Well I guess this should be a lesson to both of us. I responded flippantly to your comment because of your tone — which I sensed was really condescending. As I’ve learned, though, from your response to my response to your response, we actually fear/expect the same outcome. If you read deeper into my project here on Medium, you’ll see that I’m primarily interested in testing out cultural innovations that A) move us toward fully-localized, zero-externality, collectively-owned production/consumption (you might not like the collectively-owned part, but I urge you to read my essays if you want so at least you know WHY I think this); and B) make us feel content while needing/using less. I see essentially no long-term evidence that capitalism produces anything more than increased convenience (usually at tremendous expense to laborers or the environment or both) and pollution. Furthermore, automation is going to concentrate wealth even faster, exacerbating the likelihood that the surveillance state China has built to keep its people in check becomes necessary everywhere to suppress the dissent of the majority “useless class.”

Anyway, we can work on wanting less, or we can keep hoping that wanting more for less will somewhere round a corner and begin contracting. That sounds as much like magical thinking to me as my ideas might to you.

HOWEVER, I recognize that you’re smart and sense the same long term dangers. We might never agree on the methods, but I bet we can foster a civil discourse. Could be cool?