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Why ideas are worth spreading | Mathias Sundin | TEDxNorrköping


I’m here to tell you a secret but I want
you to promise me to tell everyone about
it because it shouldn’t be a secret
it’s a secret of human innovation I’ve
discovered I found the secret of human
innovation and I think so have you you
just don’t realize it yet but will soon
I hope
but first what do I mean by by human
innovation well I mean it’s how we
dreamt of flying and one day in Kitty
Hawk North Carolina we actually did
thigh is how we dreamt of going to the
moon and one day we took a giant leap
and it’s how we dreamt of teaching our
kids how to read and write and today
over 90 percent of all children in the
world go to school that’s human
innovation but what is the secret of
human innovation because it is a secret
it is a secret it’s asked in thousands
of confidence books and articles always
asking the same questions how do we get
more innovation how do i how do you
become more inventive always the same
questions but it’s a secret hidden in
plain sight it it’s all around us and
we’re gonna find out together what it is
and if we find this answer I believe we
will find the answer to both all human
innovation in history but most
importantly to all future human
innovation so if we find this answer I’m
convinced we will be able to solve all
of humanity’s big remaining problems I’m
convinced we will be able to make a
better future come sooner so we’d better
find out what it is right and let’s do
that together and we’re gonna look at a
couple of clues throughout history so
just for this occasion
I made a time machine yes a real time
machine so we actually
going to go back in time so let’s set
the meter for 2.5 million years the
place is Africa the land is covered in
vast forests that’s one of your
relatives my mine my relative also
that’s one of the first humans and they
were they were pretty small they were
easily scared so please don’t make any
sudden moves you know and keep your
voices down a bit you don’t have to be
afraid of them they they don’t they
don’t hunt anything they eat only fruits
and vegetables actually they were the
hunted yeah that’s one of the hunters
back then a saber-toothed Tigers those
kitty cats roam the earth back then it
was a scary time to be a human being but
we’re not here to look at cool cats
we’re here to look for human innovation
and not much of that was going on back
then not much at all to find some human
innovation we have to jump into the time
machine again and you know go back to
the future actually 2.4 million years
back to the future as you can see here
the pace of innovation back then was
really really slow took several hundred
thousand years a million years between
some major innovations back then
actually if the pace of innovation had
been as slow the last hundred thousand
years as the first 2.4 million years for
example this TEDx talk it wouldn’t be
talked at all because we wouldn’t even
have invented spoken language but
couldn’t even talk to each other and
maybe none of us would even be here
because all other human races were
extinct over 10,000 years ago so maybe
Homo sapiens
would be extinct too if the pace of
innovation hadn’t picked up a hundred
thousand years ago so something happened
to Homo sapiens
a hundred thousand years ago so we
better land the time machine there to
find out what it is and here’s our first
clue a place is still Africa the big
forests are gone now
and maybe the first thing you notice is
that the humans here they look like us
because well they are us anatomically
there is no difference between our
bodies and in their bodies maybe you
also noticed some old people here you
know really really old people in the
early 40s
that’s the grandparents they take care
of the grandchildren of course they
teach them you know how to how to find
food how to how to cook how to make some
simple tools they transferring knowledge
to earn to a new generation and if we
would walk around here a bit we would
run into a lot of humans actually more
humans here now than ever before and
that’s important because professor
Joseph Henrich has shown in his research
that with increased population density
you get more innovation so when people
live closer together we we learn from
each other when you get more innovation
and three other scientists Mark Thomas
Adam Powell and Stephan Shannon they use
that model and they ran simulations of
population density in Africa and a
hundred thousand years ago the
population density had increased so much
it reached a point where knowledge
started accumulating so for the first
time in history knowledge didn’t die off
anymore it lived on new knowledge was
built upon old knowledge so there were
enough grandparents so they can transfer
knowledge to theirs both his children
and the grandchildren and when when
people moved around because they were
still hunters and gatherers they ran
into other groups frequently enough so
they also transferred knowledge between
the groups so knowledge didn’t die out
it started accumulating and this was a
revolution for Humanity this was a
revolution for me for Humanity now for
the first time we really took off
as it as you can see now the pace of
innovation is so much faster and I want
you to notice one thing here and that is
every time when we make it easier to
spread knowledge the pace of innovation
increases even more so when we learn how
to speak when we learn how to write when
we started living in cities and
civilizations and the printing press
every time the pace of innovation
increased and that’s also important now
we’re at the Year 1689 of course this is
a completely different world from the
one we left now we even have some
control of the of the cats well as much
as you can have this is that we’re now
spread across the entire globe we’re top
of the food chain and we landed here in
1689 in London England outside of the
old Parliament building and we landed
this year because it’s a very important
year on our journey and for Humanity
because even though much had happened in
the last hundred thousand years up until
now there was nothing nothing compared
to what would happen in the coming three
hundred years in the eighteenth
nineteenth and twentieth century we
would see an explosion in human
innovation like never before and for the
first time we would really see an
increase in human living standards
because not much had happened in human
living standards even though we had much
innovation human living standards was
almost the same as it was a hundred
thousand years ago so in the late 17th
century the average lifespan was still
around 30 years like it was almost a
hundred thousand years ago and 99% of
all people lived in what we today would
call extreme poverty and more than half
of all children died before adult age
more than half of ownership but 300
years later now we more than double our
lifespans now it’s 72 years and only 9
percent of our people live in extreme
poverty and 4.5% of children die before
at old age and
we’ve also learned how to fly we’ve been
to the moon we connected half the
world’s population in a gigantic network
where you freely could share knowledge
and videos of cute cats that’s progress
that is progress in just three hundred
years so what was it that happened in
1689 to set off this revolution well to
understand that we must first understand
the secret of human innovation so let’s
quickly look at the two clues here
humanity took off for the first time a
hundred thousand years ago when we
started accumulating knowledge and every
time in history when we made it easier
to spread knowledge the pace of
innovation has increased even more so
then we must ask the basic question the
fundamental question here what is
knowledge what is innovation what is it
it’s ideas it is ideas it’s not more
complicated than that behind every human
innovation in history you have an idea
or other thousands of ideas everything
you see around you is based on thousands
of ideas that is the secret of human
innovation it’s not more complicated
than that we make it so complicated we
think it’s so hard that’s why we need
all these conferences and books and
articles because we think is so
complicated but it’s not so again what
was it that happened in 1689 to set off
this unprecedented growth of human
innovation in the in the coming three
hundred years well I think he guessed it
it was an idea it was an idea that set
off this revolution it wasn’t it was
actually the greatest idea of all time
both before and after it was the idea
that set off the Industrial Revolution
that completely changed the world
if you think that idea is the steam
engine you’re wrong it’s not a steam
it’s the idea of freedom of thought it’s
the idea of freedom of ideas we set the
mind free we set the brain free it’s the
idea of democracy in 1689 England passed
the Bill of Rights which granted civil
rights to the citizens among them the
freedom of speech in Parliament so
England in the late 17th century was the
place where ideas were most free where
thoughts were most free so it’s not a
coincidence that it was in England that
England was the center of the Industrial
Revolution in the 18th century it’s not
a coincidence that it was in England
that Thomas Newcomen and James what
invented the steam engine that set of
the Industrial Revolution it’s not a
coincidence but the name Industrial
Revolution is wrong it wasn’t an
industrial revolution it was the freedom
of thought revolution it was a freedom
of ideas revolution
it was an ideas revolution and if we
would have named this period in time the
idea revolution no one today would have
wondered what is the secret of human
innovation because there is no secret
its ideas that are behind all innovation
if you want more innovation in your
company in your organization in your
country an entire world in your life
expose yourself to more ideas it’s that
easy if we make it easier to spread
ideas we will get more innovation so now
we’re back where we started I landed the
time machine here on the on the roof so
you can check it out later if you want
couldn’t find a parking spot down here
so now we know the secret of human
innovation what should we do with that
knowledge well that’s not for me to
decide it’s for us to decide because the
some of us is so much greater so much
smarter than the smartest person in this
room so we should decide that together
together but I’m convinced of one thing
I have one idea and that is that we
should keep making it easier to spread
ideas so make sure every human being on
this earth it’s access to the Internet
as fast as possible but as history’s
shown us technology is not enough so
also make sure that every human being on
this earth owns the right to their ideas
and to express them not just because
it’s morally right it is but if we do
that I am convinced we will be able to
solve all of humanity’s big remaining
problems to make sure that no one to
make sure it’s zero percent lives in
extreme poverty to make sure that all
children go to school but most
importantly if we set all ideas free we
will be able to dream new dreams and
make them come true
because the journey of humanity has just
begun we’re just at the starting point
there’s so much left to do if we set
every idea free we will be able to dream
those Andrew new dreams and we will be
able to make a better future come sooner
and that’s why the Ted slogan ideas
worth spreading is so perfect because
ideas are worth spreading it’s the most
important thing in the world thank you [Music]
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