The year was 490 BC. The Achaemenid-Persian Empire, founded by Cyrus the Great some 40 years prior was the dominant force in the intersection of modern Europe, Asia, and Africa, and was still expanding under one of its greatest administrators, Darius I (he was also called Darius the Great… there were lots of great folks this century). Through Darius’ reign, the empire controlled the largest fraction of the world’s population of any empire in history… 44% or better of the entire world population at the time.
But despite his and his predecessors’ incredible, historical successes, Darius had a problem in his empire. A fiery, rebellious, independent people to his west. A bunch of separate, non-unified city-states that, though often quarrelsome with each other, were all extremely vested in protecting their land, their culture, and their freedom. That rowdy bunch of rebel cities came to be known as Greece. Darius had already suffered a major rebellion led by the Greeks, and was determined to crush them into submission. He mobilized his massive army and headed west.
Come 490 BC, his campaign was advancing. The Persian force sailed into a bay near the town of Marathon, 25 miles from Athens. But those darn clever Greeks used their knowledge of their home terrain and topology to their advantage. The Athenians and an assisting force of Plataeans bunkered down in the two exits from the plain that were the only easy paths to Athens and greater Greece. The terrain prevented the Persian cavalry from aiding in the battle, and the infantry fell into a well-laid trap. The Greeks feigned a weak center, choosing to reinforce their flanks, and when the Persian army pushed into the center of the field, the Greek flanks collapsed inward, crushing the best Persian fighters and sending the rest scrambling back to their boats.
Realizing that the home city of Athens was still under threat from the Persian fleet sailing on the city with few standing defenses, the Greeks left a token resistance at Marathon and hastily marched the bulk of the army the 25 miles back to Athens. There, they once again prevented Darius from establishing a beachhead, and send the Persians home packing.
Historical speculation is tenuous, but it wouldn’t be exaggerating much to say that without the victory at Marathon, those of us here in the 21st century might look very different. The preservation of Greek culture against the invading Persians allowed the nascent “Western” culture that we enjoy today to continue to bloom.
To step even further onto the thin ice of historical speculation, imagine if the Persian forces could communicate as quickly as we do today. Let’s give Darius and his generals each a cell phone. What happens then?
Without question, the ability to communicate globally, instantly, as casually as we do today, if dropped in the middle of most human history, would be a complete game changer.
Now, rather than a cell phone, imagine you gave Darius and his men the material components of a cell phone.
A typical cell phone is in the realm of 150g of plastics, metals, ceramics, and some other trace stuff.
Darius probably would have looked at this handful of junk and discarded it. Maybe the metals would have been used to patch a piece of armor or fashion an arrowhead or spear tip.
2,500 years is a colossal amount of time when considering recorded human history. Still, the idea that any amount of time could turn a useless pile of materials into a tool that has changed the entire world is a humbling reflection of human progress. Even more humbling is the idea that something each of us carries around in our pocket all day and use primarily to watch cat videos and share partisan political memes is something history’s largest figures would have given vast wealth to gain access to.
But let’s get back to the point.
There are tons of theories on where economic growth comes from, but there are some central themes and concepts that stand out. The main ones we’re concerned with today are intensive and extensive growth.
To paint with a broad brush, intensive growth is “getting more out of the materials you already have,” where extensive growth is “getting more materials.” Darius’ flippant discarding of the materials of a cell phone is due to 2,500 years of intensive technological growth. Our present-day economy gets far more utility (usefulness) out of 150 grams of copper, iron, silicon, and petroleum, than the great Persian Emperors could have ever fathomed.
Over most human history, nations have warred over territory in an attempt to obtain extensive growth. When your people, your empire, are the sole focus of your leadership, taking someone else’s stuff is an easy way to grow. Subjugating your neighbors has historically meant more land, more resources, more labor at your disposal.
While we still squabble over international boundaries and territorial rights, humanity has just begun to enter an interesting stage of our development. We have, more or less, explored what our planet has to offer us. It sounds like science fiction, but early investors are beginning to look to other celestial bodies for resources. Serious people are talking about the possibility of mining asteroids and our neighbor planet Mars. It’s no doubt a field in its infancy, but the prospect is compelling – the materials contained within asteroids have been estimated in the tens of trillions, which, against the Gross World Product of around $75T, would constitute an immediate growth of the global economy by as much as 20%. If space mining is too far out to conceptualize, consider the amount of energy the sun throws at earth each day that could be captured to add a massive, constant resource to the otherwise closed system of earth.
And yes, all that is exciting and promising, at varying degrees. But most of us in the present world will probably never be a driving factor in achieving this kind of extensive growth. We happened to be born between the imperial and colonial eras and the economizing of space. Most of our lives and careers will be relegated to the far less sexy realm of small, incremental, iterative, intensive growth.
Being fully vulnerable with you, there was a stretch of years where I questioned whether working as a stress engineer in aerospace was a truly noble purpose. I always told myself that I was making better planes than the past, making them safer, and that those planes connected families and friends together, took people to new and exciting experiences, and greased the wheels of business and economic growth around the world. But my problem was, I never really connected with it. Running through loads iterations to take ounces of weight out of parts didn’t resonate with me, personally, as part of any meaningful progress. I think it’s a fairly common thing for people in their twenties to experience, and I’m no exception. Your formal education is complete, the excitement of getting into a “grown-up” job has started to fade, and you’re faced with that sense of normalcy, the realization that you’re not going to change the world so quickly, that for all your strengths and flaws, you’re not as special as you might have thought you were.
If you’re trying to think and feel your way through a similar existential crisis this little write-up probably isn’t going to be the lever that breaks you out of it. For me, it was reflection, continued learning, guidance from mentors, and consistent effort that finally broke me out of my negative feedback loop.
But maybe it will speak to someone. When I emerged on the other side, a more content, happy man, I realized that being a small part of something big is still doing big work. And sometimes, the work is so big you can’t comprehend it in a human lifetime. But that shouldn’t diminish your pride in what you do.
We all stand on the shoulders of giants. No one truly achieves greatness on their own. We may not be the first to set foot on a new planet, or pull the spoils of space back down to earth. But every time we prove a plane can be built with a little less metal, or fly a little further, or cost a little less, we’re contributing to a grand tradition of incremental growth that has propelled mankind to new eras, to the skies and beyond. Without the incremental change we fight for every day, quantum leaps wouldn’t be possible.
It’s a tradition we should be proud to play even a tiny part in.