Silver & Steel
a "master" framework for the human world
Six years ago, I created a master mental model called Silver and Steel to make sense of the human world.
Steel represents our power to influence the external world through science, technology, money. It is effectively what we would consider tangible performance and outcomes.
Silver represents presence, fulfillment, values, emotions, and the ability to use our Steel powers wisely.
As humans, we need both elements to thrive as individuals and as a society. As I learned more about the nature of creativity, I’ve also classified divergent thinking as Silver and convergent thinking as Steel.
Below is my original 2020 essay, which has withstood the test of time. I still rely on it to make sense of everything from people to companies to geopolitics. In 2021, it formed the basis for my first ever newsletter, before Expansion and Mind Map Nation.
To be honest, it didn’t gain much traction at the time because a) I hadn’t grown enough as a human and creator and b) the world hadn’t gone through enough chaos and change yet for it to matter to most people.
Fast forward to today with the rise of AI and increasing global strife, I feel it is time to reintroduce this model to you.
Silver & Steel
The purpose of this framework is to enhance inner understanding and outer power, so that we can live informed and fulfilled lives in this rapidly changing world.
The reality is that no one can keep up with the amount of new knowledge created or fathom what the future holds. In the face of complexity and uncertainty, it’s increasingly more important to know how to think rather than simply absorbing more information.
Steel represents our power to shape the external world using brains and brawn. Silver is our self understanding and ability to use that power wisely.
On this site, Silver-leaning content draw on philosophy, poetry, nature, and personal lessons whereas Steel content covers mind maps, analytical frameworks, technology trends and career strategies.
You can think of these as two swords at your disposal: Silver illuminates the unseen while Steel breaks down the complex. ⚔️
We become far more effective and human when we use the two in concert.
Welcome to Silver & Steel, an inquiry into how we can find harmony between the seemingly conflicting realms of the internal and external, meaning and power, wisdom and technology. The analogy of these two metals can be extended to many topics and themes that drive our world.
Most of us are Steel specialists because it’s what society rewards - we’re paid to use our Steel tools (engineering, logic, design, law, college degrees, muscles) to solve Steel problems (product development, business and GDP growth, scientific research, litigation, carpentry). This has gone on since the very origins of human organization. After all, it was humanity’s ability to harness literal steel that brought us into the Iron Age, laying the foundation for civilization.
Over the next several millennia, our scientific, technological, and organizational prowess grew. Today our rate of “Steel growth” is on an exponential trajectory. Yet human wisdom, or “Silver growth”, remains nearly unchanged, some may even argue it’s decreased, over the same time span.
Wisdom Doesn’t Scale with Technology
“I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinion of himself than on the opinion of others.”
Doesn’t the above quote seem like it would apply today? Marcus Aurelius wrote it over 2,000 years ago.
The words of the ancients still ring true, if not more so, to the modern human condition, speaking to the timelessness of both wisdom and of human nature. While our ability to influence the external world has drastically changed over the centuries, our grasp on our inner selves has not. As a result, each generation has been fated to repeat a process of progress, mistakes, reflection, and amnesia.
Each generation is fated to repeat a process of progress, mistakes, reflection, and amnesia.
This is reflected in historical cycles of peace and war, economic booms and busts, the rise and fall of nations, as well as our own periodic waves of joy and sorrow, greed and fear, pride and shame. The only difference is that the stakes become greater with each cycle as our mistakes carry greater impact and damage potential.
The exponential trend of our steel growth will not stop any time soon and nor should it. Steel-based progress has brought us out of many of the physical trappings of our predecessors, freeing us to pursue many of our higher level needs.
Life is less “nasty, brutish and short” (Hobbes) in modernity, but inequality plagues the lower levels and new obstacles arise as we struggle to fulfill our higher needs. Technology is trying to meet some of these needs with mixed results.
I am as hopeful as any other modern denizen about the bright potential of a technology-driven future. However, it is not as inevitable as the most vocal proponents of the tech sector would like us to believe. In reality, nothing is inevitable. As we are experiencing in real time, it feels as if we are regressing on many of the problems we thought were “solved” coming into the 21st century.
This is because many of these recurring obstacles are not technical or “Steel” in nature.
The Right Tool for the Job
To a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
As skilled Steel practitioners, we tend to overuse those same tools for problems that need a Silver touch, and end up frustrated when the results don’t meet our expectations. On the personal level, you’ll know this first hand if you’ve ever felt:
Burned out from being productive while not having a clear purpose
Empty while pursuing society’s standard of success
Fear at life’s uncertainties despite having many plans
Regret at hurting someone but can’t seem to reconcile
Trapped in a toxic relationship
Isolated because it’s hard to open up to others
On the societal level, this happens when we respond to ideological attacks with data and analysis, without asking whether empathy and generous listening might be a better solution. When When we design our platforms for communication and organization, the very source of our evolutionary advantage, only to reduce ourselves into quantifiable metrics whose sole purpose is to drive ever increasing rates of consumption measured in GDP.
The Long Term Vision
The next chapter of our collective growth will not only be in our technologies but also our discernment of their use. But before we can begin building solutions, we need to understand the problems. The larger goal of this framework is to forge a wider range of tools to aid in understanding the nature of problems and discerning the right approach to solve them.
This means asking more “why” questions, addressing our inherent biases, reaching out to different voices, and trying new ways of thinking. We can only begin changing once we understand ourselves and each other.
If you’re interested in diving deeper into this model, I lean on it in this short film that captures my hope for us humans in this post-AI, post-scarcity world:
I’m so glad you shared this again brother. It is a great reminder as I am currently in a time of recalibrating some finer details in life.
It also sparked an old concept that I had sitting in the back of my brain for decades that I never thought to elaborate on.
Thank you for the constant inspiration, reflections, and openness.