Economics of Human Energy
Thoughts about how money and human energy relate
Economics of Human Energy
Vitalik Buterin • Against Choosing Your Political Allegiances Based on Who Is "Pro-Crypto"
We need ways to filter, validate, and value large amounts of information. Traditionally, this has been limited to the wealthy in the form of “experts”
Our Centaur Future - A RADAR Report
When you think about the future, you spend a little energy now to optimize what will come later
Each technology not only unlocks a new state of expanded acceleration (that will be hardcoded into our lives as the new basis for our survival), but will also be used as the basis for new technologies to continue that process. The vast majority of people do not experience this technology as ‘liberating’ them. Rather, they experience it as something... See more
Our Centaur Future - A RADAR Report
Because we don’t think about valuing the work to be done in the future, only the work to be done now, we don’t give people space to explore what the future holds. Instead, we stress people out by giving them vague possibilities of an uncertain future with no time to explore them. By giving people the time, space, and freedom to explore what the future might hold, they will find abundant futures that are bright and exciting. Those are the futures they will work to actively create.
I like the term economism . It describes how economic thinking and practice have become ingrained into all sorts of aspects of our lives, even non-economic ones. In today’s world governed by economism , everything seems to need to be measured by economic logic: am I using my time efficiently?
Rabbit Holes 🕳️ #78
Haven’t heard this term before, but I think it follows from the collapse of things into measurements. We started with measuring money as a collapse of information, and that led to collapses of other aspects of the world as a proxy for money where money isn’t available to measure value.
By the simplification-as-collapse theory, good futures, ones worth working for, are by definition going to be too complex to be legible before we’ve actually lived through them. If you tell your story in a powerful, inspiring, coherent way that millions resonate with, and cannot see in what way your story invisibly features degrowth and collapse,... See more
every story is a degrowth story
Ok, I think I see where he’s going. But I think there’s also a possibility of a counter narrative that can re-write the degrowth one in terms of growth.
Work is a waste of my time. The things that I’m best at, that I get the most benefit from, and see the most big-picture results from, don’t feel like work.
Nicholas Goodey • Resistance and Embracing Your Nature
“Work” is wasting energy, because energy goes down. But the truly valuable things make energy go up.
As Brian Merchant argues in his book, Blood in the Machine , the rebellion was more nuanced than we realize, standing “not against technology per se but for the rights of workers above the inequitable profitability of machines.”
Our Centaur Future - A RADAR Report
This is what abundant systems recognize. It’s not about the machines or the data, it’s about the humans. When we build abundantly, we ensure that everyone is taken care of, because that builds the best possible long-term future.
“Infinite-minded leaders understand that “best” is not a permanent state. Instead, they strive to be “better.” “Better” suggests a journey of constant improvement and makes us feel like we are being invited to contribute our talents and energies to make progress in that journey.”
-Simon Sinek
Constant improvement, gains of energy via better efficiency
Finally, we must do away with far and away the largest occupation, the one with the longest hours, the lowest pay and some of the most tedious tasks around. I refer to housewives doing housework and child-rearing. By abolishing wage-labor and achieving full unemployment we undermine the sexual division of labor. The nuclear family as we know it is... See more
Bob Black • The Abolition of Work
Damn…