The six billion dollar question I have about these system(s) is how do we make sure they are ethically consistent. Many of the means of power currently understood in our capitalist system are fundamentally unethical. The fundamental production relationship requires someone to cede their produced value to a capitalist under threat of at least hardship if they refuse. There is no equality of bargaining power, in most (all?) cases, either. Thus it seems to fail the basic ethics of consent and respect for agency/autonomy. Consent can only be had under conditions of equal or near-equal bargaining power and in absence of serious consequences for saying "no".
That is to say, if we want it to have "both wisdom and power", we have to understand also where those two things are liable to come into conflict. Then see if perhaps we can somehow finely sculpt or remodel them or their details to avoid that - ideally sculpting the contours of power to not transgress wisdom.
All the good observations about the technological surveillance-based addictive nonsense of the ideas of the future. Also, the new “political coordinate system” does make some sense partially. However it needs to go into 3D, not stay in 2D.
Because, as A. Einstein said, problems can’t be solved with the same thinking that produced them. In other words, one needs to understand the problem on a higher semantic level than the problem manifests itself. To get out of the woods it is not enough to realign the trees around by different axes, one needs to get a bird’s eye view of the forest to understand where is the exit. In game theory terms this corresponds to a zero sum game vs positive sum game, where positive sum game is enabled by the new semantic level, a whole new dimension of understanding. By reshuffling the elements of the old understanding one can only end up with new ways to make things worse, by “saving the world”.
To actually save the world one needs to first save oneself. How would one even know what the salvation looks like without that?
One way to do that would be to identify and abandon all the fake ideas, the illusions of what is there and what does and does not make sense, what is the actual nature of things. And then to find the true Self, understand who or what one truly is.
That requires more efforts than to make up a new “ideology”, “religion” or “political system”. It requires going beyond the dimension where ideologies, religions and “politics” exist.
The economic best practices laid out in the 2025 update of the L.I.F.T.S. reciprocity economy model on my Substack may serve as a starting place for how to align existing structures towards the top right quadrant.
Communism like capitalism has become a thought limiting cliché, never tried never proven, just polarizing talking point for pundits to fixate on as a distraction from any real dialogue of how to create a better future.
I'm fine putting Christianity there despite full awareness that will come off as cringe.
1) Christ talked about the Kingdom of God as a major theme. Basically the Christian life is aligning our lives with the Divine will: "thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven". Virtues are both fruitfulness and selfness, aligning abundance and wisdom.
2) Since Constantine Christianity served the role of state religion. While there are horror stories, many well aligned and abundant cultures are Christian. The integration should act as conscience for the state and markets.
3) Christianity has a great philosophical traditions going back to Greek integration from the Judeo-hellanistic integration of the time of Christ. This of course includes theology and natural philosophy. Teilhard de Chardin was early on complexity/emergence, but you also have neoplatonist etc. The University tradition is from Christian intellectualism.
4) Alongside deep intellectuals, Christian culture is primarily focused on basic practices for ordinary people. Focus on core narratives (aka Bible stories), practical examples (saints), community, virtue, communal and individual prayer, and charity. You can be very normie and enrich your life.
I will happily agree with stupidity of fundamentalism and instances of institutional abuse. That said, the mainstream generational Christianity (Orthodox, Catholic or mainline Protestant) embedded in culture is the closest existing thing to your empty box.
I really want to agree with you, I personally am a follower of Christ teachings translated directly from Aramaic into English without having been adulterated by Constantine.
Unfortunately, Constantine adaptation turned it from a liberation tool to create a context of the “empty box” as are saying in this case of domination and control manipulation and abuse that Christ himself would look at and say anyone who implements the system never knew me.
1) Regardless of your personal theology, the ask here is a cultural paradigm that integrates wisdom, order and abundance. The structured churches have served as religion for many great empires and city states: the Franks, Venice, Bryzantium, the Spanish, Dutch and British, etc. Not a utopian group, but advancing human flourishing through economic improvement, art and culture.
2) If one believes in the Spirit of God, that Spirit is at work in the saints regardless of emperors, translation etc. While mainstream scholarship has abundant evidence of Greek speaking Christian communities in the first century well before Constantine, that's sort of besides the point. If one thinks the Spirit of God was at work in Jesus, that same Spirit continues to work with similar wisdom and life giving messages in every time. I don't think an eternal Spirit cares much if we get our metaphysics just right.
The six billion dollar question I have about these system(s) is how do we make sure they are ethically consistent. Many of the means of power currently understood in our capitalist system are fundamentally unethical. The fundamental production relationship requires someone to cede their produced value to a capitalist under threat of at least hardship if they refuse. There is no equality of bargaining power, in most (all?) cases, either. Thus it seems to fail the basic ethics of consent and respect for agency/autonomy. Consent can only be had under conditions of equal or near-equal bargaining power and in absence of serious consequences for saying "no".
That is to say, if we want it to have "both wisdom and power", we have to understand also where those two things are liable to come into conflict. Then see if perhaps we can somehow finely sculpt or remodel them or their details to avoid that - ideally sculpting the contours of power to not transgress wisdom.
Nice article, you are really onto something here.
All the good observations about the technological surveillance-based addictive nonsense of the ideas of the future. Also, the new “political coordinate system” does make some sense partially. However it needs to go into 3D, not stay in 2D.
Because, as A. Einstein said, problems can’t be solved with the same thinking that produced them. In other words, one needs to understand the problem on a higher semantic level than the problem manifests itself. To get out of the woods it is not enough to realign the trees around by different axes, one needs to get a bird’s eye view of the forest to understand where is the exit. In game theory terms this corresponds to a zero sum game vs positive sum game, where positive sum game is enabled by the new semantic level, a whole new dimension of understanding. By reshuffling the elements of the old understanding one can only end up with new ways to make things worse, by “saving the world”.
To actually save the world one needs to first save oneself. How would one even know what the salvation looks like without that?
One way to do that would be to identify and abandon all the fake ideas, the illusions of what is there and what does and does not make sense, what is the actual nature of things. And then to find the true Self, understand who or what one truly is.
That requires more efforts than to make up a new “ideology”, “religion” or “political system”. It requires going beyond the dimension where ideologies, religions and “politics” exist.
The economic best practices laid out in the 2025 update of the L.I.F.T.S. reciprocity economy model on my Substack may serve as a starting place for how to align existing structures towards the top right quadrant.
Top right quadrant is communism
I think not.
Communism like capitalism has become a thought limiting cliché, never tried never proven, just polarizing talking point for pundits to fixate on as a distraction from any real dialogue of how to create a better future.
I'm fine putting Christianity there despite full awareness that will come off as cringe.
1) Christ talked about the Kingdom of God as a major theme. Basically the Christian life is aligning our lives with the Divine will: "thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven". Virtues are both fruitfulness and selfness, aligning abundance and wisdom.
2) Since Constantine Christianity served the role of state religion. While there are horror stories, many well aligned and abundant cultures are Christian. The integration should act as conscience for the state and markets.
3) Christianity has a great philosophical traditions going back to Greek integration from the Judeo-hellanistic integration of the time of Christ. This of course includes theology and natural philosophy. Teilhard de Chardin was early on complexity/emergence, but you also have neoplatonist etc. The University tradition is from Christian intellectualism.
4) Alongside deep intellectuals, Christian culture is primarily focused on basic practices for ordinary people. Focus on core narratives (aka Bible stories), practical examples (saints), community, virtue, communal and individual prayer, and charity. You can be very normie and enrich your life.
I will happily agree with stupidity of fundamentalism and instances of institutional abuse. That said, the mainstream generational Christianity (Orthodox, Catholic or mainline Protestant) embedded in culture is the closest existing thing to your empty box.
I really want to agree with you, I personally am a follower of Christ teachings translated directly from Aramaic into English without having been adulterated by Constantine.
Unfortunately, Constantine adaptation turned it from a liberation tool to create a context of the “empty box” as are saying in this case of domination and control manipulation and abuse that Christ himself would look at and say anyone who implements the system never knew me.
Two responses from different angles.
1) Regardless of your personal theology, the ask here is a cultural paradigm that integrates wisdom, order and abundance. The structured churches have served as religion for many great empires and city states: the Franks, Venice, Bryzantium, the Spanish, Dutch and British, etc. Not a utopian group, but advancing human flourishing through economic improvement, art and culture.
2) If one believes in the Spirit of God, that Spirit is at work in the saints regardless of emperors, translation etc. While mainstream scholarship has abundant evidence of Greek speaking Christian communities in the first century well before Constantine, that's sort of besides the point. If one thinks the Spirit of God was at work in Jesus, that same Spirit continues to work with similar wisdom and life giving messages in every time. I don't think an eternal Spirit cares much if we get our metaphysics just right.
Thanks I think the option of life we get to experience is all of knowledge, good and evil. So like someone else said, it's more 3D.
We have to experience all knowledge, good and evil, decide which to keep after we realize the consequences. Great perspective.