# The Age of Choice By:: [[Brian Heath]] 2022-10-15 We are no longer in the age of information. We've entered the age of choice. The age of choice is a synthesis of the past two ages (the age of information and the age of enlightenment). Before the information age and plentiful data, we relied on thought experiments and intellectual extrapolations. We had to think long and hard about problems as data and computing were expensive. This age arguably saw the quickest acceleration of human advancement in recorded history. Einstein, Nietzsche, Turing, and Von Neumann to name a few. Putting these thoughts into action proved challenging with many missteps along the way. But it created the prosperity and conceptual space for many individuals to explore ideas themselves. Demand for information increases and costs decline. Nearly everyone had information at their fingertips. In the information age, we had so much data and computing power that thinking took a back seat. It became more expensive to think than to crunch the numbers. The rise of the Internet and supercomputers in our pockets meant we no longer needed to think. Answers already existed somewhere. Eventually, we lost our agency. Competing information crept into our pockets, and soon we couldn't discern fact from fiction. We didn't know how to choose as value systems eroded as predicted by many philosophers. To move forward, we must learn how to choose from so many alternative paths and competing arguments. This requires thinking and discovering value systems that recognize some alternatives as viable and acceptable. Truth is relative. We need to find meaning or, better yet, let meaning find us from the information we choose to explore and the decisions we choose to make. Individuals must take agency and choose their path - not let others artificially choose it for them. To get there, we need to evolve systems that reduce the cost of thinking. What do such systems look like? That's the challenge for the age of choice. #### Related Items [[Choice]] [[Information]] [[Data]] [[Thinking]] [[Philosophy]] [[Value]]