i guess what i've been trying to say is...
reality is made of wholes nested inside larger wholes: cells → bodies → groups → cities → nations → civilization → planet → stars
0. sunlight is the only new energy in the stack - it flows up through every level and leaves as
projects, plans, budgets, roadmaps, internal controls, ops, accounting, finance, employment contracts, service agreements - we inherited an accumulated debt of bureaucratic vestibules built for a boomer-era social contract between capital and labor, management and workers,
TRANSGRESSIVE TAKE 🚨: the progress narrative is wrong.
the narrative: we're in an upward spiral, life keeps getting better. and it's got receipts - since 1800:
- life expectancy doubled
- extreme poverty ~90% → under 10%
- literacy, a tenth of humanity → most of it
- child
why can't we have nice things?
usually it's not because anyone is evil.
it's because we're stuck in a multipolar trap: everyone acting rationally, and everyone worse off for it.
its a race to the bottom that nobody can leave first - because the first to cooperate, alone,
