Tool Making

Tools^† extend the reach of our species by granting us compounding abilities; one tool begets another and potentially millions more.

Tool making allows Homo sapiens to bypass numerous constraints of evolution. Instead, our species can adapt much more rapidly than is otherwise possible. This ability, virtually unrivaled in the known universe, is a force multiplier for our adaptation.

They're sub-microscopic and made of organic molecules, rather than macroscopic and made of silicates or steel but, at the molecular level, life was tool-making and tool-using at the start. Carl Sagan & Ann Druyan, Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors

Which advantages does a tool grant its user? How much time and computation does it save them? How much more effective can they be in the real world? The better the tool, the more fitness is bestowed upon its user.

Poorly designed tools, like many traits lost in eons of evolution, are inefficient, or not sufficiently useful and risk being supplanted.

To play our part in this process, started billions of years ago, we should create tools that grant their users maximum fitness at minimal cost.