Could be. I do think about Donella Meadows' "Leverage Points" when stuff like this comes up, though.

donellameadows.org/archives/lev...

When you intervene in complex systems, you usually can figure out _where_ to push. But our intuition usually leads us to push that point the _wrong_ direction.

In the same vein, I think a lot of new businesses die before even getting started when a would-be entrepreneur decides that healthcare is too expensive without a "real job". Same goes for transit, I'm sure.

Solving some of these public goods questions would go a long way in growing new businesses.

Paying for it all, taxing utilization (miles driven means you pay more for the roads) and negative externalities (you pollute, you pay) are econ 101.

Negative externalities are also an interesting lens. Is hoarding resources a negative externality? That's a starting point for a wealth tax.

Fire and police departments, those are infrastructure.

Clean air?

What about the health of your citizens and/or workforce? Does that qualify as infrastructure? Basic housing and food needs? I find that an interesting lens.

So, could we say that "infrastructure" is a legitimate domain for government involvement?

What then qualifies as infrastructure?

Roads? Probably. Public transit? Sewers? Water? Electricity? Safety inspections? Air traffic control?

Generally not considered controversial.

Lincoln's Fragment on Government:

"The legitimate object of government, is to do for a community of people, whatever they need to have done, but can not do, at all, or can not, so well do, for themselves—in their separate, and individual capacities."

teachingamericanhistory.org/document/fra...

Still looking for a full time role? jobs.ashbyhq.com/knock/beee92...

Reminds me of Edison’s first patent. Voting machine for Congress. They hated it. Turns out what politicians want is not what one might expect.

Splitting jobs is a good lens for this to be sure. It’s utopian, but a GitHub-for-legislation sounds nice.

Chiming in: sortition is another option. Fill seats by lottery. Not much different than jury duty.

No kidding - literally used Web USB & Web Bluetooth to configure my keyboard & some fun @meshtastic.org radios from @seeedstudio.com in the last week.

LLMs reduce the cost of a unit of consumable content to zero. What becomes scarce in a post-scarcity information economy? How might we organize so that shifting or new surplus avoids concentration?

A few examples:

Subvert.fm is trying to be the spiritual successor to bandcamp. The surplus of the community is grounded through a co-op structure.

The faroe islands seems to have “won” GDP: notnottalmud.substack.com/p/in-praise-...

When we design institutions to avoid “power sinks” that concentrate wealth or control and instead find ways to ground surplus in the network and its participants, I think we are all better off for it.

Literally considering this right now for another blog post. “Surplus” when taken with a broad view to include intangibles and tacit knowledge that cannot be never be accounted for on a balance sheet is a big part of what makes any enterprise work. “Selling out” isn’t just a trope.

The Egg and the Rock has some fun thoughts on this. Cc @juliangough.bsky.social

To my understanding, yes. Even chemical energy is derivative from bonds formed between heavier atoms, which themselves were produced and set in motion by stars, and stars of course produce all of that through gravity.