> They were like this in the Soviet Union, and it was laughable how much they ended up lagging behind after a few decades.
The soviet system was an authoritarian one and I am proposing a free market solution. I am basically just saying people can save money if they band together and buy machines which provide for their basic needs. But also it would all be open source, and like software it would be updated as needed.
Actually the example with cars was just an attempt to explain consumerism. I might as well just paste this definition in to this comment like I just did elsewhere.
"Consumerism is the idea that increasing the consumption of goods and services purchased in the market is always a desirable goal and that a person's wellbeing and happiness depend fundamentally on obtaining consumer goods and material possessions."
They were like this in the Soviet Union, and it was laughable how much they ended up lagging behind after a few decades. I see the process you describe, despite it's perceived but necessary inefficiency, as resulting in a system that delivers the most progress and the most resiliency. There's a reason that self-driving cars are being invented in one place and not another. The driving force behind that reason is much more important to preserve than any incidental waste or excess along the way.