3 Comments
User's avatar
Patrick R's avatar

It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.

Expand full comment
Defender's avatar

> Earth’s organisms also trade molecules and provide each other with support, but it doesn’t look quite like The Economy

this is an important "B" in most of the ORI network. You made a comment here about "positive sum vs negative sum economic growth" (https://open.substack.com/pub/defenderofthebasic/p/why-are-we-rewarded-for-making-things?utm_campaign=comment-list-share-cta&utm_medium=web&comments=true&commentId=177224513) and I wanted to explain exactly this - the "human economy" is one system, but the principles of trade, cooperation, and growth are more "root level" concepts.

(knowing that this is a B in a given network should help in language/translation which should help in idea/truth propagation)

> Spectrosphere

This can also be translated to "noosphere" for rationalist & rat-adjacent networks

> Has it ever worked in reverse?

one of the ideas I've been trying to propagate (not very successfully widely but for whom it resonates it does work well) is picturing civilization as an actual company that you work for (it does need to function as such. There are jobs to do, and failing to do those jobs has consequences), which I think naturally leads people to ask, "how do I quit/move to another one"

> If you the only way you know how to pursue

typo, extra "you"

> you’re stuck accepting whatever deal Werld extends in exchange for keeping you alive

this we can see in the natural world as an example of a parasitic relationship (and those are usually more fragile than symbiotic ones). An organism that drains its constituent parts will not survive long. A general principle that applies to biological organisms, or an super-organism like civilization

Expand full comment
Andrea P's avatar

noosphere - ooh I'll consider adopting that. gotta sleep on it...

ahh I didn't realize that one of the purposes of the civilization-as-company idea was to invite people to consider whether they might want to quit/move

Samuel Miller McDonald's book "Progress" (which I haven't read but I listened to a podcast interview) uses the frames of parasitic, symbiotic etc. It's cool that you came up with the same thing!

Expand full comment