Innovation Richter Scale: How Much Do Technology and Ideas Change World History?

Innovations have huge impacts on humanity. But which ideas matter the most? Sam W. Harris builds out a system to rank world change and compare the impact of technology and inventions.

It's easy to tell that the invention of Writing itself is more important than Velcro. But... Is Netflix more important than Baseball? Has TikTok changed the world as much as the Longbow? Was Steve Jobs more impactful than Henry VIII?

History has opinions. It's time to sense check what matters to humanity and the future and what is just noise.

Headlines are beyond useless when everything seems so important these days: This war will BREAK the economy If you feed your toddler THIS, you don't deserve to be a parent A new iPhone update changes EVERYTHING...

So it's time for a scale to measure global impact. The Innovation Richter Scale: A 1 to 10 rating system to rank anything you can think of; from a Gillete safety razor to the future of AI

NOTE - This episode expands on the Technological Richter Scale proposed by Nate Silver.

ABOUT

How to Change the World is an independent podcast documenting the entire history of innovation. One world-changing event at a time. In the process we are building out frameworks and mental models to think more coherently about global change and the future of technology.

Learn more and contact us - ChangeTheWorldPod.com

Written, edited, recorded, and produced by Sam Webster Harris. (incl the music)

Help from: Designs - Francisca Correia (available to hire) Mentorship - Jeremy Enns (available to hire)

References

Nate Silver - One The Edge (2024) Nate's book is about risk analysis and the future of AI. The final chapter proposes a Technological Richter Scale, with a page on how to use it.

Zvi Mowshowitz - AI and the Technological Richter Scale (2025) A good summary of Nate's ideas, on how the scale applies to AI. Also quotes Nate's page guide for each level and argues a few changes.

Chapters: 00:00 Innovation Richter Scale 01:47 Why create a Scale? 03:47 Earthquake Metaphor 06:16 Invention, Innovation, Technology 06:56 Ranking Magnitude not Morality 08:08 The Innovation Richter Scale - Level 1 - 10 08:11 Level 1 - Shower thoughts 08:29 Level 2 - Actioned Idea (In private) 08:49 Level 3 - Public ideas (Not popular) 10:17 Level 4 - Popular and commercial ideas 11:08 Level 5 - Defining Brand 12:38 Level 6 - Innovation of the year 15:59 Level 7 - Innovation of the Decade 18:19 Level 8 - Innovation of the Century 21:29 Level 9 - Innovation of the Era 23:53 Level 10 - Species Epoch 28:31 Part 2 - Using the scale 29:45 Weapons & Tools of Death - Brands, Categories and Concepts 33:58 Politics & Population Impact - Local, Continental and Global 38:00 Questions without answers 38:38 Sports & Religion - Emotional Impact and Purpose 41:01 Peter Thiel and Chess 41:47 Religion and Personal Beliefs in interpreting the scale 43:33 Roundup conclusions Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.