Technology is weird. Often, we see it as the opposite of life, the biological, the organic. But when we look at its history, it seems alive, growing like the branches of a tree.

           Consider this brief story that takes us from chariots to space shuttles: Roman chariots were pulled by 2 horses running beside each other. They were the Ferraris of their day. The roads had to be adapted for the width of the 2 horses pulling the chariot. The famous Roman roads then spread the standard over Europe. This road-width remained unchanged through the Dark Ages, the medieval era, and the Renaissance. In the nineteenth century, people started building railways. Out of convenience and habit, the railways followed the same standard width. English experts, who stuck to their standards, built the first American railroads. A century later, space shuttle parts, especially the large solid-fuel rocket engines, were manufactured all over the US and assembled in Florida. To get there, they travelled by rail. But that meant that the parts had to fit on railway carts and be able to pass through tunnels. Thus, they had to follow the same standard. But where did this standard come from, remember? Key components of space shuttle design were decided 2,000 years ago by the width of two horse butts.

           That doesn’t seem very rational at all. History, habit, custom, tradition, convenience, and randomness sneak into our most advanced tech. That is what this book is about: rationality and technology. Or more precisely, the arationality of technology. As in the absence of rationality. 

But what is tech and technology? There are plenty of definitions. Some good, some bad, some just funny:

Alan Kay: “Technology is anything that was invented after you were born.”

Danny Hillis: “Something that doesn’t quite work yet.”

Edward Tenner: “By technology I mean humankind’s modification of its biological and physical surroundings.”

John G. Truxal: “Technology is simply the application of scientific knowledge to achieve a specified human purpose.”

Encyclopedia Britannica: “…the application of scientific knowledge to the practical aims of human life, or, as it is sometimes phrased, to the change and manipulation of the human environment.”

Terence Kealey: “Technology is the activity of manipulating nature.”

Ulf Edstam: “Technology is the use of knowledge, methods, and materials for the good of mankind.”

David Wootton: “…a set of techniques used to act on the material world…”

Sten Söderberg: “The art of doing the most with the least.”

Technology is a broad category. The most complex human creation is probably the internet, but under the label of “technology,” it is classified with sharpened rocks. When we hear the word “technology” we usually think of physical objects like cars or airplanes, but that is not necessarily the case. Consider the great computer advances in recent decades. These advances are mainly software rather than hardware. Computer code is also technology. More specifically, it is a type of information technology, like books and maps.

           But technology can be even broader than that, and also includes things like social systems and customs. For instance, banks, corporations, governments, laws, and double-page book-keeping are all important technologies. But they aren’t physical. Or at least not physical in the way a hammer or a clock is. Consider languages, for instance. Languages are technologies in that we create them and update them in order to achieve various purposes. But languages are also divided into many varieties, such as Japanese, Swahili, Swedish, or English. That would make them different forms of the same basic technology, like different brands of washing machine. All of them have their strengths and weaknesses.

Mankind now lives in an age of freedom, peace, and prosperity unmatched by any other historical era. Never have so many had it so good, never have we been so healthy and safe. In many cases, we have matched or exceeded the power of the ancient gods, the dreams of our ancestors. A central (or the central?) cause is technology. But questions of causation always lead backward. If tech caused prosperity, what caused tech? Aside from horse butts, that is.

           A common answer regarding technology’s origin is “rationality.” The story goes: Through rational thought, idealized as rationalism, Europeans started thinking more clearly and therefore started inventing things. Suddenly they understood the value of clear thought and avoided superstition. This supposedly happened in the eighteenth century, and it was called the Enlightenment. But there are many problems with this idea.

           What are these things, “rationality” and “rationalism?” When we say that we ought to be rational, we usually mean little more than “be clever!” If being rational is being clever, that would make rationalism the ideal of being clever, or “cleverism.” Unfortunately, “be clever!” is pretty useless advice. Not because it isn’t true, but because it is too obviously true. People all over the world try their best to be clever and don’t need to be told. The real problem is actually being clever. It is my belief that rationalism is itself a rationalization. And rationalizations are not very rational.

To conceal the emptiness of “be clever!” we instead say, “be rational!” We accept this cliché because “rational” sounds cleverer than “clever,” and people are less familiar with it. Thus, while we can easily see that “be clever!” is trite, we often miss that “be rational!” means the same thing. The desire to be right and clever is so broad that it unites everyone from religious fanatics, liberal, socialists, libertarians, conservatives, and hippie anarchists. Everyone wants to be right and does their best to be. That is not the point of contention. The point of contention is instead what it means to be right, or how to go about it.

           I am not attacking rationality itself. At least not defined as “being smart/right.” I assure the reader: I am all in favor of being both smart and right. I try to be both. What I attack is naïve rationalism, or the rationalization of things we don’t really understand. When it comes to the history and growth of technology, this is the idea that progress in the last few centuries comes from increased rationality.

           But if it wasn’t rationality, what was it? I will argue that the rise of the West and its technological progress was caused by arational processes, as in things in which rationality is absent or inapplicable. We have progressed by not thinking. This may seem counterintuitive, though by the end of the book I hope I will have changed that. The assumption that rationality leads to success is strong. It is also dangerous. And like most dangerous assumptions, it is dangerous because we don’t even recognize that it is an assumption.

“Rationality” is a vague concept. One definition is simply “correct thinking.” This isn’t helpful either. Just as we try to be clever, we also try to think correctly. For “be rational!” to be useful advice, it must go deeper than this. It must be a method or a way of thinking. Rationality cannot be success. It must be the path to success.

There are many definitions of rationality. Indeed, that there are so many rival definitions shows how vague a term it is. Rationality is associated with thinking, logic, intelligence, precision, clarity, knowledge, consciousness, intention, planning, thought, reason, and control; it is deliberate rather than spontaneous. Etymologically, the word comes from the Latin “ratio,” meaning “reason.” Thus, “rationalism” would be “reasonism.” To Steven Pinker, writing for Encyclopedia Britannica, rationality is, “The use of knowledge to attain goals.” To Nassim Nicholas Taleb, it is “survival.” To David S. Landes, it is “the adaptation of means to ends." To Henrik Brissman, rationalism is “faith in human reason and in humanity’s ability to solve various social problems.” The great rationalist philosopher Gottfried Leibniz embodied this faith in reason when he (allegedly) blurted out, “Let us calculate!” in the middle of a bar brawl. One would think that we would have a precise definition of what it means to think rationally, but we don’t. Rationality—precise thinking—is itself imprecise. ­

The opposite of rationality is irrationality. Most often, the irrational is thought to be stupid, crazy, emotional, contradictory. We usually use it as an insult. I won’t discuss irrationality much in this book. Just as rationality is little more than a fancy word for “right” or “smart,” “irrationality” is often just a fancy word for “stupid” or “crazy.”

But then there is the arational. The arational is the absence of rational thought. It is trial and error, instinct, evolution, tradition, the implicit, the unconscious, the uncontrolled, the unplanned, the informal, heuristics; it is usually unaware, unclear, unintentional, implicit, decentralized. It is neither rational nor irrational, since the concept doesn’t fit either definition.

           The evolution of biological life is the greatest marvel of the universe, and a great example of what arationality can achieve. Estimates of the number of known species range between 1.4–1.8 million, but the total number may be thirty times that. Every one of these species possesses an intricacy that no manmade object, no supercomputer or space shuttle, can match. Yet evolution isn’t rational. It is just a process of trial and error—and mostly error—where that which survives survives. No one controls evolution, no one designed it, no one intended it. Yet it has achieved marvels that put mankind’s greatest achievements to shame. Indeed, all our achievements are really the achievements of evolution, since evolution created us.

           It is well known that evolution dominates the biological world. But that something similar is true of our societies is less obvious. We didn’t build our societies by rationality or planning. This is a big part of why our societies are so hard to govern and to understand. We built them, but did not design them. It also explains why designed societies end in blood. In the modern age, the various communist states with their millions of victims are examples of this. Despite constant failure and uncountable victims, such rationalist ideals of societal intelligent design remain strong.

           The chief examples of arational systems in society are free market capitalism and democracy. Nobody controls, directs, or organizes the free market. That is what makes it free. Markets are great examples of collective but also decentralized rationality. Free markets work by dividing economic decision making among as many individuals as possible. This means that each individual need only worry about his immediate circumstances. This makes it impossible for elites to enforce their visions upon society, which explains why elites tend to hate free markets. That restraining elites is a good thing is shown by the world we live in. The freer the economy of a country is, the more prosperous it almost always is.

           Similarly, democracy is a way to allow the arationality of free markets into politics. Corporations—in politics called “parties”—compete for the favor of the customers, here known as “voters” or “citizens.” Just as with corporations in the market, political parties must evolve and adapt to customer preferences. The winner is the one who is best able to please people.

           But this is arational organization. After all, no one is really in charge. In a democracy, politicians have influence rather than power. A rationalist organization would, on the other hand, place people in charge. You can’t have rationalism without people around to rationalize stuff. Remember that rationalism prizes the aware, the intentional, the planned. But it is clear that not everyone has the skill to rule society. Thus, the rationalists argue, only those who do possess knowledge should rule. These are the experts, the elites. But the problem with this idea of putting the people who know in charge is that no one possesses such knowledge. The complexity of society is beyond any one individual.

           But one thing we humans are really skilled at is looking out for our own personal good. Usually, our rationality and knowledge are quite sufficient for that. We are good at seeing what is good for us. It is much easier to tell what is “good for me” than what is “good for everyone” or “good for society.” Or at least it is easier to act on it. This is just as true of elites as of other people. Elites know what is good for elites and they are good at convincing themselves that what is good for the elite is good for everyone. After all, the deplorable people would be lost without the gentle guiding hand, or the occasional kick.

           In this book, I hope to show that most of the good things in the world, things like science, technology, and prosperity, come from arational processes, controlled and planned by no one. This self-organization requires freedom, and explains why freedom, prosperity, and technology walk hand in hand.