> Why do there seem to be more examples of rapidly-completed major projects in the past than the present?
Because we have been shifting responsibility away from individuals who have the best knowledge to complete a task (I.e. engineers) towards managers. In software development, this can be seen by an increased focus on frameworks, statically typed languages, 100% test coverage, CI pipelines, code analysis tools; all designed to relieve developers from a sense of responsibility and ownership over the code and to give managers extra visibility.
> Why is US GDP growth so weirdly constant?
Because there is no growth. What looks like growth is just inflation of the dollar relative to the value of goods and services which underlie the GDP calculation.
> How do you ensure an adequate replacement rate in systems that have no natural way to die?
Abolish the Federal Reserve, introduce UBI. Trickle-up economics will bring back the free market because companies will compete to actually satisfy people instead of competing to manipulate them at the behest of their institutional paymasters.
> How do we help more experimental cities get started?
This is an artificial concept which does not align with free market dynamics. Does the market need experimental cities to begin with?
> How do people decide to make major life changes?
When they become deeply unhappy with their current situation.
> Could there be more good blogs?
Only in a free market. If visitor numbers are being shaped and suppressed by algorithms, there will not be any good blogs. It will devolve to mindless hedonistic garbage.
> Why are programming environments still so primitive?
Because simple tooling is essential. Complex programming environments will create more reliance on tools which will pull back the sense of responsibility from developers which will make them produce inferior work.
No amount of tooling can make a developer care more about the work; the more you automate a developer's work, the less they will feel as if it is their own work and the less they will care.
No tool cannot ever compensate for lack of care.
> What does religion cause?
It's a very positive force. People need to share ideals related to altruism and fairness in order to allow social contracts to remain coherent. People need to believe that if they do nice things for others, they will be rewarded with eternal life. Without this, most people will work only in their own self-interest and the whole capitalist system, which is rooted in the exploitation of the altruism of others, won't work.
Pervasive, single-minded self-interest is not compatible with capitalism. Capitalism needs somebody altruistic to exploit; religious people, young people, etc...
When capitalism runs out of altruists, it runs out of fuel.
> What influences when people act in accordance with their self-interest and when they don't?
People always act in accordance with their self interest or in the interest of their kin. If they think otherwise, they're lying to themselves.