City is also a kind of computing power

Photo by Dennis Kummer on Unsplash

In his book A Brief History of the Future, Yuval Harari addresses the dataist perspective. Dataists see all of humanity as a complex data processing system. At the individual level, each individual is a carbon atom-based data processing individual. These individuals begin to collaborate, that is, these individual data processing individuals are connected to each other to form a data network. To this day, globalization is actually a complex data processing system formed by human beings, allowing people from different parts of the world to cooperate with each other. An indigenous inhabitant of a small island in the South Pacific may have never left his island, but he was able to use this complex data processing system to trade the coffee beans he cultivated for clothes made in China. The key to this data processing system is the free flow of information in the data processing system. The complexity and scale of the processing system determine the comprehensive capability of the system. From the perspective of dataism, the entire history of human development is the process of the development of data processing capabilities.

Cognitive Revolution, Storytelling Enables Massive Collaboration, Allowing Homo sapiens to Outcome Multiple Intelligent Humans

The Cognitive Revolution began, and large numbers of Homo sapiens, the ancestors of what is now human, were able to connect into a single data network. This data network connection allowed the less dominant Homo sapiens to win and further dominate the world. The other Homo sapiens at that time, Neanderthals, although compassionate and possessing intellectual and physical advantages, were not good at large-scale social interaction and trade. They were more withdrawn and remained in the stage of small tribes and did not develop large social formations. And the tribe of our ancestors, Homo sapiens, can easily maintain a scale of 200-300 people by relying on the ability of human beings to tell stories, tell the future, and tell visions. This advantage of scale allows Homo sapiens to win the competition for resources because of their ability to collaborate. Today when it comes to "nation", "nation", these fictitious concepts, people even have their blood boiled. Because human beings have been organized for thousands of years by relying on fictional concepts or stories. The more disconnected from each other in reality, the more people need this conceptual connection.

But limited by the ability of human transportation, communication means at that time, the Homo sapiens network distributed in different corners of the world, processed data in different ways. At this time, the improvement of data processing capability mainly depends on increasing the number of processing networks. So human beings started going out of Africa, reaching every corner of the world except Antarctica, and establishing more Homo sapiens tribes.

Agricultural Revolution, Population Increase

Until about 5,000 years ago, human data processing capacity increased by increasing the number of data processing systems. The Agricultural Revolution accelerated population growth. The population of each tribe has exploded, but simply relying on tribal legends and oral stories cannot connect tribes with different stories. The improvement of data capability at this time mainly depends on increasing the number of processors. Without large-scale collaboration, the human economy is limited in scale and cannot cope with all kinds of severe weather.

Invention of writing or currency, collaboration breaks through tribes to form cities and kingdoms

After the invention of writing and currency, people from different tribes could cooperate with each other. As a result, human data processing ability, that is, collaboration ability, is further increased. But the invention of writing does not mean that civilization can continue. Due to the overload of information, civilization can only last long if it invents retrieval, query and storage systems. Words and currency made different tribes begin to merge and converge, and then formed cities and kingdoms. Multiple tribes come together because this gathering enhances the overall viability. Different occupations emerged in these cities, peasants, priests, and doctors. In this process, the improvement of data capability is due to the increase of the types of processors, and the increase of connections between processors on the other hand. With the emergence of cities and nations, humans can accomplish tasks previously unimaginable. For example, in the construction of the pyramid 4,500 years ago, tens of thousands of workers were organized to complete the pyramid that still stands today [1]. The emergence of cities and kingdoms marks that human cooperation has entered a higher level, and it also marks that human beings have entered the era of civilization.

Exploration, Conquest, Trade and Globalization

Beginning in about 1492, modern explorers, conquerors and traders, together completed the interconnection of the entire world. These conquerors, whether driven by wealth, curiosity, etc., objectively promoted the development of civilizations around the world. In 1802, the British began a large-scale investigation of India, a process that lasted for 60 years. During this period, the British used tens of thousands of local laborers, scholars and tour guides to carefully map India, marking boundaries and measuring distances. The precise heights of Mount Everest and other peaks in the Himalayas are also measured at this time. On the one hand, the British explored the military and gold resources of Indian provinces, but at the same time they also collected information on rare spiders in India, cataloged butterflies, traced the source of the lost Indian language, and excavated a forgotten place. ruins. During the expedition, British scientists deciphered cuneiform script that had been used in the Middle East for 3,000 years but was later lost. These conquerors, with curiosity, explore the world and connect the world together. Through these trade routes, kingdom cities in various regions are interconnected. This process brings human collaboration to a higher level. This process also gradually began the process of globalization. The economic aggregate of the whole world has achieved unprecedented development.

At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, the world's economic and cultural connections became increasingly close. The term "globalization" in the modern sense began in the 1970s. In 2000, the International Fund (IMF) defined four basic aspects of globalization: trade and international exchanges, capital and investment flows, population flows, and knowledge dissemination. Because of the influence of the Industrial Revolution, the 19th century transformed into modern globalization. The Industrial Revolution used the concept of economies of scale to standardize the mass production of goods, and the rapid population growth also brought a lot of demand. Steam ships reduced the cost of international transportation, and railroads made land transportation cheaper. The transport revolution occurred between 1820 and 1850. The invention of shipping containers in 1956 further promoted the globalization of commerce. At the same time, the aviation industry was also rapidly expanding, shortening the relative time of intercontinental journeys to just a few hours. The development of the computer Internet in the 1980s made globalization At new levels, humans can use the same framework to transmit information. Globalization is pushing down borders and integrating global markets. Some people refer to globalization as a "global village" and the division of labor among countries has also begun. A lot of manufacturing flocks to developing countries, while developed countries focus on design and finance. Globalization has made human beings a whole, forming a complex and huge system.

During this period, the global growth of this data processing system, on the one hand, greatly increased the connections between processors, and on the other hand, greatly increased the freedom of circulation of existing connections. Therefore, from a global perspective, before the emergence of the new crown epidemic, it should be the peak processing power of the global data processing system of human beings.

Many people are willing to gather in the city because the city offers a variety of life. In the city, some people like mutton soup, some people like gourd head, what kind of demand will produce what kind of opportunities. Because of the capabilities of this complex data processing system, no matter how many individuals in the city, from multimillionaires to commoners, they can find their own way of life. There is a wonderful story that illustrates the issue from the other side. The story is about Gorbachev sending a deputy to London to understand how capitalism works. The British took the VIP to visit the London Stock Exchange and the London School of Economics. The Soviet expert said that I had been in London all day and there was one thing I didn't understand. We got the smartest people in Moscow to design and study the bread supply system, but there were still long queues at every bakery and grocery store. But in London, where there are millions of people, there is no place to queue. Please take me to meet the man who is in charge of supplying the bread. I must learn his secret trick. The British said, but no one here is in charge of this. This story may illustrate the capabilities of the city as a data processing system. Information on the supply and demand of bread flows freely among millions of consumers, producers, bakers, entrepreneurs, etc. The brains of all participants complete this huge project based on this information, that is, to provide each person with what he needs. bread.

AI emerges, computing singularity appears

Before AI and computing power reach a certain level, the human data processing system still relies on the calculation of the human brain, which is also called carbon-based civilization. In the past decade, with the emergence of AI technology, the computing power of computers, driven by Moore's Law, is also increasing exponentially. Soon or already, AI will surpass human data processing capabilities. Relying on powerful computing equipment, AI provides another way to improve data processing capabilities in addition to manpower. In the future, the performance improvement of the human data processing system may not need to be realized through population communication, but through deep coupling with silicon-based data processing, such as AR, VR, IoT. Does this mean that the singularity has appeared, and the data processing model of human society has entered a new era?

The new crown is raging, various countries have increased border controls, and the exchange of people and goods has faced unprecedented challenges. For example, the recent global chip shortage problem. If globalization cannot be restarted in the short term, can silicon-based data processing systems make up for the heavy setbacks caused by the new crown to human society?

[1] Pyramids 'not built by slaves' - BBC News