202504051620
Status: #idea
Tags: #institutions #society #government
# Intellectual dark matter holds our society together
Given the visible matter in the universe, gravitational attraction would not be strong enough to hold together galaxies, and so we would expect them to fly apart. However, they don't. This led to the theory of dark matter - matter that produces gravitational effects but doesn't produce any visible radiation.
Similarly, the explicit knowledge we can see (books, video lectures, etc.) are not sufficient to imitate the most successful institutions in our civilization. For example, reading books on Amazon will not lead you down a step-by-step path to create a trillion-dollar, globe-spanning logistics network. Hence, in order for these institutions to form and perpetuate themselves, there must be huge amounts of hidden knowledge" which Samo Burja calls "intellectual dark matter".
This intellectual dark matter includes tacit knowledge, lost knowledge, and proprietary knowledge:
1. **Tacit knowledge** - knowledge that is not easily articulated and must be observed and assimilated implicitly, such as how to effectively deal with clients or inspire subordinats
2. **Lost knowledge** - knowledge that was once known but whose intellectual tradition was not continued
3. **Propietary knowledge** - knowledge within an institution that is not legible to those outside of that institution
## Related Ideas
- [[Maintaining functional institutions requires skill succession and power succession]]
- [[Creative destruction is required because we haven't solved the succession problem]]
- [[Great institutions require planning and insight from the beginning]]
- [[Social technologies are the operating system for a civilization]]
- [[The Completeness Hypothesis justifies broad learning]]
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# References
[[Great Founder Theory]]