Growth Trajectory of Humanity Based on Maslow's Model

Abraham Maslow proposed his theory of human development, in the 1940s, which posits that human motivation can be understood through a hierarchical structure of needs. The hierarchy comprises five ascending levels: physiological, safety, social, esteem, and self-actualization.

Each level represents a category of needs that must be satisfied before an individual can focus on the needs of the subsequent level. The importance of Maslow's hierarchy lies in its ability to provide insight into human behavior and motivation, offering a framework for understanding the complex interplay between an individual's needs and growth. This framework can be useful in understanding the growth trajectory of humanity as a whole as well.

Global efforts have led to improved living conditions and access to essential resources, such as clean water and food, thereby fulfilling the physiological needs of a significant portion of the world population. Furthermore, safety needs are being met through advancements in safety regulations and structures and lesser armed conflict relative to the past. Although there is still a lot of work to be done, significant progress has been made in meeting the basic needs of many people around the world.

I postulate that humanity's biggest challenge is at the esteem needs level.

Esteem needs refer to an individual's need for a sense of worth. These needs are related to the development of a positive self-image and confidence, which contribute to overall psychological well-being. Esteem needs can be divided into two categories, internal versus external.

Internal esteem needs encompass self-confidence, self-respect, and a sense of personal competence or mastery. Internal esteem needs are satisfied through personal achievements, growth, and the development of skills or talents. External esteem, on the other hand, involves gaining recognition, respect, and appreciation from others. External esteem needs are fulfilled through social validation, status, reputation, and acknowledgment of accomplishments or abilities.

Both internal and external esteem needs are essential for building self-esteem and fostering a sense of personal value. However, a healthy balance between the two is crucial to avoid over-reliance on external validation or excessive self-focus, which can be detrimental to personal growth, interpersonal relationships, and societal dynamics.

I believe that humanity, as a collective, is stuck at this level because of an unhealthy focus on external validation.

In the agricultural era, dependency on individuals for the survival of the group made obedience and external approval crucial.

In the industrial era standardization of individuals became necessary to turn them into replaceable pieces of a big system. People steering off from that standardization were punished by external invalidation.

The advent of social media in the information age has intensified the problem with the constant sharing of accomplishments, opinions, and personal experiences has created an environment in which people actively seek validation and recognition from the whole world. As it’s extremely hard to gain the validation of the whole world, we created an impossible game to win. 

Going forward toward the AI age we should aim to create a society where it is easy for individuals to satisfy their esteem needs in adaptive ways.

I believe we can accomplish that by attributing inherent worth to humans and enabling individuals to contribute to the greater community in their own ways.

Due to our evolution as highly social animals, we developed a need for the contribution that serves to build our esteem both internally and externally.

Even if AI and robotics end up taking over most jobs we can (and should) still come up with ways to enable people to contribute in the unique ways they find fulfilling.

Whether these contributions can be considered “work” or if they require people to have “jobs” are questions that should be answered with the zeitgeist. 

Burning Man, a large-scale social experiment, has already demonstrated people’s willingness to contribute in the absence of any explicit rewards. 

If we succeed in satisfying our need for esteem to a certain extent, we can unlock the next level need; self-actualization. This level represents the ultimate goal of growth and self-discovery, where humanity strives to realize its full potential and unique attributes.

Future of Growth

I imagine a future, where people can follow their natural curiosities and interests early in life without getting squashed by the need of leading to a prestigious and high-paying job or by the standardization of current education systems. 

We can democratize intellectual pursuits with easy access in any language and any location accessible by the internet. AI-driven educational tools can adapt to individual learning styles and close knowledge gaps.

Tailored systems can be designed to foster critical thinking, problem-solving, and intellectual curiosity. We can live in a future where kids' natural curiosity and enthusiasm are not crushed by the inflexible and standardized education systems of the past. Their inner-directedness (inborn desire to grow and improve) can be supported and enhanced in a way never possible before. 

AI has the potential to revolutionize education and knowledge acquisition that can enable humans to have flexible and individualized learning experiences that can help us discover abilities currently unknown to us. This enabling, together with AI’s potential in helping us understand the universe in an advanced manner can catapult our cognitive abilities to new heights.

Based on Maslow’s higher-order needs model we can predict that once our cognitive needs are met to a certain extent, our need for beauty, balance, and harmony will be activated.

In this period, we can divert our attention to how to respect and preserve the beauty of life, and the beauty of our planet and to create harmony between people and other species so that we can have a more balanced and thriving planet. 

If we can achieve this and allow humanity to become all it can be, we can consider the goal of superhumanism accomplished.

If successful, I predict, the superhuman era will be followed by a self-transcendence stage where the focus will be transcending the limits and going towards something greater and more complex, possibly to directions that possess a spiritual essence.

All this of course is only possible if we can solve the AI alignment and other existential problems, and reform our values & incentives in time to avert dystopian potentials.

It's crucial for us to keep both opportunities and dangers in our big picture. While a positive vision is necessary, naive optimism will be deadly.

May we pass the test of wisdom at this junction of history...