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How should humanity navigate accelerating change in the 21st century?
Surprisingly, all change is governed by a single process, universal evolution — the selection of inherited variation.
There's not just biological evolution but physical evolution, cultural evolution, and now digital evolution. This selection process works by producing layers of structure that persist over time — atoms, genes, ideas, and code.
Part of the book examines how those four layers evolved:
- Atoms: 14 billion - 4 billion years ago
How did we go from the Big Bang to complex stars, elements, and planets like Earth? - Genes: 4 billion - 200,000 years ago
How did life begin? How did we transition from single-celled organisms to complex fungi, plants, and animals? - Ideas: 200,000 years ago - 1945 CE
How did sapiens evolve from monkeys? How did language evolve? How did we transition from hunter-gatherers to an advanced, global society? - Code: 1945 - present
How did the internet, computation, and AI emerge? How did we make electrons think?
The rest of the book examines what those layers look like today in the Anthropocene:
- Atoms: Humans have conquered the layer of atoms. Physical mass like buildings and cars is now heavier than all biomass. As we've mined the lithosphere, we've unintentionally heated the atmosphere, turning the cryosphere (all ice) into the hydrosphere. By 2100, temperatures will rise by 2.5C and sea level will rise by a meter. Today, the main selection pressure on Earth's atoms is "What do humans want?"
- Genes: Humans have broken biological evolution. 50% of land is now for human use — the world is one big farm. 25% of species are going extinct. At the same time, at the microbial level, we've saved hundreds of millions of lives by eliminating infectious diseases. And now we're accelerating evolution with CRISPR and other genetic engineering. Today, the main selection pressure on the biosphere is "What do humans want?"
- Ideas: Meanwhile, modernity is breaking humanity itself. Evolution previously selected for our paleolithic emotions and medieval institutions. Now those systems are reckoning with globalization and its discontents. As an example, our organs are under attack — more than 50% of all deaths are from human-caused air pollution, smoking, and obesity. The main selection pressure on humans is "What does the market want?"
- Code: Digital intelligence is vastly increasing the amount of brainpower on Earth. There are already millions of AIs with 100 IQs. There may soon be billions of AIs with alien, superhuman intelligence. At a bare minimum, human cognitive labor will be augmented and automated as AI understands atoms, genes, ideas, and code. At a maximum, Earth may experience the "Big 5" impacts of artificial intelligence. AI might recursively self-improve, discover infinite fusion energy, make vastly more decisive warfare, become conscious, or start to follow its own values. Any one of those would be monumental, not to mention all five. We're learning that intelligence is much greater than us. The selection pressure on Earth is starting to become "What does AI want?"
Universal evolution — the selection of inherited variation — has brought us this far. How can we leverage it to create the right selection pressures for the next century?
Check out the full table of contents here. Here's a 60min overview from me. And here's NotebookLM doing a 13min podcast. Here are two sample chapters.
If you want to dive down the rabbit hole, I'm doing 1-hour beta teachings — grab a time here. You can also apply to join a special "book" version of RF or just subscribe to my newsletter for updates.