This book is creating quite a buzz. See the basics and one review among many.

People being what they are, there’s no doubt that this is an election-winning agenda for the Democrats. And the authors are both very serious people. I’m reluctant to write off Ezra Klein, who IMO is not just very smart but also circumspect and fair-minded.

But all this also looks to me like an advanced case of deluded wishful thinking. Or of “cornucopian economics”, as EO Wilson called it.

What to conclude?

  • JubilantJaguar@lemmy.worldOP
    11·
    9 days ago

    Little to disagree with there.

    We dont have the top down global coordination to do this

    True. But why? This is where I diverge from the standard theory of greens and leftists - roughly, that it’s all a conspiracy of greedy selfish capitalists and elites. Personally, I’m inclined to look right inside our nature as biological beings. When you analyze it this way, in a way it’s surprising that we’ve made it this far without crashing our population catastrophically.

    • maketotaldestr0i@lemm.eeM
      1·
      9 days ago

      i think the argument can be made that about 4% of the population are sociopaths and they rise to the top. if we continually liquidated them we could get to a new equilibrium that wasn’t dystopia.

      the domesticated people who just folllow and do their bidding like zombies are the source of power unfortunately.

      unfortunately the benevolent do not rise to the top or else the good could harness the followers rather than the malevolent using them.

      • JubilantJaguar@lemmy.worldOP
        11·
        9 days ago

        This seems to me to be an absolutely terrible take and a recipe for completely societal breakdown if not genocide. But of course I recognize your right to have it.