Civilization, Module 4: Knowledge, Wealth, and Institutions

Civilization, Module 4: Knowledge, Wealth, and Institutions by Conjecture Institute President Logan Chipkin The raw materials around us are either useless or worse until we create knowledge of how to put them to use. With increasing knowledge, our wealth—the number of different ways we are able to transform the world, or our mastery over the universe—increases. Knowledge does not come about automatically but must be created, and the West’s defining institutions serve as abstract catalysts that foster the growth of knowledge (and wealth)—they consist of ‘knowledge about how to grow knowledge’. We are effectively in an arms race with the enemies of civilization, who similarly try to grow their knowledge and wealth in order to defeat the West. We can stay ahead of them by advocating for ideas, policies, actions, and institutions that do not slow down our knowledge and wealth creation but rather accelerate it. Fundamental knowledge should be valued at a premium, since it grants us greater mastery over Nature than parochial knowledge ever could, and it can help us to prepare for threats that the enemy has not yet thought of.  Read: Civilization Module 4

Convinced that persuasion is civilization's engine, Conjecture Institute Fellow Ray Scott Percival has spent a career explaining why even the most guarded mind can be changed, and that the most tyrannical ideologies can be toppled by argument alone. Read: https://conjectureinstitute.org/articles/fellow-spotlight/ray-scott-percival  

Many Westerners do not see us at war with China, as no bombs are dropping, no bullets flying, no blood spilling. But traditional war is just a special case of the more general battle of ideas. Peace, error correction, scientific discovery, trade, and dispute resolution are enormous human achievements that are only possible via institutions that themselves consist of ideas. So any attack on the West’s memetic infrastructure from China or any other static society is an act of war—not of the literal kind, but of a more fundamental kind. It threatens peace and everything else we cherish at least as much as a physical attack does.     Read more: https://conjectureinstitute.org/university/courses

Ironically, those who say that the non-West hates the West because of the West’s foreign interventions are correct, but not in the way that they typically mean it. Static societies were always fated to hate the West, whether or not the West intervened militarily—merely creating television shows and selling blue jeans would have been enough to put static institutions on the defensive. So, no, Hamas, Putin, Khamenei, and the rest do not hate us because we “slaughtered their families” or “interfered in their territory” or otherwise “aggressed against them”. George W. Bush was nearly correct when he said that “they hate us for our freedom”—they are hostile to us because our freedom and other progress-fostering institutions mark the extinction of their progress-suppressing way of life unless they do something about it. And they may succeed unless we counteract them. Read: https://conjectureinstitute.org/courses/civilization/Civilization%20Module%202.pdf Visit Conjecture Institute

Maxime’s combination of conversational tone, awareness of when technical details require elaborating on, and emphasis on explanation all come together to make Maxime’s miniature books invaluable for anyone interested in Zcash and Many-Worlds quantum theory. Our Spotlight Article series highlights our Fellows’ history, contributions, interests, and ideas. More to come. Read or listen to the web version of our article about Maxime and his work here.  

Between her work on the BMV experiment to probe gravity's quantum side in the laboratory and her current investigation into quantum theory’s role in cosmology, Conjecture Institute Fellow Antonia Weber's young career as a physicist has already taken her across nearly the entire energy spectrum of quantum gravity. Read: https://conjectureinstitute.org/articles/fellow-spotlight/antonia-weber

The road to artificial intelligence (AGI) is not paved in increasingly efficient algorithms, more computing power, or radical improvements to the best large language models. Armed with our best theory of how knowledge is created, Conjecture Institute Fellow Carlos De la Guardia has honed in on universality, problem-solving, and explanatory knowledge as three key pillars to building an AGI.   Read here: https://conjectureinstitute.org/articles/fellow-spotlight/carlos-de-la-guardia

In a world full of headlines touting ‘the latest theory of everything’, the most valuable unturned stone might be the theories we have had for a century. We just need the courage to do as Sam Kuypers does and take them seriously.   Read the Spotlight Article about Conjecture Institute Fellow Sam Kuypers: https://conjectureinstitute.org/articles/fellow-spotlight/sam-kuypers

Conjecture Institute Fellow Dimitri Vallein is building an alternative to Hollywood with optimistic science fiction stories, immersive technology, and a philosophy of progress.   Read the article here: https://conjectureinstitute.org/articles/fellow-spotlight/dimitri-vallein

Denying the truth of Western superiority means never investigating why the West makes so much more progress than the rest of humanity. It means failing to discover the institutions, principles, and values that underlie the progress that the West has made. It means taking for granted the necessary ingredients for how a society can transform from a worse one to a better one. It means putting those very ingredients at risk in the West, and it means placing them farther out of reach for the non-West than they need to be.   Read: https://conjectureinstitute.org/courses/civilization/Civilization%20Module%201.pdf   Visit Conjecture Institute: https://conjectureinstitute.org   Follow Conjecture Institute on X: https://x.com/ConjectureInst