I suspect this appears to be true but it is an illusion. This is because although you're right there's an incredible complexity to manage - we've been actually doing that using abstraction for a long time by inventing black boxes - sometimes literally white coloured boxes like fridges and washing machines that take away the necessity of thinking about the nuance in domain X but also the development of ideas that abstract out.
We can also make something look very complicated if we try, by switching context, multitasking, improper coordination.
The natural world (think of coal mining, making bicyles, stream engines) always looks very challenging if you're starting out.
> It's also important to distinguish between projects that are deep vs. broad (i.e. those solved by new thinking vs. those solved by scaling up).
Agree.
> As technology has advanced, deep projects just get deeper. Although each level of technology builds on the last, there is still complexity added at every level.
But we see conceptually simple projects everywhere that aren't being done!
We literally use the same tech to construct roads as the Romans. That is trillions of dollars in maintenance.
We know that natural sunlight and biomes would improve people's health in buildings where we spend 99% of our time. We just don't do anything about it apart from a window and a potted rubber plant or two.
We clean our butts with paper! The Koreans and Japanese had this one solved years ago!
There is no great wealth of complexity in any of these - it's just that we've decided not to think about them for legacy reasons.
We can also make something look very complicated if we try, by switching context, multitasking, improper coordination.
The natural world (think of coal mining, making bicyles, stream engines) always looks very challenging if you're starting out.
> It's also important to distinguish between projects that are deep vs. broad (i.e. those solved by new thinking vs. those solved by scaling up).
Agree.
> As technology has advanced, deep projects just get deeper. Although each level of technology builds on the last, there is still complexity added at every level.
But we see conceptually simple projects everywhere that aren't being done!
We literally use the same tech to construct roads as the Romans. That is trillions of dollars in maintenance.
We know that natural sunlight and biomes would improve people's health in buildings where we spend 99% of our time. We just don't do anything about it apart from a window and a potted rubber plant or two.
We clean our butts with paper! The Koreans and Japanese had this one solved years ago!
There is no great wealth of complexity in any of these - it's just that we've decided not to think about them for legacy reasons.