It is my opinion that humans aren’t very smart, most social improvements are the byproduct of technological change and technology is really math and accidents with increments of change that result from failures.

Let’s begin with the greatest change in human life.  It’s what happened in Amsterdam in the first decade of 1600.  The whole story of ‘the Enlightenment’ is best told by Jonathan Israel.  His name just about says it all.  Amsterdam is where the Jews of Spain and Portugal were driven by the Jew hating Catholics of Spain and Portugal.  The Dutch were a decent people with a flair for commerce and a weak social hierarchy.  The Jews brought education, deep thought, math and respect for erudition.  They also had vast networks to spread information.

Several technologists, probably working with eye glasses, put a few pieces of shaped glass together and got a telescope and a microscope.  Pairs of glass that humans immediately used to look at the heavens and at living cells.  Humans in an environment like Amsterdam, can’t help but look at everything.  From a tiny amount of curiosity came the explosion of knowledge we call the ‘Enlightenment’.