> if everyone hates the current system, who perpetuates it?

I have a pet theory that is slowly becoming a personal religion of sorts. (Disclaimer: only accreditations are a biochem degree over a decade ago, and this armchair.) It involves a belief that at each level of organization -- atomic, cellular, organismal, societal (which in itself has something of an interesting fractalness) structures try to arrange themselves such that they have "access to the maximum possible future opportunity space"[1][2]. When each structure at every level is operating in such a way, structures tend toward centralization as some parts of the whole become more powerful, and the whole at the next higher level of organization becomes more effective. And so we tend to create hierarchy and oppress our fellow man, for the same reason that our brain cell oppresses and rends subordinate the skin cell of the finger. And so oppression is systemic, almost a law of nature. Decentralization and equality is not what the universe tends toward.

But we can perhaps be clever, and create the society we want and value. It would be a rare organism, in many ways crippled, like a slime-mold among eukaryotes.

So if perhaps centralization and growth (ie control of largest possible future opportunity space) is expected as a physical law of sorts, then the trick would be to create a niche that preserves our value system -- we'd need to engage in systems design that allowed our society to exist is a "test harness", where we get to /feel/ like we're fulfilling desires for these things, but are somehow prevented from engaging in the behaviour that we have subjectively decided (at a societal level) will lead to bad outcomes. I dunno, just riffing here ;)

[1]: https://www.ted.com/talks/alex_wissner_gross_a_new_equation_...

[2]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/20170126-information-theory-a...

Interesting hypothesis . As far as maximization of opportunity space is concerned its not very different from selfish gene theory suggested by Dawkins . But I guess you are wrong about need to centralized being inbuilt in nature . You are confusing unification / alignment with centralization . If you look outside of any abstraction level ( molecular ,cellular ,organismal ) its hard to tell if the underlying harmony is attained by centralization or coordination of independent autonomous entities. thats why a lot of well meaning people tilt toward the intelligent design and can’t bring themselves to believe that Evolution was self organized .

From a resource perspective nerve cells don't really consume all that much of the body's resources. More than fat cells but less than active muscle tissue. It's really cancer that's the major risk.

Society and structures do tend towards centralization (at least on a local or short-term scale, not a physics guy, but entropy seems to say something over time).

Concepts like path-dependency seem to have an explanation for this, but they also stand in contrast to "access to the maximum possible future opportunity space". Many structures are clearly sub-optimal; organizations often crystallize in ways that maximize nothing at all but short-term laziness. They centralize by choosing paths that are convenient, not necessarily those that offer the most opportunity.

You do understand that exponential growth is mandated by our system of government? The government sets growth targets as a matter of policy, and to meet this growth target it inflates the currency, (key concept: inflation is a policy, not a rule of the universe) to stimulate economic activity. You don't have a choice to not participate in this.

>key concept: inflation is a policy, not a rule of the universe

The money supply has to grow with the growth of the economy and population, and it's better to have excesses than shortages. Or should we infinitely divide a single dollar for everyone to use?

Begging your pardon, what evidence do you have to support your assertion that 'the money supply has to grow'?

The way I think of it is this: The fruits of techonological innovation are supposed to be the rising tide that lifts all boats; the mechanism by which it does this is by lowering prices. When you have systematic inflation, you are robbing the poor of their opportunity to get ahead and giving it to those who have first access to cheap money (wall street, political cronies, i.e. big contractor)

Growth of economic activity and population is a collective choice we are making . We may eventually have less of economic activity, population, or both .

>Growth of economic activity and population is a collective choice

Collective choice, not government mandate as the person to whom I replied suggested.

"In some competition optimizing for X, the opportunity arises to throw some other value under the bus for improved X. Those who take it prosper. Those who don’t take it die out. Eventually, everyone’s relative status is about the same as before, but everyone’s absolute status is worse than before. The process continues until all other values that can be traded off have been – in other words, until human ingenuity cannot possibly figure out a way to make things any worse."

Insightful and depressing.

Another way to look at that statement is "All values that do not lead to continued existence are competed away", which is basically exactly what the theory of evolution says.

We know that this statement is false, BTW, because of the existence of organs like the appendix, which AFAWCT are completely vestigial.

Also, it ignores the part of the dynamic where new values are created because they allow you to throw some other values under the bus. Cooperation, empathy, creativity, intelligence, and pretty much everything that makes us human are all examples: our non-primate ancestors didn't have these, but the evolution of them allowed us to fight more fiercely than a lion, move more quickly than a cheetah, live in colder places than a penguin, and go without foraging longer than a bear.

The appendix is not vestigial.

But your argument could have used Art, which is vestigial other than as a signalling mechanism for pattern abstraction ability and excess resources.

er, Moloch is not a made up word.

"Moloch is exactly what the history books say he is. He is the god of child sacrifice, the fiery furnace into which you can toss your babies in exchange for victory in war.

He always and everywhere offers the same deal: throw what you love most into the flames, and I can grant you power."