Knowledge sharing as the ultimate killer app

Sharing is our competitive advantage

What made Homo sapiens different from the Neanderthals was most likely our social abilities and behaviors, how we behave as a collective. As a human species we have always been very focused on communicating and transferring knowledge. Not only from one person to another, but also parent to child. This way, the next generation can build further on the collective knowledge of the previous generation.

During the 400 000 years that the Neanderthals lived on the earth, they didn’t develop their tools very much. In fact, the tools they used at the end of their time were similar to the ones they used in the early years. If we compare that to Homo sapiens, the tools we used in the early years cannot be compared with the tools and technologies we have developed since. From creating simple stone tools we have created spaceships that can send people into space and digital communication technology that has the potential to connect all human beings on the earth. What made this possible is our innate drive and ability to share what we know with each other.

I think there is an important insight in this line of thought. An important point that the Rand-infected Right ignores.

Humans, at our core, are social apes.

We mock the sheeple and the Grubers with the 'a pack not a herd' meme. Yet, we too often forget that selfishness is not a pack virtue.

In short, a pack not a herd. Nor a collection of pathological narcissists.

Through all this ordeal his root horror had been isolation, and there are no words to express the abyss between isolation and having one ally. It may be conceded to the mathematicians that four is twice two. But two is not twice one; two is two thousand times one
G. K. Chesterton
The Man Who Was Thursday