100 years of whatever this will be

Every non-tech item in their list is evergreen. Artists impoverished and rich getting richer and not new things.

> Example, the value that money represents is a single value. But why is it a scalar and not a vector? For example, why isn't everything priced with a value and a carbon cost? That would make prices vectors instead of scalars. In fact people value things across many dimensions and have to come up with a price, a single value. Imagine playing a video game where, instead of 3d vectors, everything is represented as the length of the vector. That's a lot of information that is just thrown away.

The whole value of monetary prices is that they're fungible - rather than having to compare the value of things in x different dimensions, you reduce everything to that scalar concept of value.

> In fact, markets have a known flaw called externalities. This flaw is created partly from the fact that value is a scalar. This flaw is so severe that major pollution has been created by economic activity (global warming, ozone, etc) that risks all life on this planet.

On the contrary, having value be a scalar is the solution, because it allows us to make tradeoffs between value and pollution. Cap and trade works (it worked for acid rain); the missing part is the will to actually do it.

All that said, you might be interested in China's "social credit" system - that's the main example I know of this concept of "vector value", because it exists to impose a standard of behaviour on individuals that's not tradeable and fungible.

It's fascinating to me that some commenters react to this essay saying it's "profoundly insightful" when my first reaction was it's very vague and fully of major inconsistencies.

Here is just one example: he opens his argument calling Western societies a "systemic train wreck" and yet concludes toward the end: "As a society, we are so much richer, so much luckier, than we have ever been"

Which is it? Are we a trainwreck or are we rich & lucky?

Most of his assertions about 'trends' are just wrong.

100 years ago:

- They would sometimes shoot strikers - Strikers and owners faced off in literal violent battle - There was no socialized healthcare, fire or emergency services - College was for the ultra elite, even by 1960 only 7% were going to Uni. - A lot of workers just died. Colorado River was dammed at the cost of dozens of lives to 'Keep It On Schedule' - Blacks used the back entrance, and their grandparents were literally slaves - 'Art' was something people did in their spare time, and there were very, very few opportunities for true artists. - People didn't travel for vacations etc. that was for the rich only. - The legal system was much more classed than even it is today. - 'The Rich' 100% controlled the news. It's why they owned papers.

The material standard of living for regular people has increased immensely for everyone, to the point that people now live in general relative abundance and safety which would have only been the privy of the 0.1% before.

I also don't buy at all the notion that 'decentralization' is in any way some kind of magical advantage for the commons.

We have Health Officers and International Orgs like the WHO and academic institutions in order to do things, like coordinate and understand the impact of things like COVID.

Note that in most of those systems, there is some degree of 'Centralization' but also 'Decentralization' -> Universities may have some authority, but there are many of them.

For information for example, 'full decentralization' means the absolute most ridiculous concepts becoming the most popular (i.e. QAnon) and semi-fabricated ideas about all sorts of things. Especially those that target 'out groups'.

There is no substitute for thoughtful, conscientious and legitimate leadership across all elements of society.

Although there's probably some room for decentralization in some areas, maybe currency, as long as currency is managed within some reasonable range by the Central Banks, and you don't hold a lot of cash (cash was not meant to be a store of value), then even then, the Central Bank is not that-that bad.

Enthusiasm is good. CAP isn't going away.