30/
Moloch is not inevitable.

He's just patient.

And he's betting we've forgotten how to fight.

Let's prove him wrong.

/end

29/

The question isn't whether Moloch can be beaten.
History already answered that.
The question is whether we'll build the next generation of traps before the current ones finish eroding.

28/

I used to read "Meditations on Moloch" and feel despair.
Now I read it as a diagnostic manual.

Moloch isn't a god.

He's a bug.

A well-understood bug with known patches.

27/
This won't happen automatically.

Moloch is the default.

Escape requires deliberate construction.

But "requires effort" ≠ "impossible."

26/
But the method still works:

Identify where individual rationality → collective harm
Find ways to make defection visible
Build mechanisms that make defection costly
Design structures where cooperation pays

25/
New Moloch-traps are needed now.

For AI development. For social media dynamics. For climate coordination. For attention economics.

The old traps don't fit the new games.

24/

The generation that built rule of law, property rights, democratic norms—they did impossible things.

Not because they were smarter.

Because they understood something we've forgotten:
Coordination problems are solvable.

22/
Here's the brutal truth:

Alignment isn't a state. It's a process.

Every Moloch-trap requires active maintenance.

Stop maintaining, and Moloch seeps back in.

23/
This is actually good news.

It means the question isn't "Can we escape Moloch?"

It's "Are we willing to maintain our escapes?"

21/
"But wait," you say. "These systems are failing. Moloch is winning."

Fair.

Let me reframe:

These systems are eroding.

Moloch doesn't conquer—he corrodes.

20/
This is the secret hidden in plain sight:

Every institution that works is a Moloch-trap.

Markets. Courts. Democracies. Professional norms. Reputation systems.

All are mechanisms that convert individual selfishness into collective benefit.

19/
This is engineering, not prayer.

You don't beat Moloch by being virtuous.

You beat him by changing the game so that selfish actors accidentally cooperate.

18/

So what's the actual formula?

Invert Moloch's four requirements:

✓ Build coordination infrastructure (communication + trust)
✓ Make defection visible (transparency architecture)
✓ Make defection costly (credible commitment mechanisms)
✓ Make cooperation pay (positive-sum structure)

17/

I'm not saying these systems are perfect.

I'm saying they exist.

They prove that coordination failures can be engineered away.

Moloch-escape isn't a fantasy. It's been done.

Repeatedly.

16/

Then humans invented something weird:

Elections.
Peaceful power transfer. Losers accept results. Winners don't execute opponents.

Sounds impossible. Yet here we are.