Gemini:

That’s a great follow-up!

The concepts of Eric Beinhocker and the Polycene are central to the argument of the article.

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Here is a breakdown of what they are and how they connect:

 Eric Beinhocker: The Division of Knowledge

Eric Beinhocker is the executive director of the Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School. In the article, he argues for a shift in understanding how global value is created. His core idea is that the world economy is now built on:

• Dynamic, “interdependent webs” of knowledge, skills, technology, and trust. This is the “bringing together” you asked about—the pooling of capabilities across borders.
• The Division of Knowledge is the more powerful engine than the traditional division of labor (Adam Smith’s concept).
• The Result: When capabilities are pooled globally, we can solve complex problems and make complex things (like microchips or vaccines) cheaper and faster than any single country could do alone.

In short, Beinhocker helps explain the mechanism of global complexity and efficiency—it’s not just about one country specializing, but about many actors combining their specialized knowledge into an interconnected network.

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 The Polycene: The New Era

The Polycene is the term—coined by Craig Mundie—that the article’s author, Thomas L. Friedman, proposes for the new historical era we are now in, succeeding the Post-Cold War era.

• Etymology: It is derived from the Greek word poly, meaning “many.”
• Definition: The Polycene is an epoch characterized by multiple, interconnected systems giving way to old binary (two-part) systems.
• Examples of “Poly” systems mentioned in the article:
  • Cognition: The shift toward polymathic Artificial General Intelligence (AGI).
  • Chips: The move from binary chip designs to polymorphic and parallel-processing ones.
  • Climate: The crisis is now a polycrisis—cascading, interlinking environmental and societal disasters.
  • Geopolitics: The world is moving toward polycentric and polyamorous alignments (multialignment).
  • Society: Communities are becoming polymorphic (multicultural, multi-faith).

The concept of Beinhocker’s “interdependent webs” is a key part of the Polycene era, specifically within the new poly-economic networks that define global trade. Would you be interested in an example of how a poly-economic network creates a complex product, like the one described for the smartphone chip?

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Edwin Cohen:

This is wonderful info and explanation; YES, please show me the example. Thank you.

Gemini:

That’s great! The article provides a perfect, concrete example of how the “poly-economic networks” and the division of knowledge work in the Polycene era.

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 The Smartphone Chip Example

The chip in your smartphone is the prime example of how an “interdependent web” of knowledge, skills, technology, and trust is pooled across multiple countries to create something highly complex, cheaper, and faster than any single country could achieve alone.

Key Takeaway

This intricate process highlights Eric Beinhocker’s point that the Division of Knowledge is the more powerful engine today. Value is not created by a single country specializing in one stage (like assembly) but by many actors combining their most advanced, specialized knowledge into one seamless global ecosystem—a poly-economic network. This interdependence is a core defining feature of the Polycene era.

The article also touches on other “poly” concepts, such as Polycrisis and Polymathic AGI. Would you like to explore another example, perhaps how the polycrisis dynamic links different systems (like climate and migration)?

Edwin Cohen:

Yes please inform me about POLYcrisis and the POLYmathic AGI … impacting or creating additional “events” and “issues” to be better understood. Today.

Gemini:

That’s a fantastic request, as Polycrisis and Polymathic AGI are two of the most significant forces defining the Polycene era today. They both dramatically increase the complexity and speed of change, creating new, unpredictable events and issues.

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 The Polycrisis: Crisis Entanglement

The term Polycrisis, popularized by historian Adam Tooze and deeply explored by environmental tutors like Johan Rockström and Thomas Homer-Dixon, describes a situation where multiple, distinct global crises interact in ways that the combined impact is far greater than the sum of the individual parts. It’s not just many crises; it’s a single, complex knot of deeply entangled crises.

The Impact: Cascading Events and Inter-Systemic Feedbacks

The key to understanding Polycrisis is recognizing how a shock in one system instantly triggers negative effects across others, creating a cascade.

As noted by Rockström and Homer-Dixon, this is driven by:

1. Weakening Natural Systems: Humanity’s consumption and pollution output are weakening Earth’s interconnected life-support systems (like climate stability).
2. Vast Connectivity: The “interdependent webs” of our economic and social systems mean a crisis in one country or sector can quickly spread and amplify in others, defying borders and making local problems global.
   

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 Polymathic Artificial General Intelligence (AGI)

Polymathic AGI is the holy grail of the AI revolution and a central driver of the Polycene. It is not just about a computer being smart at one thing (like today’s Narrow AI), but about a machine that can:

• Master multiple, diverse disciplines (physics, history, finance, chemistry) better than any human.
• Reason across all of those disciplines simultaneously at a high-dimensional level.
• Produce breakthrough insights that no human could ever achieve.

The Impact: Species-Level Turning Point

The development of Polymathic AGI introduces profound issues and potential events:

• Automation of Cognition: It shifts the boundary of discovery from what humans can imagine and program to what computers can discover, imagine, and design on their own.
• Rapid, Unpredictable Innovation: Polymathic AGI could solve grand challenges like climate change and disease or, conversely, be used to create unparalleled destruction, like advanced chemical/biological weapons, at superhuman speed.
• Geopolitical Power Shift: The race for AGI is seen as a key determinant of the future geopolitical order.