So that would lead to a society with many more spaces say a society where fewer people are redirected away from spaces towards funnels and tubes that don't really meet their needs for meaning and togetherness. Also a society where fewer institutions or organizations are dominated by funnels or tubes, rather than by spaces. I think there would be a lot of really positive outcomes. So this would be a society with more social capital more a stronger civic sector and this could be really good in a lot of ways. The amount of trust or social capital in a society correlates with how well its institutions function. Progress studies people call state capacity, what some people call state capacity, it correlates with how well people band together in the city in emergencies, that is how resilient the people and communities are. record dates with kinds of equality, equality and solidarity. So increasing the social capital through more so spaces would be really good. I think it also would decrease the use of substitute social glues. So it would decrease the amount of ideology that's circulating. Which I think we all kind of sense that that's too much ideology that's been circulating recently. Things have gotten to ideologically hostile. That's another way of saying I hope it would decrease political polarization which would then have a number of really lovely second order outcomes decrease the likelihood of war and civil unrest and so on. And it would also help with things like science and democratic progress. One of the things that's happened in the last 100 years is that organizations that were imagined to design to spaces organizational structures imagined design spaces, like the organization of research and science, basic research, like the organization of democracy, in terms of town halls, citizens, assemblies, and so on. These spaces were replaced with funnels. So what we call democracy now, is a massive ideological funnel system, at least on a national level. But it used to be a system of spaces. And I think there's something similar has happened in science, something similar is happening in education. So returning to a economy, a meaning economy, an economy that strong on spaces, would return us, I think, might return us I would, I hope return us to a situation where science and research, democracy and education are all functioning well again,
It would end the attention economy—all the doomscrolling, polarization, and internet outrage.
It would end the “consumption economy”—everything people use their discretionary time or money for, but which leaves them isolated, and disempowered.
To end the the fake out businesses, that claim to be about ”community”, “sharing”, “adventure”, or “love”—but don’t deliver.
To end the bullshit jobs, all the work that’s unnecessarily meaningless.
To end the corporate and organizational structures that don’t support meaningful work.
- The web3 people claiming to reinvent democracy and community while building funnels and incentive structures.
- The dating apps which are funnels rather than spaces.
- The schools which have become bureaucratic funnels, rather than spaces.
All that wasted effort, time, and money would be reallocated to what’s meaningful.
It’d be the start of a “meaning economy”.