Hyper-novelty is an idea that has gained some popularity in heterodox and IDW (intellectual dark web) circles, mostly thanks to the work of Dr. Bret Weinstein and Dr. Heather Heying. The gist of hyper-novelty is that as technology has progressed at a exponential rate, it has outrun out natural ability to adapt to our changing environment, be it our psychological environment, our biochemical environment, or our social environment.
“…the amazing rate of change that we ourselves have created is itself deranging us and making it very difficult to understand how to be human and how to remember how to be human…”
- Dr. Heather Heying on the Dr. Jordan B. Peterson podcast Ep. 2161
I would add that an important component of hyper-novelty intersects with humans natural decision making processes. The argument goes something like this; as novelty expands exponentially, branches of available choices for both individuals and groups also expand at an exponential rate. There are two possibilities upon generation of a new branch, expansion or contraction (see Stephen Wolfram’s multiway causal graphs). Hyper-novelty is a recursive expansionary function of the cause and effect duality.
I like to visualize this as fractals or as branchial space (to borrow terminology from Wolfram), the Weinstein’s have a similar way of viewing decision making called the “decision tree.” I believe it is important to incorporate the idea of hyper-novelty into the decision tree idea because it can give you a top down view of the potential for an infinite fractal of decisions that can come from novelty. This can give you some perspective and foresight such that you can “step away” from those novelties that are recursive and damaging.
Based on a axiom of both self preservation and human preservation, viewing hyper-novelty through the lens as described in the first section leads me to a conclusion, and behaviors to operate in the frameworks established by that conclusion.
Conclusion: When one encounters “novelty”, the dataset for the novelty is necessarily smaller than when you encounter “legacy” phenomenon. This inherently decreases ones ability to do things like risk/reward assessment.
Behavior changes based on conclusion: In a situation where you’re faced with novelty it is advisable to take deliberate and decisive action to increase the amount of data in your dataset before proceeding. At the individual level this might look like researching the potential health affects of exposure to the chemicals included in a newly formulated cleaning product before adoption for use in your home. At the collective level it might mean holding off on approval of novel treatments for ailments. As with anything, adopting this behavior has its own costs and benefits.
The cost: By adopting this framework and exercising caution on a decision where a dataset is small, you will likely lose some benefits by not having the first mover affect or by the fact that being risk averse generally means that you’re sacrificing potential reward for the safety (perceived or realized) of not acting upon and unknown.
The benefit: Risk aversion in a situation where a dataset is small offers protection from unknowns and unknown unknowns. A great example of restraint in decision making and adoption of of novelty is the Amish in the united states. They have adopted a arguably adaptive behavior that has allowed them to thrive in many areas in comparison to groups who embrace novelty. The Amish have lower rates or cancer2, lower crime rates3, and suffer less of the ill effects of hyper-novelty due to their cultural practice of disallowing adoption of new technology. My recommendation here isn't to hold the Amish as a standard but to understand the reasoning behind their cultural practices and incorporate similar underlying practices while simultaneously retaining the benefits of modernity.
There are several ways in which we can incorporate this framework into our everyday lives.
Understanding our biology: The simple way to put this is to understand what we are as animals. For example, novelty gives us a plethora of ways to disrupt our sleep such as blue light from screens. Sleep is an integral part of health and wellbeing. So the question this framework should have you asking is something like this; because these behaviors surrounding my sleep cycle are novel and not a function of my biology, should I continue these behaviors? The answer is no. This is a simple but powerful tool. Another example might look something like this; This vessel I use to carry my water in is made of of a new material, the bio-chemical affects on the human body from ingestion of the constituent compounds of this new material are unknown. Given that fact, until at least the same amount and quality of safety data is gathered, ought it be can assumed to be safer to use a time tested material with a larger safety dataset such as glass or ceramic? Using this tool the answer to that question would be yes.
Once you understand and incorporate this decision making tool into your toolkit it can have a profound difference on your quality of life. I am currently working on a project that incorporates this idea to reduce the amount of exposure to novel chemical materials by connecting individuals to products with a large safety dataset. I will announce this officially when it gets closer to completion.