Okay, I want you to just for a moment think about
something with me. Forget everything you know
about schools today. Forget tests, classrooms,
all of it. I want you to think about the absolute
most fundamental reason humans started teaching
in the first place. Because this deep dive, it
isn't really about how we teach now, it's about
why we teach at all. So today we are jumping
into a stack of sources all centered on this
this really powerful idea that Education is,
and always has been, social and technology -rich.
You can't separate them. We're pulling our main
insights from the work in on social and technology
-rich education and some of the, well, the intellectual
giants it builds on. And here it is. This is
the big idea that kind of sets the stage for
everything else. Their research suggests that
our higher intellectual skills, you know, the
ability to think abstractly to solve these huge
problems, that it's actually an adaptation to
our social needs. Our brains got smarter because
we had to deal with each other, and that's where
it gets really, really interesting. It means
knowledge. at its core is a social utility. It
completely turns the whole discussion on its
head, doesn't it? And for you listening, this
is such a critical shortcut to understanding
while human development, we're going to connect
these really deep evolutionary roots. I mean,
that fundamental shift when our ancestors decided
to live in big complex groups. with the technologies
that define us. And not just physical tech, but
conceptual tech too. And if you don't get that
connection, that primal link, you can't really
grasp why some learning works and some of it
just doesn't. So let's start right there with
that foundational premise. Ever since there were
humans, they were inventing ways to teach. It's
just what we do. The research makes it pretty
clear this happened because we are two things,
right? We're social creatures and we're technology
using creatures. So if you just strip away all
the modern stuff, what were the absolute must
-have lessons, the things you had to teach to
keep the group going? The sources seem to point
to three sort of non -negotiables. Exactly. Three
things. First, how to survive. Simple as that.
What can you eat? Where do you find it? And how
do you get it without, you know, getting killed?
Second, how to change the world around you for
your own comfort and survival. So tool making,
building shelter, fire, all that. And third,
what is sacred? Okay, that third one, what is
sacred? It always feels like the odd one out.
I get teaching someone how to hunt. That's obvious
survival. But why is teaching cultural laws just
as vital? Because that's the glue. It's all about
group cohesion. Think about it. Survival skills,
like hunting a large animal. That often requires
a coordinated group. Do it alone. Tool use is
about shared standards, shared knowledge. But
what is sacred? I mean, that's the entire playbook
for how to live together. It's share beliefs,
rituals, the rules of everything. It's the social
cement. If your group can't agree on how to share
resources or who's in charge, the group just
falls apart. It collapses. And back then, if
the group collapsed, the individual downed. Period.
So the brain power it took to manage all that
social stuff, like keeping track of who owes
who a favor or the rules for sharing food, that
was a bigger driver for our intelligence than,
say, the mechanics of how to chip a piece of
flint. That is precisely the aha moment. that
the sources really hammer home. We can pull this
directly from the work of neuroscientists like
Michael Gazzaniga. The source quotes him saying,
the shift to becoming highly social is what the
human is all about. Which is, that's such a huge
idea, especially now when we tend to celebrate
the lone genius. It is, and he didn't stop there.
He goes on to say that our higher intellectual
skills arose as an adaptation to our newly evolved
social needs. So your ability to do advanced
math, or write a novel, or even just follow a
complex argument we're making right now, it's
all built on the same brain architecture that
evolved to manage those social contracts 100
,000 years ago. Acquiring knowledge is, first
and foremost, a social tool. It's for improving
how the group works. Okay, so if our brains were
literally built for social complexity, we have
to talk about the complexity of the things we
make. Because our social needs didn't just drive
our intelligence. They drove us to create all
these technologies. that in turn structure the
very lessons we have to teach. So let's pivot
to technology. But we need to use the really
broad definition from the research, not just,
you know, the phone in your pocket. The argument
is that what we teach comes directly from the
hard and soft technologies we build our lives
around. And that distinction is so powerful because
we almost always forget the soft part. Hard technologies,
that's what everyone thinks of. The physical
things, the artifacts, the research kind of traces
a line, you know, from the first sharpened stones
all the way through to firearms, the wheel, and
yeah, cars and computers today. Pangeable things.
The lesson there is pretty straightforward. If
your group has a new tool, you have to teach
the next generation how to use it. Simple. But
the soft technologies. That's where things get,
I don't know, a little more philosophical. It
really is. Because soft technologies are the
tools that exist as ideas, as practices, as rules.
They're abstract, but they're absolutely tools.
And they often require way more brain power to
master than a hard tool. The source has some
great historical examples. Things like... Not
tying. Not tying. Yeah. Think about it. A super
essential skill for building, for sailing, for
hunting or hand semaphore. A whole system for
talking across a distance. And then you jump
to the modern hyper complex systems like banking
or laws. These are all technologies. Hold on.
I want to pause on that. I've never really thought
of the legal system as a technology in the same
category as an axe. If we treat something like
law as a soft technology, what does that imply
about how we should learn it? It implies that
it's a tool, a structured tool we invented to
solve a massive human problem. In this case,
maintaining social order. And just like any tool,
it has rules, it has protocols, and you have
to learn how to use it. You can't just hand someone
a law book and say, go be a lawyer, any more
than you can hand them a laptop and say, go be
a programmer. Both require learning a complex,
abstract, and this is key, a socially validated
set of rules. And that brings us right back to
this idea that you can't separate humans from
their tools. We didn't just use tech, we built
our societies inside of it. Exactly. And to get
at that feeling of complete immersion, the sources
bring up Kevin Kelly's idea of the technium.
It's not just a pile of gadgets. The Technium
is this giant interconnected system of all human
technologies, soft and hard acting, like a single
living thing that we are a part of. Which means
you can't separate the human experience or human
learning from our tools and our systems We're
always always embedded in the technique. Okay,
let's make that real for someone listening Let's
say I'm learning a new project management system
at my job or even just trying to figure out how
to collaborate with my team on a Google Doc Is
that me interacting with the tech 100 % the Google
Doc itself? That's a hard technology its code
its servers But the rules of how you use it with
your team who edits when the etiquette for leaving
comments, you know version control all the unspoken
rules Exactly. That's the soft technology built
on top of the hard one. You are learning a technological
practice, and that practice is fundamentally
social. You have to learn it from other people.
OK, so let's unpack this. This is the critical
consequence. If we just accept this reality that
our learning environment is always social and
technology rich, that we're basically swimming
in this technium, what's the big challenge this
poses for modern education and for you when you're
just trying to learn something new? Well, the
research points to a major blind spot. It says
that when we are teaching and when students are
learning, we're always inside this environment.
It says even if we choose to ignore that fact,
it's like the air we breathe. And this is exactly
where we went into problems today. The source
argues that in our big push to standardize everything,
to formalize education, we seem to have just...
abandoned this aspect of our work. We've stopped
recognizing that the real deep learning happens
when people are just allowed to interact organically
with the social and technological context of
a skill. I mean, think about the paradox. We're
still teaching skills students need. We even
try to teach things like teamwork and technology
literacy. We teach those skills, but, and this
is the key phrase, learners need to learn them.
There's a huge difference being drawn here between
just passively getting information. being taught,
and actively mastering something, truly learning
it. It makes me think of learning to drive a
car. You know, I can be taught all the rules
of the road in a classroom with a textbook, but
I only really learn to drive by getting in the
car and interacting with the social technology
of traffic, predicting what other drivers will
do, navigating all the unspoken rules while using
the car, the hard technology. That's a perfect
example. And the source's core insight for anyone
listening right now is this. We've forgotten
that Much learning occurs when it is not taught.
If you, as a learner, are only relying on the
official structured instruction, the PowerPoint
deck, the textbook, you are missing out on the
massive critical chunk of knowledge that you
only get by. by doing, by just messing around
in the technium and navigating the social landscape.
And this is especially true for these complex
social and tech skills. Nobody can really teach
you how to navigate office politics in a tense
meeting or how to get the data you need out of
some clunky old software system at work. You
learn that by doing it, by failing, and by adapting
inside that system and that adaptation. That's
the high -level intellectual skill Gazaniko was
talking about. Which brings us all the way back
to you, the listener, and your own goal to be
well -informed. If real mastery, especially for
these complex skills, happens outside of a formal
lesson, how should you approach learning something
new? I think the implication is pretty clear.
Just receiving information, just being taught,
is not enough. Mastery demands that you actively
engage with the environment. It means you have
to connect the dots yourself and, maybe most
importantly, watch and interact with people who
have already mastered it. So to just quickly
recap the key takeaways from this deep dive.
First, your intelligence, your ability to reason,
it's fundamentally an adaptation to social needs.
It's for getting along in a group. Second, technology
isn't just gadgets. It's this all -encompassing
technium of hard artifacts and soft ideas, rules,
and practices. And third, probably the most critical
point for your own life, is that we have to remember
that deep, last thing learning happens organically.
It happens when it's not being formally taught.
This has been a really critical look at the why
of education and this this inseparable link between
our tools and how we live together. We've laid
out how our intelligence is a social tool and
our learning environment is just saturated with
technologies and social rules whether we see
them or not. So here's a final thought for you
to take away and explore on your own. It builds
on that critique from the source material that
we've started to suppress organic learning by
trying to formalize everything. If the deepest
learning really happens when it's not being taught,
and if our brains are wired for social problem
solving, What hidden organic skills are modern
systems? Whether it's school or corporate training,
what are they accidentally overlooking? Or even
stamping out? Think about the most useful skill
you learned in the last week. Was it from a course?
Or was it from navigating some unexpected social
problem or fixing a technical glitch on your
own? What are you really learning right now outside
of any official curriculum? And how can you start
paying more attention to that process? Maul that
over as you look for your next piece of knowledge.