آیا تا به حال از خود پرسیده‌اید که جوامع بشری چگونه کار می‌کنند؟ Why are we the only creatures that can cooperate on a scale of millions? The answer lies in a strange combination of storytelling, information and technology. In the following, we will take a deep look at these issues.

1. Why are "facts" alone not enough? (example of atom bomb)

Merely knowing scientific facts is not enough for humans to cooperate on a large scale. You need a shared story.

Let's take the example of building an atom bomb. To make a bomb, yes, you have to respect physical reality; You should know that $E=mc^2$E=mc2. If you ignore this formula, the bomb will not explode.

But knowledge of physics alone does not make bombs. You need millions of people working together:

• Physicists who solve equations.
• Miners who extract uranium far away.
• Farmers who have to plant potatoes and wheat.

Why are farmers important? Because if a physicist has to grow potatoes himself to eat, he won't have time to work on a nuclear reactor. This massive network of cooperation is created by "stories" (such as money, nation, or ideology), not by physics.

This is why throughout history, those who are "storytellers" have instructed scientists:

• In Soviet 1950s, nuclear physicists took orders from specialists in communist ideology.
• In Iran today, scientists take orders from theologians.

Even money is a story. A dollar bill has no intrinsic value; We only believe in a story that says "you can buy bread and bananas with this paper".

2. Revolution of mud and calligraphy: changing the concept of ownership

How did information technology change history? Let's go back to ancient Mesopotamia.

Before the invention of writing, "ownership" was a social agreement. My land was mine because my neighbors in the village agreed that it was mine. This meant that I could not sell my land without their consent, and a kingdom in a distant capital could not have much control over me.

But when clayboards and calligraphy were invented, everything changed.

Property became "a piece of dried clay with marks on it". Now I could give that piece of mud to a stranger and sell my land, even if my neighbors are not happy.

More importantly, the king could now see who owned what in his archives thousands of kilometers away and collect taxes. This was the beginning of bureaucracy and great empires.

3. The End of the Break: From Wall Street to the KGB and Artificial Intelligence

Until the 21st century, all information networks were organic (biological), that is, they worked based on the human brain. Humans are subject to the cycles of nature; We get tired and sleep.

• Example of Wall Street: Even a greedy market like Wall Street is closed at night and on weekends. why Because bankers and brokers are human, they should sleep and spend time with their families.
• Example of KGB (Soviet): Even the totalitarian regime of the Soviet Union could not control everyone 24 hours a day. They did not have enough officers. Even if they wrote a report about you, there weren't enough analysts to read the millions of reports and the files would rot in the archives.

But here is the danger of artificial intelligence: we are entering the age of inorganic information networks. AI never sleeps, never gets tired, never takes vacations. This technology can monitor and analyze every single citizen at all times; What no dictator in history was able to do.

4. Self-correcting systems: science versus dogma

What makes a system powerful and stable? Ability to correct mistakes.

Democracies and science have self-correcting mechanisms.

• Example of science: What do scientific journals publish? Only corrections! If Newton was wrong, Einstein would correct it and it would be published. Science means the constant process of finding and correcting errors.
• Example of a child: A child who learns to walk falls and corrects himself to learn.

But ideological and religious systems often lack this mechanism

• Example of slavery in the Bible: In the Ten Commandments it is stated: "Do not covet your neighbor's slave". This text has no problem with the principle of having a slave, it just says don't look at other people's property! Today, our morals have changed and we reject slavery, but there is no mechanism in religion to "edit" the text of the Ten Commandments and remove slavery from it. On the contrary, the US Constitution (which originally had slavery) was able to prohibit it with amendments.

5. Marriage of myth and bureaucracy (example of sewage system)

Every nation is based on an unlikely marriage between myth and bureaucracy.

Myths (such as national and religious stories) motivate us to consider ourselves a nation. But for running the country, myth is not enough; You need a sewer system.

Nationalism means love for fellow countrymen whom we have never met. How is this love expressed? By paying taxes honestly.

Why? So that the government has money to build a sewage system so that my compatriots on the other side of the country do not get cholera. This means combining the national story with administrative bureaucracy. 6. Information is not the truth (the example of the face of Jesus Christ)

In the era of artificial intelligence, the biggest mistake is to think that "information is the truth".

Most of the information in the world is not true. Truth is a very rare and expensive commodity that must be paid for.

Example: What is the most common portrait and picture in the history of the world? The face of Jesus Christ.

In the last 2000 years, billions of pictures have been taken of him (a huge amount of image information). But are these his real face? Almost none. We have billions of data, but we don't have the truth of his face.

Therefore, having a lot of information does not necessarily mean reaching the truth.