Curtis Yarvin suggests that it is useful to conceptually distinguish between improvements in our lives brought about by more advanced technologies and improvements brought about by better social organization, better governance, and so forth. The fact that we have iPhones today, whereas a generation ago we did not know them, does not by itself imply that today’s economic and political order is better than the one that preceded it.
From this perspective, however, we must take into account one important and ubiquitous aspect. Every new technology—and, in fact, every improvement in our standard of living—comes with a certain loss of capabilities. Medieval peasants would presumably not have survived if they had been forced to fight saber-toothed tigers and cave bears with sticks and flint. Nineteenth-century workers would probably not have fared well in the early Middle Ages. And most of us would struggle to live the kind of life people led before the invention of electricity and the internal combustion engine.
A certain loss of capabilities, then, is not in itself a sign of decline, provided that it is offset by the acquisition of other capabilities. Those new capabilities need not reside directly in individuals. They may take the form of better social organization, a more efficient division of labor, and a greater capacity for cooperation.
A logical objection arises: If losing the ability to hunt a mammoth is not a form of decline, why should losing the ability to solve a rule-of-three problem be considered one? The answer is that the loss of the ability to solve a rule-of-three problem need not be regarded as decline if it is offset by the acquisition of another capability that expands our technological possibilities, increases efficiency and prosperity, extends life, and improves safety and stability, among other things.
And one more point deserves emphasis: A wisely governed society also pays attention to the development of individual capabilities and to preparedness for a range of crisis situations.