Throughout this blog, I look for positive outcomes and improved results coming from increased human knowledge regarding big problems. I rather blithely say 'if we have doubled our knowledge regarding cancer, why aren't survival rates doubling?", and things like that.
But there is no reason to assume that this should be the case, and I know that. It could be that for a problem as difficult as cancer, a doubling of human knowledge will only produce a 10% improvement in survival rates. I don't know. I don't think anybody else does either. (For God's sake, if you do know, tell me.)
Intractable problems may not have a solution at all. Or we may need to multiply our knowledge 100 times before we can solve them.
But looking for a dramatic improvement in a problematic situation seems legitimate--and we have already found one specific instance where human knowledge has dramatically improved the outcomes of an intractable problem--battlefield survival rates.
So, fair warning. I'll continue to use language loosely and describe human knowledge and outcomes with only the metrics that Google proffers. On the other hand, if this blog ever starts gettng traffic, you will find me flexible about ways of improving both my language and my metrics.
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