In a recent post, Stephen remarks:

Our current level of technology and civilization is not just the product of our scientific, political, and religious heroes. Fools and villains had a role too. Without the advancements the U.S. had to make to wage World War II - and those of captured Nazi scientists - it would not have been possible for the United States to put a man on the Moon in 1969. We wouldn't even have tried except for our contest with the "evil empire."

I'm not suggesting that we celebrate bad people for the work they force from good people. But the human network is capable of surprising advancement in spite of stress - and sometimes because of stress. It proves the cliche' "That which does not kill us makes us stronger."

It's true. Whether acting as individuals, nations, or an entire species, the human imperative is to improve the human condition. The challenges we face are either thrust upon us by nature or created by us. Whenever we solve a problem, we tend to overcompensate -- the additional value created sometimes becomes a new problem that needs to be solved, and sometimes allows us to enjoy new benefits that we weren't even looking for. An example of the first type of overcompensation is built into us genetically -- our ability to store fat on our bodies. Human beings developed that ability as a means of not starving to death, but now in places where food is abundant, human health suffers significantly when we allow too much fat to develop on our bodies. So we have new problems and we begin developing new solutions.

Stephen's example of the birth of the space program fits into the latter category of overcompensation. The problem the US government was solving was one of making sure that not all the missile experts from Nazi Germany ended up helping the Soviets figure out how to blow us to smithereens. Sending a man to the moon was partly the resolution of a new struggle that emerged and partly a tremendous bonus we got as a result of solving the first problem.

Something about Stephen's analysis sounded very familiar, but I couldn't quite place it. For some reason, it reminded me of the interview I did with John Smart a few years ago. I started reading back through the interview, and then it hit me:

In my own research, there has never been a catastrophe in known universal history (supernova, KT-meteorite, plague, civilization collapse, nuclear detonation, reactor meltdown, computer virus, 9/11, you name it) that did not function to accelerate the average distributed complexity (ADC) of the computational network in which it was embedded. It is apparently this learning of our immune systems that keeps the universe on a smooth curve of continually accelerating change. If there's one rule that anyone who studies accelerating change in complex adaptive systems should realize, it is that immunity, interdependence, and intelligence always win. This is not necessarily so for the individual, who charts his or her own unique path to the future but is often breathtakingly wrong. But the observation holds consistently for the entire amorphous network.

So the adage that "what doesn't kill us makes us stronger" does not apply just to humanity. If John Smart is right, there's a universal imperative which underpins the human imperative. The overcompensating that we do in the face of challenges isn't just an effective strategy; it's what sentient beings are bound to do in a universe driven by the Law of Accelerating Returns. Give the universe lemons, it makes lemonade. Being, as we are, a part of that same universe, human beings seem to have little choice but to do likewise.

I agree with Stephen that we shouldn't celebrate oppressors, even though fighting them may lead to more benefits than simply ending their oppression. Nor should we be happy when faced with problems like climate change or peak oil. But we should take comfort in the fact that any challenge we face is likely to result not only in a solution, but also in new, unanticipated value being added to the overall human equation -- along with new problems, allowing the cycle to begin again.

Lemonade, anyone?

(Cross-Posted to BetterHumans.)