The current understanding was that it was impossible to predict how something would evolve because it was a very turbulent environment full of things interacting with each other.

There is nothing to be found in a beehive that is not submerged in a bee. And yet you can search a bee forever with cyclotron and fluoroscope, and you will never find the hive.

Preserve the core, and let the rest flux. In their wonderful bestseller Built to Last, authors James Collins and Jerry Porras make a convincing argument that long-lived companies are able to thrive 50 years or more by retaining a very small heart of unchanging values, and then stimulating progress in everything else. At times "everything" includes changing the business the company operates in, migrating, say, from mining to insurance. Outside the core of values, nothing should be exempt from flux. Nothing.

We are reaching deep within ourselves to adjust the master knob.

Our society lacks a feedback loop for controlling technology: a way to gauge intended effects from actual effects later on

Find the minimum amount of technology that will maximize your options.

Species go extinct because there are historical contraints built into a given body or a given design.