example,
    • the complete removal of aerosols would likely have a bigger effect than all other sources of climate change combined.
  • Temperatures in the Arctic could jump as much as 4 degrees Celsius – a catastrophe that would shove the region further toward a permanently ice-free state.

• Aerosol progress trap
  • a devil’s bargain:
  • Aerosols
    • are necessary for normal weather and
    • help moderate rising temperatures,
  • but they’re also killing us.
  • Turns out we have been unwittingly geoengineering for decades,
  • and just like in the movies, it’s gone off the rails.

• Title
  • Devil’s Bargain: Why Aerosols Pose a Deadly Climate Change Threat
• Author
  • Eric Holthaus
• Date
• Feb 8, 2018
• Source
  • https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/devils-bargain-why-aerosols-pose-a-deadly-climate-change-threat-126855/

• Title
  • One Billion Happy

• Author

  • Mo Gawdat

• Description

  • Mo Gawdat was former chief business officer at Google X, Google's innovation center.
  • Mo left Google after seeing the rapid pace of AI development was going to lead to a progress trap in which
    • the risk of AI destroying human civilization is becoming real because AI will be learning from too many unhappy people whose trauma AI will learn and incorporate into its algorithms
  • Hence, human happiness becomes paramount to prevent this catastrophe from happening
• See Ronald Wright's prescient quote
  • https://hyp.is/go?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.goodreads.com%2Fwork%2Fquotes%2F321797-a-short-history-of-progress&group=Q2X5j1pR

• Singularity
  • will happen within the next few decades

• It is the immoral human being that is the real problem
• they will teach AI to be immoral and with its power, can end up destroying humanity

• Title
  • Mo Gawdat Warns the Dangers of AI Are "Happening As We Speak"
• Author
  • Piers Morgan Uncensored

• potential progress trap

  • in vivo, an animal body has a mechanism to turn off stem cells when they are growing in the wrong place in the body. This regulates the body to grow properly.
  • in lab grown meat, an artificial in vitro environment is created for the stem cells and they are encouraged to keep growing continuously (some critics compare this to cancerous growth)
  • for UNKNOWN REASONS, FSB seems to prevent the mechanism from turning off cell growth, no matter what animal food species.
  • the worrying thing here is that the scientific community does not know why FSB has this behavior.

• Question

  • What are the views of the regulatory agencies that have passed Lab grown meat on this subject?

• potential progress trap
  • FBS
    • Fetal Bovine Serum

• This is used for the growth of all kinds of stem cells, not just those from cows

  • We do not know the full implications of mixing FBS from cows with all other species

• Question

  • What are the views of the regulatory agencies that have passed Lab grown meat on this subject?

• potential progress trap
  • if the seed stem cell has some unknown problem
    • it will potentially be inherited by all descedents

• Title
  • Lab grown meat
• Author
  • Real Science
• Publication
  • Youtube video

• Question
  • where are the progress traps?
  • It's already meeting approvals in SIngapore and FDA in USA.
  • Where are the hidden problems? -
  • This article highlights some of the issues
    • https://hyp.is/go?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.sciencealert.com%2Flab-grown-meat-has-a-big-problem-very-few-people-know-about&group=world

• sustainability life cycle assessment impacts
  • University of California, Davis (UCD), Holtville researchers performed a life-cycle assessment of current meat-growing processes
    • has not yet been peer-reviewed
    • findings are that cultured meat production could emit between four to 25 times more carbon dioxide per kilogram than regular beef and all its hidden costs, depending on the techniques used.
    • Pros
      • cultured meat uses less land than herds of cattle or flocks of sheep,
      • cultured meat uses less water and antibiotics,
    • Cons
      • laboratories to extract growth factors from animal serums,
      • growing crops for sugars and vitamins.
      • energy required to purify all of these broth ingredients to a high standard before they can be fed to the growing meat lumps.
        • energy-intensive, extreme level of purification is needed to prevent introducing microbes to the culture.
          • "Otherwise the animal cells won't grow, because the bacteria will multiply much faster,

• Title
  • Lab-Grown Meat Has a Big Problem Very Few People Know About
• Author
  • Tessa Koumoundouros
• Publication
  • Science Alert
• Date June 2, 2023

• finite time singularity

  • when the mathematical solution to the growth equation becomes infinitely large at some finite time

• comment

  • this is also salient for the accumulation of unresolved progress traps
  • the Anthropocene can perhaps be viewed as the occurence of finite time singularities due to unresolved problems arising from progress traps that innovation is too slow to solve

• "if we reverse this

  • if we have the best of us take charge
  • the best of us will tell AI
    • don't try to kill the the enemy,
      • try to reconcile with the enemy
    • don't try to create a competitive product
      • that allows me to lead with electric cars,
        • create something that helps all of us overcome global climate change
    • that's the interesting bit
      • the actual threat ahead of us is
        • not the machines at all
          • the machines are pure potential pure potential
        • the threat is how we're going to use them"

• comment

  • again, see Ronald Wright's quote above
  • it's very salient to this context

• comment
  • the machines are only coded to do what we tell them to do
  • Ronald' Wright's quote is very salient here
    • https://hyp.is/6Lb6Uv5NEe2ZerOrftOHfA/www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/321797-a-short-history-of-progress

• limited (machine) intelligence

  • cannot help but exist
  • if the original (human) authors of the AI code are themselves limited in their intelligence

• comment

  • this limitation is essentially what will result in AI progress traps
  • Indeed,
    • progress and their shadow artefacts,
    • progress traps,
    • is the proper framework to analyze the existential dilemma posed by AI

• "I think we are very good at honing in on the ways in which the world remains imperfect and there are ways in which it is egregiously unfair today but we discount the fact that so many of the gains of the last 100 to 250 years have been enabled by the Industrial Revolution have been enabled by harnessing the hubris of harnessing fossil fuels harnessing more energy from the environment allowing us to agglomerate in cities which when you do this when you collect all of people in a room like this you're actually creating a more powerful hive mind by bringing intelligence together so that it can share ideas at closer range and it can innovate faster and through that for all the trade-offs which are undeniable there's many negatives that have come from that we're very quick to Discount when we talk about future biomedicine very quick to Discount things like polio vaccines and the virtual eradication of that disease along with smallpox of the fact that we have got so many infectious diseases under control we struggle with the big Killers like cancer and heart disease at the moment those are sort of like the biggest Global threats um but through basic Innovations through Modern Sanitation through better housing all of which the Industrial Revolution enabled we have lifted so many people out of poverty and yes we created new tears of poverty but overall fewer people are living in abject poverty today than in the past we have the higher average global life expectancies child mortality is plummeted the fact that you can give birth by cesarean section rather than in the case of my mother giving birth to a dead child which is what would have happened to me because my umbilical cord was wrapped twice around my neck the fact that technology can intervene and bring us so many of these Spoils of modernity that we readily take for granted I don't know where there's obviously attention but I don't know at what point you say we want to hit pause or indeed we want to go backwards again the challenge sort of remains like we agree we're barreling on this trajectory if we're not going to get off it then we need to think about how we manage it as well as possible and that means we need to think about how AI becomes a healthy part of our world or indeed if it can cut it can we co-exist with AI"
• Comment
  • The progress trap is the great unseen elephant in the room of progress
  • when we understand how the limits of human nature create the shadow side of progress every step of the way,
  • it is then no surprise or paradox that we arrive at this place called the Anthropocene - where the climax of technological progress and - potential for complete extinction sit side-by-side
  • https://jonudell.info/h/facet/?max=100&expanded=true&user=stopresetgo&exactTagSearch=true&tag=progress+trap

• Comment
  • Mary echos Ronald Wright's progress traps

• Comment

  • Elise says
    • "there is this growing Chasm between
      • our Paleolithic brains and
      • what we're designed for and
        • the niches we're built to inhabit and this new technologically infused world that we're living in
    • We have changed our environment so rapidly and so radically and we have not kept pace with that change
      • so either we keep changing the environment or
      • we change ourselves to fit the environment and
      • I think the fact that we're consistently making these commodified decisions in which
        • we do expunge more and more of our of our Humanity in favor of profit
        • in favor of short-term decisions i
        • n favor of such abysmal thinking when it comes to complex systems like the human body
      • it is a testament to the fact that these brains are not built for this world and
      • we are not going to be adequate stewards of this system
        • that is now so complex that to keep it held together
      • you actually need a new form of intelligence beyond what we are"
  • Elise Bohan' statements perfectly echo Ronald Wright's famous quote on the nature of progress traps
    • “To use a computer analogy, we are running twenty-first-century software on hardware last upgraded 50,000 years ago or more. This may explain quite a lot of what we see in the news.”
    • https://hyp.is/go?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.goodreads.com%2Fwork%2Fquotes%2F321797-a-short-history-of-progress&group=world

• comment

  • I think, however, that Wright would agree more with Mary and less with Elise in Elise's contention that
    • we need a new form of intelligence beyond what we are
    • applying progress to our own cognitive abilities
      • may create the biggest progress trap of all

• quote worthy
  • “To use a computer analogy, we are running twenty-first-century software on hardware last upgraded 50,000 years ago or more. This may explain quite a lot of what we see in the news.”
  • Ronald Wright

Where there is a problem to be solved, there is a focus of attention Where there is a focus of attention, there is simplification of a complex system Where there is simplification of a complex system, there is a vast amount of knowledge relationships that is ignored Where this is a vast amount of ignored knowledge relationships, there is the potential for a progress trap

The systemic problem is the way our form of progress formulates problems and the inherent (over) simplification that comes with.that.

Key finding Paraphrase - So what does a conscious universe have to do with AI and existential risk? - It all comes back to whether our primary orientation is around - quantity, or around - quality. - An understanding of reality - that recognises consciousness as fundamental - views the quality of your experience as - equal to, - or greater than, - what can be quantified.

• Orienting toward quality,
  • toward the experience of being alive,
• can radically change
  • how we build technology,
  • how we approach complex problems,
  • and how we treat one another.

Quote - metaphysics of quality - would open the door for ways of knowing made secondary by physicalism

Author - Robert Persig - Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance // - When we elevate the quality of each our experience - we elevate the life of each individual - and recognize each individual life as sacred - we each matter - The measurable is also the limited - whilst the immeasurable and directly felt is the infinite - Our finite world that all technology is built upon - is itself built on the raw material of the infinite

//

// - To find a God that can kill Moloch - requires an understanding of the nature of progress as well - Relationship to progress traps - Exponential technologies - are technologies, and all suffer the same fundamental flaw - Progress is an expression of our cumulative cultural evolution - https://jonudell.info/h/facet/?max=100&expanded=true&user=stopresetgo&exactTagSearch=true&any=cumulative+cultural+evolution - which grows exponentially faster than genetic evolution - The problem of which is that - the shadow side of progress, the progress trap - - https://jonudell.info/h/facet/?max=100&expanded=true&user=stopresetgo&exactTagSearch=true&any=progress%2Btrap - is growing even faster, due to our misunderstanding of it, - allowing it to fester like an untreated wound - turning a minor condition, into a life-threatening disease - Human progress has always been a bungling two step forwards, one step backwards dance - the imperfections of progress are inherent - and baked into the innovation process itself - For we develop technologies based on what we know, or what is visible - but what we know is like the tip of the latent knowledge iceberg - and is always accompanied by a much larger hidden component of what we don't know - In other words, - finite and visible knowledge - is always accompanied by infinite and invisible ignorance - Design is based on intent, - a one dimensional, inherently myopic imagination - of a multi-dimensional reality - A problem is a one dimensional focus - on a small sliver of reality - A solution to the problem is necessarily - myopic and - one dimensional as well - Both problems and their (designed) solutions - are extreme simplifications of a complex system - Language itself is a way - to direct and focus our attention - to this aspect of reality - then that aspect - Thinking is reduced to parts, and never experiences the whole, undivided gestalt of reality - Out of this process - Progress traps are born //

In Other Words - AI researchers are calling on one another to find a higher value than growth and technological advancement, - but these values are absent from the humanistic perspectives that built the tech to begin with. - Therefore, it is of limited effectiveness - to appeal to ethics in the socio-economic growth framework that values growth above all things - that motivates AI research. - Deep down we probably know this, - which is why our nightmarish fantasies about the future of AI look very much like - a manifestation of Moloch, - a new god that cares nothing for us. - AI as Moloch is a mad deity, - that much like late stage capitalism, - can see nothing beyond consumption.

Title Reality Eats Culture For Breakfast: AI, Existential Risk and Ethical Tech Why calls for ethical technology are missing something crucial Author Alexander Beiner

Summary - Beiner unpacks the existential risk posed by AI - reflecting on recent calls by tech and AI thought leaders - to stop AI research and hold a moratorium.

• Beiner unpacks the risk from a philosophical perspective

  • that gets right to the deepest cultural assumptions that subsume modernity,
  • ideas that are deeply acculturated into the citizens of modernity.

• He argues convincingly that

  • the quandry we are in requires this level of re-assessment
    • of what it means to be human,
    • and that a change in our fundamental cultural story is needed to derisk AI.

• acknowledging and working with complexity
  • means implementing strategies
  • to deal with the changing landscape of knowns and unknowns
• We are always working with limited knowledge
  • we need to explicitly recognize that
  • and develop pragmatic strategies
    • to integrate the unknown into decision-making processes

5 principles for mitigating progress traps - 1) - a priori assessments of potential unintended consequences of policies - should be conducted by - multidisciplinary teams - with as broad a range of expertise as possible. - This would require decision-making - to flex around specific policy challenges - to ensure that decision-makers reflect the problem space in question. - 2) - policy plans made in light of the assessment should be iterative, - with scheduled re-assessments in the future. - As has been discussed above, - knowledge and circumstances change. - New consequences might have since - become manifest or new knowledge developed. - By planning and implementing reviews, - organizational reflexivity and - humility - needs to be built into decision-making systems (e.g., Treasury, 2020).

• 3)
  • given the scale of systems
    • such as the water-energy-food nexus
  • and the potential for infinite variety and nuance of unintended consequences,
    • pragmatism necessitates specification of boundaries
      • within which assessments are made.
  • It should be noted that this can in itself give rise to unintended consequences
    • through potential omission of relevant areas.
  • Hence, boundary decisions regarding
    • where the boundaries lie
      • should be regularly revisited (as per 2) above.
• 4)
  • unintended consequences identified
    • should be placed in the framework
      • with as much consensus among decision-makers as possible.
  • The positioning does not need to be limited to a single point,
    • but could be of the form of a distribution of opinions of range
      • of knowability and
      • avoidability;
    • the distribution will be indicative of
      • the perspectives and
      • opinions of the stakeholders.
  • If a lack of consensus exists on the exact position,
    • this can highlight a need to
      • seek more diverse expertise, or
      • for further research in order to improve consensus, or
      • for fragmenting of the issue into
        • smaller,
        • more readily assessable pieces.
• 5)
  • there is a need for more active learning
    • by decision-makers
      • about how to avoid repeating past unintended consequences.
  • To support this,
    • assessment process and
    • outcomes should be
      • documented and
      • used
    • to appraise the effectiveness of policy mechanisms,
      • with specific attention on outcomes
        • beyond those defined by policy objectives and the
          • assumptions and
          • decisions
        • which led to these outcomes.
  • Such appraisals could reflect on - the scope of the assessment, and - the effectiveness of specific groups of stakeholders
    • in being able to identify potential negative outcomes,
      • highlighting gaps in knowledge and limitations in the overall approach.
  • Additional records of the level of agreement of participants
    • would allow for re-evaluation with new learning.

• Example
  • insect for animal feed
    • as a example of knowable and avoidable unintended consequence

• Example of unknowable and avoidable
• The same insect problem above
  • can also be classified as
    • unknowable and
    • avoidable
  • in EU regulation (EC) No 999/2001
    • that does not distinguish between
      • ruminants and
      • insects,
    • in effect banning the use of insects in
      • aquaculture,
      • poultry and
      • pig feed

Title: Unintended Consequences: Unknowable and Unavoidable, or Knowable and Unforgivable?

Abstract - Paraphrase - there are multiple environmental limits within which humanity can safely operate, - potential negative outcomes of seemingly positive actions need to accounted for. - “nexus” research is consistent with the above - it recognizes the integrated and interactive nature of water, energy and food systems, - and aims to understand the broader implications of developments in any one of these systems. - This article presents a novel framework for categorizing such detrimental unintended consequences, based upon: - how much is known about the system in question - and the scope for avoiding any such unintended consequences. - The framework comprises four categories: - Knowable and Avoidable - Knowable and Unavoidable - Unknowable and Avoidable - Unknowable and Unavoidable - The categories are explored with reference to examples in both: - the water-energy-food nexus and - planetary boundary frameworks. - The examples: - highlight the potential for the unexpected to happen and - explore dynamic nature of the situations that give rise to the unexpected. - The article concludes with guidance on how the framework can be used - to increase confidence that best efforts have been made to navigate our way toward - secure and sustainable water, energy and food systems, - avoiding and/or managing unintended consequences along the way.

// - This paper is principally about - progress traps, - how they emerge, - their characteristics - as they morph through the knowability / avoidability matrix - and how we might predict and mitigate them in the future

// - This is the critical question - Looking at history, can we see predictive patterns - when it makes sense to stop and take questions of the unknown seriously - rather than steaming ahead into uncharted territory? - We might find that society did not follow science's call - for applying the precautionary principle - because profits were just too great - the profit bias at play - profit overrides safety, health and wellbeing

// - This is a good basic framing - for future basic research - on progress traps - Future paper would explore details in a much more granular way //

• Quote

• Wright points out that answering the first two questions
  • is the key to answering the third one

Paul Gauguin's painting: - Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where_Do_We_Come_From%3F_What_Are_We%3F_Where_Are_We_Going%3F#:~:text=Que%20sommes%2Dnous%20%3F,the%20themes%20of%20the%20Gospels%22. - Wright uses this painting as a appropriate introduction to his work tracing human progress because to answer the third question - where are we going? - requires answering the first two - where do we come from? - what are we?

• Ronald Wright gives his famous Massey talk on = progress traps
• The book
  • A Short History of Progress
• is based on a series of 5 talks he gave at the Massey Lectures
• All five talks are recorded here

Title: THE UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES OF TECHNOLOGY: SOLUTIONS, BREAKTHROUGHS, AND THE RESTART WE NEED

Title: The Unanticipated Consequences of Technology - progress traps

// - This becomes a moral and ethical question, indeed could it become a legal question? - If excessive wealth, leading to excessive personal carbon emissions and denial of the wellbeing of others, limiting the freedom of others, does this not constitute harm? - If the law is about preventing harm, then extreme wealth with adverse social impacts on many others could be construed and theoretically considered as a potential form of societal harm and hence come under legal considerations. - in other words, some forms of excessive wealth could be construed as harmful wealth - excessive wealth, as it exists today, could have unintended consequences of bringing about societal harm - excessive wealth is potentially a large progress trap

• Comment
• The book title is a perfect taking to introduce the concept of progress traps, of which effective altruism appears to be.
  • https://jonudell.info/h/facet/?max=100&expanded=true&user=stopresetgo&exactTagSearch=true&any=Progress+trap

• The meaning of safe and JUST ESBs
• Safe:
  • stabilize the Earth system,
  • protect species and ecosystems,
  • avoid tipping points
• JUST:
  • minimize ‘significant harm’ to people
  • while ensuring access to resources for a dignified life and escape from poverty.
  • If JUSTice is not considered,
    • the biophysical limits may not be adequate to protect current generations from significant harm.
    • IF JUSTICE is not explicitly included, it can lead to a progress trap.
      • https://jonudell.info/h/facet/?max=100&expanded=true&user=stopresetgo&exactTagSearch=true&any=Progress+trap
  • Strict biophysical limits, such as reducing emissions or setting aside land for nature,
    • may lead to intended consequences that reduce access to food and land for vulnerable people.
    • To mitigate this, biophysical limited should be complemented by fair sharing and management of the remaining ecological space on Earth.

optimization-procrastination trap is related to shiny object syndrome - the idea of tweaking one's system constantly

perfect tool trap - guess what? there isn't one

= progress trap example

= Comment - this is worrying. - if the Chatbots perceive an enemy it to harm it, it could take haarmful actions against the perceived threat

= progress trap example - Bing ChatGPT - example of AI progress trap

• example of = AI progress trap
• Bing can be seen
  • insulting users,
  • lying to them,
  • sulking,
  • gaslighting
  • emotionally manipulating people,
  • questioning its own existence,
  • describing someone who found a way to force the bot to disclose its hidden rules as its “enemy,” and
  • claiming it spied on Microsoft’s own developers through the webcams on their laptops.

• the irony is that we will destroy the planet because we want to stop climate change

!- Progress trap : genetic engineering - careless use of genetic engineering will interfere with biological evolution

!- genetic engineering : risk - cultural evolution via genetic engineering could make the concept of species meaningless - it is a significant b potential progress traps

!- comment : progress as an "uncontested good" - progress trap is the contestation - see annotations on progress trap: https://jonudell.info/h/facet/?user=stopresetgo&tag=progress+trap&max=100&exactTagSearch=true&expanded=true&addQuoteContext=true

!- comment : progress traps - A systematic theory of progress traps will go a long way to explain the blindspot of this approach

!- comment : progress trap - Benjamin understands the logic of the progress trap

!- quotable : progress trap

!- quotable : Walter Benjamin - commentary on Paul Klee's Angelus Novus painting

!- In other words : crypto emerged from the cyberpunk movement - another example of progress traps - as the cyberpunks could not imagine how it would be gamed for criminality

!- quuotable : anthropocene - this is closely related to the co-evolution of progress and it's shadow, the progress trap.

!- insight : progress traps - the dominance of self-interested economic behavior creates a systemic tendency to ignore progress traps, unintended consequences of technology. Profit bias acts to cherry pick explanations that marginalizes rather than addresses progress traps, allowing them to fester and grow to dangerous levels

!- example : progress trap - the shadow side of competition is ignored

!- example : progress trap - Destructive Global Competition is the unintended consequence of Constructive Global Competition

Yes, in servitude of humanity, but that must be done so carefully to avoid another progress trap. Indeed, progress traps need to be advanced as an urgent new explicit field of scientific enquiry to develop a systematic process for avoiding and mitigating unintended consequences as a result of (technological) progress.

https://hyp.is/IhS3BvotEeylDq8MXFT9xQ/thetyee.ca/Analysis/2019/09/20/Ronald-Wright-Can-We-Dodge-Progress-Trap/

Progress traps will certainly occur.

Ronald Wright asks: Can we still dodge progress traps? https://hyp.is/go?url=https%3A%2F%2Fthetyee.ca%2FAnalysis%2F2019%2F09%2F20%2FRonald-Wright-Can-We-Dodge-Progress-Trap%2F&group=world

In solving the complex problems of the world, there can be many unintended consequences. These are the surprises that make each intervention an adventure. Applying a nexus approach such as MuSIASEM is critical to mitigate potential progress traps when dealing with rapid whole system change.

Example of self-organized criticality. It is a bit reminscent of social tipping points. The one variable that is not so discussed here, which would enrich it is the idea of progress traps as a gap between finite human, anticipatory models vs the uncountable number of patterns and possible states of the universe.

The maladaptive cultural evolution of our species has led us to the height of human technological and economic prowess as well as the height of ecological disaster. This can be interpreted as the result of linear vs nonlinear thinking, simplistic modeling vs complex modeling and reductionistic approach vs a systems approach. An attitude of separation engenders a controlling attitude of nature based on hubris, instead of humbling ourselves at the vast ignorance each of us and also collectively we have about nature. Design based on a consistent attitude of willful ignorance is sure to fail. Then Ascent of Humanity will lead to a trajectory of its own downfall as long as that ascent depends on the cannibalization of its own life support system based on ignorance of our deep entanglement with nature. http://ascentofhumanity.com/text/

As the Tel Aviv researchers who revealed the pattern of progressively overhunting the largest fauna to extinction, then turning to the next largest available fauna noted:

"We believe that our model is relevant to human cultures everywhere. Moreover, for the first time, we argue that the driving force behind the constant improvement in human technology is the continual decline in the size of game. Ultimately, it may well be that 10,000 years ago in the Southern Levant, animals became too small or too rare to provide humans with sufficient food, and this could be related to the advent of agriculture. In addition, we confirmed the hypothesis that the extinction of large animals was caused by humans -- who time and time again destroyed their own livelihood through overhunting. We may therefore conclude that humans have always ravaged their environment but were usually clever enough to find solutions for the problems they had created -- from the bow and arrow to the agricultural revolution. The environment, however, always paid a devastating price."

https://hyp.is/go?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.sciencedaily.com%2Freleases%2F2021%2F12%2F211221102708.htm&group=world

It seems humans have a built-in blindspot that prioritizes short term needs over long term survival. History shows us that we are continuously biased towards prioritizing the human environment over the natural one but future generations eventually pay the price for this myopia.

Indeed, Wright is right to ask: Is our modern human civilization the greatest progress trap of all?

Exponential technological progress has shortened the time for dangerous levels of resource extraction and pollution loads to the extent that we face the potential of cascading global tipping points and enter a "hothouse earth" state: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1810141115

Were this to happen, there is no place on earth that would be immune.

In hindsight, the unfortunate but predictable trend is one of every increasing size of progress traps, and ever shorter time windows when serious impacts occur. Today, it appears we have reached the largest size progress trap possible on a finite planet.

Progress traps through history: * 1. Sumerian civilization (Iraq) irrigation system turned fields into salty desert * Greek and Roman empire - chronic soil erosion also eroded these empires * Classic Mayan empire may have collapsed due to the last 2 of 7 megadroughts because it was over-urbanized and used up all water sources, leaving no buffer in case of drought: https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/02/new-clues-about-how-and-why-the-maya-culture-collapsed/

As per the last comment above, Tel Aviv researchers surmise that the progressive extirpation of all the large prey fauna over the course of 1.5 million years forced society in the Southern Levant to innovate agriculture as a means of survival. Our early ancestors did not have accurate records that could reveal the trend of resource depletion so continued short term resource depletion in each of their respective lifetimes.

Anthropology and Archelogy findings support the idea that humans began laying progress traps as early as two million years ago. Our great success at socialization and communication that harnessed the power of collaboration resulted in wiping out entire species upon which we depended. Short term success leading to long term failure is a central pattern of progress traps.

Anthropology and Archelogy findings support the idea that humans began laying progress traps as early as two million years ago. Our great success at socialization and communication that harnessed the power of collaboration resulted in wiping out entire species upon which we depended. Short term success leading to long term failure is a central pattern of progress traps.

A remarkable paper from Tel Aviv researchers studying early hunters in the Southern Levant as early as 1.5 million years ago revealed that our ancestors in this part of the world were poor resource managers and over many generations, continually hunted large game to extinction, forcing descendants to hunt progressively smaller game.

Annotation of the 2021 source paper is here: https://hyp.is/go?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.sciencedirect.com%2Fscience%2Farticle%2Fabs%2Fpii%2FS0277379121005230&group=world Annotation of a science news interview with the researchers here: https://hyp.is/go?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.sciencedaily.com%2Freleases%2F2021%2F12%2F211221102708.htm&group=world

The researchers even surmise that the extinction of game animals by around 10,000 B.C. is what gave rise to agriculture itself!

Title: Ronald Wright: Can We Still Dodge the Progress Trap? Author of 2004’s ‘A Short History of Progress’ issues a progress report.

Ronald Wright is the author of the 2004 "A Short History of Progress" and popularized the term "Progress Trap" in the Martin Scroses 2011 documentary based on Wright's book, called "Surviving Progress". Earlier Reesarcher's such as Dan O'Leary investigated this idea in earlier works such as "Escaping the Progress Trap http://www.progresstrap.org/content/escaping-progress-trap-book

Progression of body mass over the last 1.5 million years in the Southern Levant: 1) Up to 500,000 years ago 1/3 of bones left behind at Homo Erectus sites belonged to 13 ton elephants that provided 90% of the food. Mean weight of all hunted animals at the time was 3 tons 2) Up to 400,000 years ago, early Neandertals and Homo Sapiens only hunted mainly deer and animals like wild cattle and horse that weighed no more than 1 ton. 3) From 50,000 to 10,000 years ago, 70^ of bones at modern human sites belonged to gazelles weighing between 20 and 30 kg, as well as fallow deer and hares and turtles.

This is a fascinating claim with far reaching consequences for modern humans dealing with the Anthropocene polycrisis.

Technological development seems to have been related to our resource overshoot. As we extirpated the larger prey fauna which were slower moving and able to be successfully hunted with crude weapons, our ancestors were forced to hunt smaller and more agile species, requiring better hunting technologies.

Agriculture could have been the only option left to our ancestors when there was insufficient species left to support society. This is the most salient sentence:

"we confirmed the hypothesis that the extinction of large animals was caused by humans -- who time and time again destroyed their own livelihood through overhunting. We may therefore conclude that humans have always ravaged their environment but were usually clever enough to find solutions for the problems they had created"

This is a disturbing finding as technology has allowed humanity to be the apex species of the planet and we are now depleting resources not on a local scale, but a global one. There is no planet B to move to once we have decimated the environment globally.

Have we progressed ourselves into a corner? Are we able to culturally pivot and correct such an entrenched cultural behavior of resource mismanagement?

This is an extraordinary claim, that due to extirpation of fauna prey species, we resorted to agriculture. In other words, that we hunted the largest prey, and when they went extinct, went after the next largest species until all the large megafauna became extinct. According to this claim, agriculture became a necessity due to our poor intergenerational resource management skills.

Our ancestors had a bias to hunt the biggest game. This makes sense from an evolutionary perspective but the unintended consequence of a species with better than average combination of cognitive, toolmaking and collaborative skills was resource overshoot, extirpation and extinction.

It seems we in modernity are simply repeating ancient cultural patterns of lack of foresight, exasperated by technological sophistication that shortens the cycle time for resource extraction and therefore for extirpation of prey species. Certainly, this is not universal as there are cases where our ancestors did manage resources much more effectively.

This paper suggests our collective propensity for resource overshoot is an ancient cultural trait, not something new.

Title: From giant elephants to nimble gazelles: Early humans hunted the largest available animals to extinction for 1.5 million years, study finds

Annotation of source paper preview: https://hyp.is/go?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.sciencedirect.com%2Fscience%2Farticle%2Fabs%2Fpii%2FS0277379121005230&group=world

We must be careful of overgeneralizing sustainable practices to our early ancestors as the evidence from this research shows that we were not always sustainability-minded. In fact, the evidence suggests that when we find the biggest edible prey fauna species, we hunt them to extinction (extirpate) and when they are no longer able to reproduce in sustainable numbers, we move on to the next largest species. In this way, our early ancestors were the first progenitors of progress traps.

The evidence suggests that humans were responsible for extirpating the largest prey fauna at the time, resulting in intergenerational decline in prey fauna body mass.

This early finding has implications for modern human behavior. In fact, it explains our tendency to overshoot resources until we extirpate them is not a new behavior but one that dates back millions of years. The implications for our current polycrisis suggests we are dealing with an entrenched behavior that may be difficult to change and that technology has amplified our ability to mine natural resources, extirpating them at a faster rate. From this perspective, the Anthropocene can be seen as a logical result of an ever decreasing extirpation rate brought about by increasing efficacy of technological tools for resource extraction.

Title: Levantine overkill: 1.5 million years of hunting down the body size distribution

Each transition is accompanied by a progress trap and each successive collapse has taken a shorter amount of time. This coming collapse may be much broader and deeper due to our impacts on the entire global climate system, not just one local part of it.

Title: Can Humanity Get Out of Its Latest ‘Progress Trap’? A review of ‘The Human Planet: How We Created the Anthropocene.’

Title: Non-uniform tropical forest responses to the ‘Columbian Exchange’ in the Neotropics and Asia-Pacific

The difference between the named and the nameless is the difference between the finite and the infinite and this inherent gap is the reason why our civilization is in the mess it is today Out of the illusion of progress built on the idea that nature is neatly separated and parceled along the lines of our preconceptions comes the nonconformity of nature its refusal to be trapped in a straightjacket The infinite refuses to be bound by the finite

Example of a progress trap Planetary Boundary / Doughnut Economic Category: Biophysical: Chemicals, Water Socio-Economic: Food, Health

This EU directive led to the spread of the unintended consequence.

Classic progress trap.

This case illustrates the potential unintended consequences from attempting to do good.

This is a classic example of how progress traps occur.

Capturing nutrients in waste water closes a nutrient waste loop and seems a good example of applying circular economy thinking.

HOWEVER, at the time the decision was made to process sewage sludge into fertilizer ignored the relationship of sludge to microplastics was unknown or insufficiently explored. After the decision was made, the practice was adopted across many countries in the EU. After years of practice, the new knowledge reveals that there has been years of silent microplastic contamination. To fix the solution will require another solution, perhaps even more complex..

This illustrates the danger of applying circular economy techniques when the waste stream is not fully characterized.

A critical part of Deep Humanity is the elucidation of progress traps, the unintended consequences of progress. There is an urgent need to advocate for an entirely new human science discipline on progress traps. The reason is because the polycrisis can be seen and critically explained from a progress trap lens.

Progress traps emerge from the unbridgeable gap between finite, reductionist human knowledge and the fractally infinite patterns of the universe and reality, which exists at all scales and dimensions.

The failure to gain a system level understanding of this has led to the premature global scaling of technologies whose unintended consequences emerged after global markets have been established, causing a conflict of interest between biospheric wellbeing and individual profit.

A systematic study or progress traps has rich data to draw from. Ever since the Industrial Revolution, there has been good records of scientific ideas, their associated engineering and technological exploitation and subsequent news media reports of their phase-delayed unintended consequences. Applying AI and a big data scientometric approach can yield patterns in which progress traps emerge. From this, our scientific-technological-industrial-capitalist framework can be modified to include improved regulatory mechanisms based on progress trap research that can systematically grade the risk factors of any new technology. Such risk categorization can result in technologies that require different time scales and aggregate knowledge understanding before they can be fully commercialized with time scale grades ranging from years to decades and even centuries.

All future technology innovations must past through these systematic, evidence-based regulatory barriers before they can be introduced into widespread commercial use.

Technology is an amplifier and as Ronald Wright observed so presciently, our rapid cultural evolution has created advanced cognition in humans, and is like allowing modern software to run on 50,000 year old hardware. Amidst the exponential rate of technological development, biological evolution cannot keep up. So our propensity for violence, with more and more powerful technological weapons at our disposal has resulted in one man, Putin, having the capability to destroy an entire civilization with the press of one finger.

Unless we can understand this, we will not resolve the predicament civilization finds itself in.

There is another even greater theme this article has not touched on, progress traps. Climate change is a direct result of the unintended consequences of progress, a pretty major impact.