This is a follow-up of the previous story: Accuracy of Data Stored in Human Brains. As promised, in this article I will analyze and present functional diagrams of two most distinct types of society.

It has been well known recently that the Homo sapiens species share about 99% of their DNA with chimpanzees and (just a little less) with bonobos. The typical reaction to this fact mainly reduces to the conclusion that this small difference is actually a huge one considering the obvious superiority of the humans.

Thе small DNA difference is crucial rather than huge. The biological advantage of the humans (contained in the 1% DNA difference) is, by and large, their much more powerful brain. The ability to think logically, discover, test and verify the laws of nature, and build technologies based on scientific knowledge is the key advantage comparing to other animals.

The fact is, this (approximately) 1% difference has accumulated over time as the body of collective knowledge has steadily increased by human ancestors’ continuous discovering of the laws of nature. Over the last 5 million years, during which time the human ancestors have evolved separately from the chimpanzee ancestors, the cumulative advance of our species has become extremely greater than the small 1% difference in the DNA, as a result of the ever increasing cumulative knowledge of Homo sapiens.

Analogy to contemporary societies

Similarly, one can explain why certain contemporary civilizations are more advanced than others. The collective knowledge based on science is greater in the more advanced civilizations on the planet. The more one society is stuck in ignorance, religiosity, belief in pseudo-sciences, paranormal phenomena, superstition and other irrational concepts — the poorer and more suffering that society is. But, let’s see how that works.

In most under-developed societies (categorized as Society A type in the previous article), a self-sustainable societal flow of irrationality seems to have been established. Why such a flood of irrationality? Because the vast majority of the population has been poorly educated and continuously misinformed by biased media for a long time (for decades if not longer). Therefore, most of the people have distorted perceptions of reality for most of the time. The following causal loop diagram illustrates the general functioning of these societal systems:

Society A: Average education level = LOW; Biased media