Scaling Is the Underlying Driver in Human History

Hypothesis:

Our goals are to reproduce, procure food, secure shelter, and grow as a species.

For that, we scale and overcome barriers through:

– Platform building
– Trust minimization
– Division of labour
– Reduction of transaction costs
– The price system
– Commerce

Please watch the video below:

Credits and Suggested Reading

– The idea of human scaling is an extension of the concept of social scalability by Nick Szabo (2017): http://unenumerated.blogspot.com/2017/02/money-blockchains-and-social-scalability.html

– The idea of trust minimization is an extension of “Trusted Third Parties are Security Holes” by Nick Szabo (2001): http://nakamotoinstitute.org/trusted-third-parties/

– The idea that social organizations, cities, corporations and organisms scale is from “The surprising math of cities and corporations” by Geoffrey West: https://www.ted.com/talks/geoffrey_west_the_surprising_math_of_cities_and_corporations

– The concept of division of labour: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Division_of_labour

– The concept of transaction costs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transaction_cost

– Relationship between the price system and local knowledge by Friedrich A. Hayek: http://www.econlib.org/library/Essays/hykKnw1.html

– Artifacts of wealth as archaic forms of money by Nick Szabo: http://unenumerated.blogspot.com/2016/07/artifacts-of-wealth-patterns-in_15.html

– Shelling Out: The Origins of Money by Nick Szabo: http://nakamotoinstitute.org/shelling-out/


Code Is Law

Author: Donald McIntyre

Read about me here.