An Era of Technological Stagnation 

Peter Thiel has largely popularized the idea of technological stagnation, asserting the belief that the pace of science and technological innovation in the last 50 years has slowed dramatically compared to the previous 50 year period. While a challenging assertion to quantify, Thiel has pointed to four potential drivers of this stagnation:

• Excessive government regulation hindering invention and experimentation
• Low hanging fruit have been picked and it is therefore more difficult to find new things (re: Tyler Cowen – The Great Stagnation)
• Cultural changes of the younger generation (i.e. anxiety attacks, depression) 
• Turn toward a dystopian viewpoint of technology and science (re: The End of the Future with Peter Thiel) 

While the above reasons are likely contributors, I will focus on a fifth driver; the rise of search engines and social media leading toward groupthink. Specifically, I will explore the idea that the technology recently invented, particularly endless queryable content, has resulted in a hindrance in our ability to think independently and created a stage of innovative inertia. 

The Hidden Evil of Information Technology

A large component of the technological progress we have experienced over the last 20 years has existed within the realm of search engines and social media.

While at first glance, the ability to access a larger set of information may appear undeniably valuable, it is not without its downsides. There are hidden evils within the domain of information technology. Specifically, the proliferation of endless queryable content.

Endless Queryable Content

Search Engines

The internet has enabled humanity to access a near infinite amount of information, facilitated largely by a search engine called Google. The experience of using Google looks something like the following:

1. A human has a question 
2. Said human types this question into Google
3. Google provides an answer

There are also three broad types of questions a human would type into Google:

1. Mechanical: “How to change a lightbulb?”
2. Factual: “When was Google invented?”
3. Non-mechanical: “How do I become a success?” 

There is no problem with this chain of events when the question is mechanical or factual. However, when the question is non-mechanical, involving any degree of creativity or nuance, there are enormous pitfalls. To understand these pitfalls, it is crucial to appreciate the allure of a tool such as Google.

When users first began using Google, it is likely they used it to primarily answer mechanical and factual questions. There is little issue with this. However, as humans became accustomed to the search & answer functionality, the complexity of their searches began to evolve. And thus, over time, humans have conditioned themselves to relegate the universe’s deepest questions such as peace, love, meaning, and fear to a partial answer that is “good enough”, temporarily satiating oneself until the question inevitably rises again. 

This conditioning can be explained by the following:

First, the speed at which Google answers a question is arguably quicker than the mind asking the same question. This creates a false sense of reliance on Google, and over time, leads one to consult the tool before they have even considered the question themselves. Google is also a tool without judgment, meaning one feels no hesitation to ask a question out of fear of what it will think of them. Adding that the tool also exploits a user’s vulnerabilities through data collection, you reach the (false) conclusion that Google knows you better than you know yourself. This further perpetuates an individual’s reliance and false sense of security in the tool.

Second, Google will always provide an answer, no matter the efficacy. While this may provide a sense of satisfaction for the user, there is no way to immediately confirm whether the answer to this question is correct or incorrect. The human must either take Google for its word or ultimately experiment with the answer provided to confirm its accuracy. It is likely a user trends toward the former given that if they truly wished to understand the question they were asking, they would not outsource it to someone else. To further complicate matters, the answer provided is the most “popular” answer, given Google typically ranks search results based on those that receive the most clicks or impressions. This inherently means it is the answer most accepted by society as true, otherwise known as societal dogma. And societal dogma is rarely (if ever) true. 

A human is beset with questions for almost every waking moment of their life. Accordingly, the allure of a tool that can provide an answer to these questions, no matter the efficacy, and arguably quicker than their mind can process, is undeniably powerful. This has led to an accelerating difficulty and deterioration in one’s ability to think for themselves. For individuals have effectively outsourced any independent thinking to a computer, which in many instances, is simply a collection of societal dogma. This reduction in independent thinking combined with a reliance on conventional wisdom has invariably resulted in a reduction in the creation of new and novel ideas, contributing to technological stagnation. 

We see a similar pattern of endless queryable content in the realm of video and audio, as there are billions of YouTube videos and podcasts on virtually every topic. This content has evolved in a similar way as Google’s search engine, with both the demand and supply mutating into a tidal wave of “advice” that is forced upon any individual that consumes this content. It is in a way unfortunate as at first glance one would think that the proliferation of information would more easily enable the discovery of truth and inspiration for novel ideas. This is simply not the case,  for every piece of content that is creative and novel there are millions that are conventional and advisory.

Social Media

Where Google consolidates a mass of answers, social media consolidates a mass of human interaction. 

Humans use Google because they seek validation for a question they do not know but are comfortable outsourcing to society. And humans use social media because they seek validation for their behaviors and opinions from society. For why else would you use a tool that promotes the sharing of information and ideas about what others are doing if you yourself were not interested in what these other people were doing?

Getting more specific, humans use Instagram and TikTok to validate what they should look like and Twitter and Facebook to validate what they should think. This inevitably creates a state of perpetual competition and comparison. This could be ignored if social media’s influence were minimal, however humans are spending 2 ½ hours per day on these platforms, 15% of their waking life, a statistic that has only been increasing over the last decade. When one of the largest aspects of one’s life is centered around mimesis, the inevitable result is a discouragement of independent thinking and uniqueness, key components of technological innovation.

Closing Thoughts & The Trojan Horse

Information technology has unlocked enormous benefits across personal computing, mobile communication, and general data creation and storage. However, some of the areas that have come to dominate information technology, including search engines and social media, have introduced tremendous barriers to thinking independently.

We must recognize that new ideas are a leading contributor of massive technological progress, and are dependent on humanity’s ability to think for themselves and go beyond the status quo. And therefore, with this recognition we must ensure not to become blindsided by a Trojan Horse; endless queryable content, housed inside it, technological stagnation.