From: jimruttshow8596
Defining Hypernovelty
Hypernovelty describes the current state of the world, particularly in “western educated industrialized rich democratic countries” (WEIRD), where the rate of change is so rapid that it outstrips humanity’s ability to adapt [00:11:20]. This phenomenon suggests that while humans can deal with novelty, hypernovelty presents an increasingly difficult challenge [00:11:36]. The world is not only hypernovel but is becoming “more hyper novel by the day,” likely following an “exponential curve” [01:11:38]. The rate of change itself is changing so fast that it is challenging for anyone to keep up [01:11:49].
Impact on Human Adaptation and Cognition
Niche Switching
Evolutionary biologists and ecologists define a “niche” as the set of environmental conditions an organism is adapted to, where it performs best [00:09:54]. The human niche is unique in its capacity for “niche switching,” meaning humans are the most generalist species, capable of adapting to diverse environments like coastal fishing, upriver fishing, or terrestrial hunting [00:10:17]. However, the rapid and extensive change brought about by technological advancements and population growth means that humanity is now “outstripping our ability to niche switch” [00:11:17].
Cognitive Dissonance
The hypernovel world spawns “cognitive dissonance” in human societies [01:11:59]. Humans were not evolved, either culturally or genetically, to deal with the current rate of change [01:12:05].
Digital Environments and Theory of Mind
Modernity, especially through social media, leads to a “deranged” state by flattening human interaction. Text-based communication can make people “legitimately forget that there’s an actually fully embodied other human being on the other side of some interaction” [00:48:32]. This can result in a “failure of theory of mind,” where individuals act as if the other person is not a “whole human being” with legitimate, different understandings of the universe [00:49:06]. This lack of high-dimensional cues (e.g., eye contact, facial expression) can lead to sociopathic behavior [00:49:31].
Early childhood exposure to screens, particularly those with human or humanoid figures, might teach children to associate interactions with being “unidimensional” and one-way [00:49:55]. This could contribute to a “flat affect” and may be responsible for an “uptick in autism diagnoses” [00:50:37]. Color television, by being more “hyper realistic” than black and white, made it harder for children to distinguish between screen representations and the real world [00:51:55].
Societal Implications
The Sucker’s Fallacy
A significant challenge in a hypernovel world is the sucker’s fallacy, defined as the tendency of “concentrated short-term benefit not only to obscure risk in long-term costs but also to drive acceptance even when the net analysis is negative” [01:00:05]. This “local hill climbing” dominates the evolution of culture [01:00:20]. While this short-term approach is acceptable when the rate of change is slow, it becomes problematic in a rapidly changing world because a short-term “peak” may not remain a peak for the next generation [01:00:48].
Culture’s Lag
Culture, which is described as the “application of culture to the circumstances for which it is adapted is the population level equivalent of an individual being in the zone” [00:55:56], inherently looks backward [00:58:27]. It’s a “compiled version of a program” that has found “tolerable solutions” to past challenges [01:19:43]. In a hypernovel world, this backward-looking nature is a “huge problem” [00:58:37]. There will be “ever less from the past that the young will find a value as they move forward into the future” [00:59:14].
Exponential Change and Fat Tails
A crucial aspect of understanding the hypernovel world is recognizing “exponentials” and “fat tail events” [01:13:02]. While short-term metrics of reproductive success or fitness might seem fine in stable environments, they fail to account for rare but impactful “fat tail events” [01:15:05]. Big deviations in complex systems happen more often than standard Gaussian thinking predicts [01:13:30]. Therefore, a “lineage” perspective, which considers long-term survival, is essential to navigate the future, especially when facing “fat-tailed events” like volcanic eruptions or floods [01:13:17].
Navigating the Hypernovel World
Humanity is currently facing “societal and political instability at almost every scale” [01:23:39]. To move forward, humans must understand themselves and their capabilities, shifting from a “backward-looking compiler-oriented style of culture to a proactive forward-looking form of culture” [01:22:50].
The Fourth Frontier
Traditional “frontiers” include:
- Geographic frontiers: Discovering new lands, like the Beringians peopling the Americas [01:25:33].
- Technological frontiers: Discovering new ways to exploit resources, such as terracing hillsides for agriculture [01:25:45].
- Transfer resource frontiers: Essentially theft, like the Spanish conquest of the New World [01:26:02].
A “fourth frontier” is proposed for humanity to navigate the hypernovel world [01:26:28]. This frontier involves a deep self-understanding and an awareness of “game theory” (how others might exploit beneficial systems) to create a sustainable future [01:26:45]. The goal is to create a way of life that allows all humans to discover and offer their unique contributions to the world, minimizing the role of luck in individual lives [01:27:32]. This approach is not about blueprinting the future but about having a clear understanding and strategic path forward [01:23:52].