Life in a sandbox.
Much like sandbox video games: life has no win condition. You might kill the Ender Dragon in Minecraft but that doesn't mean you 'won'. Same goes for building a rocket in Factorio. These are just milestones, while the game itself is whatever we make of it. Life is the same way.
It's a journey, not a destination.
As far as we know: the ultimate destination of life is actually just death. We are afraid of death because we are programmed to be afraid of death. It is the ultimate unknown, and we don't like unknowns. We like stability and security and that status quo... unless of course we're bored thrill seekers looking to "feel alive" again. How ironic; edging closer to death to feel alive. Fascinating.
What does it mean to 'win'?
Winning seems to imply a zero-sum game, does it not?
If you win isn't it intrinsically implied that someone else loses?
Is that how we want to live our lives?
On the backs of those we've dominated?
I know several people who would say 'yes' without even thinking about it.
Once we get into a certain mindset it can be difficult to change.
Competition is inherently rooted in scarcity.
The only reason to compete is if there aren't enough resources and we have to fight each other for our fair share; something most people do for their entire lives without thinking about it. This is just "the way it is" to them. However, aren't we trying to accomplish the exact opposite in Crypto Land?
Aren't we trying to build abundance? Everyone complains that AI is going to take all the jobs. The logic is non-sensical given an abundance mindset. If we are living in abundance and don't have to worry about our next score it doesn't really matter if AI takes our job. That job probably sucked anyway. Did you really want to be doing THAT forever?
We are not that far away from machines literally doing all the basic work for us. Food, water, and shelter. Once that's covered the entire game changes. Of course we then have to wonder how an exponential explosion of the population would be circumvented, but crypto and the governance therein likely already has a lingering answer.
If crypto does what it's supposed to do then the network becomes more powerful than any centralized government. At that point the network makes the rules and the network becomes the government. I wonder what rules or guidelines will be imposed. I assume they'll be reasonable, but you never know in an environment with so many diverse communities. Could be some bad apples in there. Who knows.
Conclusion
I'd like to keep this one short and sweet so let's just end it here before the rambling begins. It's easy to forget that we should strive to create cooperative systems that build value for everyone rather than cannibalizing the poor. Unfortunately stepping on the poor seems to be a much easier strategy in the short term; just ask literally any billionaire. However, crypto provides us the tools to create governance models that can scale larger without being overcome by traditional centralized bottlenecks and power-grabs. That's the idea anyway. Perhaps one day expectations will meet reality.
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