It was the 15th century and no one alive could possibly know the ultimate power and disruption that was about to occur. They were on the cusp of one of the greatest revolutions in history, the invention of The Printing Press.
The Printing Revolution occurred when the spread of the printing press facilitated the wide circulation of information and ideas, acting as an "agent of change" through the societies that it reached. The scale was something unthinkable before it began to take hold of the world. The European book output rose from a few million to around one billion copies within a span of less than four centuries. That is exponential growth!
The democratization of knowledge. This was the birth of mass information, in the form of now up to date newspapers. And the birth of the first scientific journal. Imagine working on an idea as an inventor or scientist, and there was one piece of the puzzle missing. But now people were able to make discoveries on their own and share that to the masses of the community. The philosopher, scientist, inventor now had access to this rapidly accessible and updatable information. In turn, they were able to take what was collective knowledge and add to it, then putting that back out to the hive. This was a complete shift in the way we understand ideas and collaboration, this is what gave rise to major technological innovations, philosophical breakthroughs, and scientific revolutions.
We now stand on the cusp of a new revolution. Communication technologies have never been more powerful.
There's a second layer of collaboration that is now accessible thanks to the digital revolution that we are currently riding out, and that is the Open-Source Model. A decentralized network that encourages open collaboration. There is a beautiful culture that currently exists where individuals are willing to share blueprints to something they've been working on in their garage. They set it free to the masses. They know the wisdom of the crowd in the marketplace of ideas will always improve it. The more collaborators in the hive, the more wisdom and creativity is allowed to make the greatest iterations of the original, until it reaches the bounds of physics.
By utilising current systems of technology, the total democratization of knowledge, open source collaboration, and decentralized communication is possible. But more than that, like those before the birth of the printing press, what unthinkable wonders and innovations await creation by the magical collaboration of Like Minds?