anon_fibw said in #4621 2d ago:
New article attempts to explain a world becoming more individual, less eusocial, more elitist, more meritocratic, and more extreme.
https://archive.ph/WExz9
Overall I found this interesting, if discombobulated. It starts abruptly, ties in a range of disparate literature references, and ends abruptly.
The core argument is solid. I will summarize it here:
- The 20th Century was defined by Fordism: industrialized nations were able to make a large portion of their population productive by having them man the levers in factories and other, similar forms of 100-iq-friendly, standardized, process-optimized mass employment. This led to mass (sub-)urbanization and a sort of High Modern quasi-utopia in First World countries with ballooning native populations, reasonable prosperity, and low inequality.
- The underlying conditions for this are gone. Technology got too good.
- The 21st Century is therefore defined by asymmetric leverage via technology. The article covers Tyler Cowen's take (where the Internet accelerates what shipping started, global winner-take-all competition), Zero to One, and a few other classics. The article strangely fails to mention AI, but clearly that's adding fuel to the fire.
So far, this is all familiar background. The thrust of the article is this:
- The winning nations will lean into this Power Law future. They will renounce Fordism entirely. They will focus on unfair advantage, not raw population numbers; cultivating and retaining excellence, not any broad-based utilitarian concern. The birthrate itself may follow a power law, as top performers follow Elon's example and have dozens of children.
The article rejects both escapist fantasy (seasteading, Dubai, etc) and return fantasy (20th century productive mass employment). One is useless, the other unrealistic. Instead it points to a new kind of elite-driven technoaccelerationist nation state.
I offer three reactions:
1. If this future is correct, then legitimacy and consent of the governed will be the major challenge. A world where the top 10% are doing all the productive work and also having most of the kids is, by default, alienating and dystopic to the average Joe. Elections will become destructive unless we find powerful new organizational and cultural inventions that give regular people spiritually satisfying, prosocial roles.
2. San Francisco is, once again, the prototype lab for the future. It's a very small city with power-law everything. Increasingly tiny groups of people sitting on ever longer levers. Unfortunately, the example offers no relief. If this city is the coalmine canary demonstrating how the rest of the West's political economy will soon function, God help us.
3. The question posed by both (1) and (2) is this: how can wealth trickle down to the right people, and not to the wrong ones? Assume a world with fast growth driven by an ever-smaller fraction of the population, creating a huge surplus. If this surplus flows to elderly incumbents and dysfunctional, antisocial populations, then you find yourself in hell. If the surplus flows to artists, coffeeshops, other unprofitable small businesses with positive externalities, education and massive public works programs, you could imagine a better outcome.
https://archive.ph/WExz9
Overall I found this interesting, if discombobulated. It starts abruptly, ties in a range of disparate literature references, and ends abruptly.
The core argument is solid. I will summarize it here:
- The 20th Century was defined by Fordism: industrialized nations were able to make a large portion of their population productive by having them man the levers in factories and other, similar forms of 100-iq-friendly, standardized, process-optimized mass employment. This led to mass (sub-)urbanization and a sort of High Modern quasi-utopia in First World countries with ballooning native populations, reasonable prosperity, and low inequality.
- The underlying conditions for this are gone. Technology got too good.
- The 21st Century is therefore defined by asymmetric leverage via technology. The article covers Tyler Cowen's take (where the Internet accelerates what shipping started, global winner-take-all competition), Zero to One, and a few other classics. The article strangely fails to mention AI, but clearly that's adding fuel to the fire.
So far, this is all familiar background. The thrust of the article is this:
- The winning nations will lean into this Power Law future. They will renounce Fordism entirely. They will focus on unfair advantage, not raw population numbers; cultivating and retaining excellence, not any broad-based utilitarian concern. The birthrate itself may follow a power law, as top performers follow Elon's example and have dozens of children.
The article rejects both escapist fantasy (seasteading, Dubai, etc) and return fantasy (20th century productive mass employment). One is useless, the other unrealistic. Instead it points to a new kind of elite-driven technoaccelerationist nation state.
I offer three reactions:
1. If this future is correct, then legitimacy and consent of the governed will be the major challenge. A world where the top 10% are doing all the productive work and also having most of the kids is, by default, alienating and dystopic to the average Joe. Elections will become destructive unless we find powerful new organizational and cultural inventions that give regular people spiritually satisfying, prosocial roles.
2. San Francisco is, once again, the prototype lab for the future. It's a very small city with power-law everything. Increasingly tiny groups of people sitting on ever longer levers. Unfortunately, the example offers no relief. If this city is the coalmine canary demonstrating how the rest of the West's political economy will soon function, God help us.
3. The question posed by both (1) and (2) is this: how can wealth trickle down to the right people, and not to the wrong ones? Assume a world with fast growth driven by an ever-smaller fraction of the population, creating a huge surplus. If this surplus flows to elderly incumbents and dysfunctional, antisocial populations, then you find yourself in hell. If the surplus flows to artists, coffeeshops, other unprofitable small businesses with positive externalities, education and massive public works programs, you could imagine a better outcome.
referenced by: >>4625
New article attempts