optimizing humanity

2019-12-21 – hugo doko

to evolve to the state we’re at today, we needed to develop conventions that helped us thrive: language, numbers, unit systems,… now, it seems that we don’t think much about them anymore. we are used to them, they’re part of us. but are they any good? could they be better? should they be better?

a story

kali wakes up, slowly opening her eyes. the morning sun gently fills the room with bright light. another beautiful day begins.

as usual, once clean and dressed, she eats breakfast while checking today’s transportation routes and schedules. her personal computing device helps her find the best route to work for the day. it’s so convenient! she remembers how her parents told her that before the digital age, they received the planned routes and schedules every week as a booklet in their mailbox. it was usual to plan your next day’s route during the evening before going to bed. “routing”, it was called. kids still learn it nowadays at school. it’s hard, but it’s a good brain exercise and they spend only 10% of their class time on it. she recalls that she liked it and was actually quite good at it at the time.

kali checks her calendar. today is nuxday 14:3 of widember, period 309/27:1. she never really understood how the calendar works. most people don’t. it’s quite complicated. almost everyone uses their p.c.d. to know the date anyway, even though some people still prefer paper calendars. she has to admit that there is a certain charm to tearing off a piece of paper to discover today’s date. she once heard about a person who could mentally compute the number of days between two dates. astonishing!

since it’s nuxday and a :3 day, today she’ll speak skanton, like everybody else. it’s one of the 5 official languages, that everybody has to speak and understand. kali likes speaking skanton. not as much as the more funny-sounding but more logical nopkal. but with its long sentences, complex grammar and irregular stresses, skanton feels quite classy to her ear. she remembers how she struggled at school memorizing the countless exceptions. writing skanton is less fun though. since it uses 5 different alphabets with around 100 letters each, she hesitates for almost every letter. she should probably practice more. but there is only so much time in a day…

reading skanton is easier. she reads a lot, especially at work. of course, she has to read everyday in most of the official languages. fortunately, the documents she will have to read today are also in skanton. it’s always a little more comfortable to read in today’s language instead of cross-reading. however, she will probably wait for tomorrow before starting to write the report, or she would be stuck with skanton until the last paragraph. although that would be a good exercise, she would probably not finish it on time. she could use the automatic translation tools, but they are far from perfect. they really cannot compare with hand-crafted skanton, and even often get the meaning wrong.

sometimes, she likes to think about how it would be if there were only one official language. she knows it’s a crazy idea, but wouldn’t it make more sense? she once heard about a project of constructing an easy-to-learn and very logical language. even more logical than nopkal! sure it would feel quite strange at first to speak the same language every day, a little like when sometimes 2 nopkal days follow each other. but in the long run, it would be so easy! you wouldn’t have to switch languages at a party after midnight. and books wouldn’t have to be translated in 5 languages. you could have only one copy of each book and feel comfortable reading it on any day. typing text would also be much easier, as you would only need one simple alphabet.

at the same time, thinking about such things makes her feel a little sad. she knows how the world works. she remembers the reactions people usually have when she brings up the topic of changing society’s rules. people stay friendly, but she can feel that they see her as a lunatic. why change something that works quite well?

the sentences still resonate clearly in her mind: “what a naive view of the world!”, “replacing our current natural and rich languages with just one simpler one? that would be the end of culture!”, “you clearly have too much time on your hands to even think about such nonsense ideas.”, “our languages are naturally complex for a reason: they evolved to be like that, much like living beings.”, “we wouldn’t have such a powerful brain if it wasn’t thanks to our beautiful languages.”, “what would children learn at school?”, “do you want our civilization to decline?”,…

however, history proves that this kind of change is not only possible, but that it actually benefits society. she remembers how in history class she learned that a long time ago, their ancestors decided to ditch the overly complicated time units that divided the day (in non-equal parts), and use the day percentage (and its decimals) instead, that everybody uses today. nobody now would ever imagine wanting to use a less intuitive system than the current one.

back then, this change sparkled the timing revolution, which saw an overall 200% increase in productivity, combined with a reduction of work time of 50%. this change allowed everyone to have a better perception of time, which enabled logical schedules and drastically reduced the number of missed appointments, as well as of burnt cakes.

a set of useful conventions

we, humanity, along our path through time, developed numerous conventions that allowed us to work better as a species. language enabled us to exchange ideas. writing allowed us to persist ideas for other people coming after us. numbers helped us count things. law gave us rules to live together in a fair way. mathematics empowered us with a system of abstract reasoning and computation. measurement unit systems ensured that quantities could be accurately defined. programming languages provided ways to transmit intent to computers and tell them how to behave. communication standards gave birth to the internet and connected us all.

many of these conventions (except the recent ones) appeared randomly, without any design. in a way, this is much like the evolution of living beings. useful traits allowed conventions to survive while other disappeared. that doesn’t mean these conventions are perfect, logical, or even good at all. they were only better than other ones (if there were any), and at least useful in some way. actually, several of them are just plain bad if you ask me (but i’m an idealist).

we grow up surrounded by these conventions. as a baby, to survive, we have to imitate the people around us. (we also need to appear super cute, but that’s another story.) if we don’t imitate them, we won’t please them, they won’t like us, they will have less desire to take care of us and will probably bring us somewhere deep in the woods and run away while we’re not looking. if we don’t imitate, our survival is in jeopardy. this is why we are so good at it.

so, we grow up accepting almost everything that was thrown at us (as long as it doesn’t hurt. or bores us down. or makes us hungry. or sleepy. or it tickles. no, wait, that’s cool.). we don’t question the status quo. sure, children are very good at the “why chain” game, but apart from annoying adults, it doesn’t bring them much (most often because adults don’t know the answers, that’s why they’re annoyed, as it makes them look stupid).

“hey you, adult, why is language so complicated?”, “why are there 12 months in a year, with varying lengths, silly names, and the 4 last ones sound like latin numbers but are 2 months late?”, “why are there so many different shoe size units?”, “why do some people measure things in body parts?”, “why are there 24 hours of 60 minutes of 60 seconds in a day?”, “why are there so many different languages?”, “why is musical notation so hard to read?”, “why do hours, minutes and seconds start at 0 (or 12 for hours in some weird countries!), while years, months and days start at 1?”, “why are keys on computer keyboards arranged in a stupid, random, non-symmetrical way?”, “why are there so many ways to write a date?”, “why is a full turn 360 degrees (and don’t bring up minutes and seconds please!)?”, “why are there so many letters in the latin alphabet, and 4 different ways of writing each?”, “why does the short hour hand of a clock make 2 turns in a day instead of 1?”,…

these are all just arbitrary conventions that we chose, accepted, willingly or not. it’s a mess! and we are responsible for it.

seeking logic

children are naturally more logical than adults. many children actually resist against illogical things. their brain wants things to be simple and logical, because those require less energy to store and reuse.

for each illogicality it encounters, the brain has to memorize a specific case. when there is less data to remember, and more logical rules, the brain can work faster and better. learning illogicalities (say, exceptions in language) often feels like adding ugly details in an otherwise beautiful painting. exceptions are bad. learning and using them is frustrating and inefficient.

i don’t have many memories of me opposing illogicalities as a child. actually, i don’t have many memories of my childhood as a whole (maybe as a mental safety measure, because it was so frustrating?). i guess that, as most children, i’ve grown up accepting the world as it is presented to us, surrendering to the powers of the ruling adults.

nevertheless, along the way, i often felt slight disappointment and sadness each time i encountered illogicalities; each time someone (usually a parent or a teacher) opposes one’s logical inference with something like “no, it’s not like this, it’s like that.”.

our brain is naturally attracted to elegance and beauty. and still, we are surrounded by many illogical (or needlessly complicated) conventions. many are relics of our past, that more or less randomly survived until today.

challenging the system

one could think that it’s just a matter of getting used to our conventions. most people don’t seem to have a problem with them. indeed, along the way, we get used to them. they become points of reference, we become familiar with them. and we stop questioning them. since everybody is using them for so long, it means they must be great, right?

no, they are not. we are only used to the conventions we use, and because of this we don’t really think about them anymore, even if they are defective, deficient, flawed, inadequate, or complicated. we are trapped in our bad system unless we take a step back and start to question it.

for example, we are used to the decimal system. it makes sense and works quite well (except to divide the base, 10, in 4 equal parts, or 3, or 6). does it mean that it is the best base to count in, or the most suited for humanity? computers use binary and seem to be quite o.k. with it. if we would have been taught the duodecimal system (base 12) instead of the decimal one, it would just make total sense to all of us, and the decimal system would appear to us as odd as the octal system (base 8) today. we would have 12 different digits, one half would be written 0.6, one third 0.4, ten and eleven would each be written with one digit, twelve would be written 10, and we would not even think of using another system. but we chose the decimal system… apparently because we have 10 fingers. i’m not saying that the decimal system is bad (at least it is very logical). i only want to point out that it is just an arbitrary convention and that we are so used to it that we don’t question it.

we could argue that it’s interesting to learn and keep our complicated conventions, because they are so full of history; that it is what makes them so valuable, so part of our culture; with them, we know where we’re coming from. yes, but no. history should not mingle with everyday use. or why would we use satellite positioning systems, while sextants work so well? or why would we send text messages instantly through the internet, while we could simply send telegrams using morse code? or why don’t we do math with roman numerals? oh yeah, we like these fancy roman numerals on our clocks and on movie sequel titles… no. roman numerals totally suck. they are useless. they have to go. stop using them. seriously!

oh, but aren’t our complex systems what make our children’s minds so bright? it’s good to learn complicated stuff, it’s a good exercise for the brain, isn’t it? yes, but again, no. our conventions are like tools. the tools we use everyday should not be mental exercises or a historical reminiscence. they should be as optimized as possible for the job.

a waste of resources

while most conventions seem good enough and suited for everyday life, their imperfections cause a massive amount of wasted effort in the long run, as billions of people are confronted to them during their whole lifetime.

first, everyone has to learn them. children are spending efforts on learning and memorizing illogicalities. this represents a tremendous amount of time and energy, as the effort has to be repeated by every single person that will be born.

second, they require more energy to be used compared to more logical conventions. even if this represents tiny amounts on an individual level, this has to be multiplied by the number of uses during a lifetime, multiplied again by the number of people.

our complicated conventions are a huge waste of resources.

we, as a whole, are missing out on so many things because of our complicated conventions. the time and energy wasted on learning and using them could otherwise be spent on more interesting things. moreover, when things are complicated, there is a higher chance that one will get discouraged and give up, or not even start. try to imagine the lost potential caused by our awkward choices.

a brighter future

evolution doesn’t stop. we have to continue evolving. evolution brought us where we are now. but evolution is not only about survival, it’s also about quality of life and advancement of society. it’s about achieving our potential.

keeping our conventions as they are is a non-choice that we make every single day. it’s not because society is like it is and seems to work that we have to stop, that we need to accept it. we can do better. we have to do better. our descendants will thank us for this.

fortunately, enormous standardization efforts have been made, and are made everyday, which is great. this is why we only have one kind of electrical plug (o.k., one per country, but that’s already something, right?) or why billions of devices can communicate almost instantly through thousands of networks… to send emojis.

sadly, standardization doesn’t always result in better conventions. sometimes, standards only define what already exists to ensure uniformity and compatibility, even if the design is quite bad. for example, there are standards defining the physical characteristics of a computer keyboard (the staggered keys arrangement), and others defining nonsense key layouts like qwerty. in these cases, standards actually hinder progress, as standards are usually not questioned anymore.

sometimes though, tremendous effort is made to design better systems. i will never be able to thank enough the people who designed the international system of units (and not only because they are all dead). they pushed it no matter what, against many established conventions (i actually don’t know exactly how it went, but i like to imagine it this way, the metric heroes shooting up to the skies, holding their 1-meter metal bar at the end of their outstretched arm).

i am grateful for all the choices humanity made so far to simplify life in general, especially when it challenged the status quo, and had to go against strongly engrained, poorly designed (or not designed at all) de facto standards. we ditched roman numerals for hindu-arabic ones. we designed the international system of units. we defined thousands of standards to make systems consistent and interoperable. thank you, iso, i.e.t.f., w.3.c.,… and all the people who worked and are working towards a simpler and better future. (i have to confess that my father worked in standardization, so i might have a genetic bias.)

let’s imagine a world where things are simpler, more logical. where nothing is complicated for no reason. where everything makes sense. it’s time to think about better conventions. it’s time to challenge our old systems. it’s time to optimize humanity.

disclaimer: i don’t pretend that anything is this document is true. these are only ramblings coming out of my heavily biased and oversimplifying mind. don’t use this to prove anything. take it as a thought experiment.