Not quite ready to wade through those essays, but as I mentioned to David, I remember many fiction writers looking at extrapolations of future economies. The rub is the transition from money-based design and manufacture to permanent non-money automatic systems. It's hard to see how that can happen.

One fly in that ointment is likely persistence of subsistence economies. Humans will find new niches, lightly occupied low-grade areas like dumpster diving and street life, and large areas of the planet will likely escape upgrading to full technological economy.

Another complication will be the persistence of state competition, i.e. war and similar. Long before the techno-Utopia can develop we will be likely fighting over water. I can imagine "shade wars", with either fights over access to sunlight, or deliberate shading to depress power. I can also imagine bottlenecks of brittle centralized systems like the grid, or GPS, that would cause horrible disasters if they went down completely.

Until the industrial revolution humans acted almost completely as independent agents, even when combined into armies. This allowed the fluid inventiveness of individual action to produce incremental change when it was useful, as in artisans or teachers spreading a new technique for something. We would benefit from a restoration of that cellular level of action, at least in the areas of power generation/storage, as it is now developing in the information field.

The risk is the centralized model, whether gargantuan financial agglomerations or monoculture farming, or single-OS computing. A healthy species shows booth a fair amount of variation and a less-than-perfect adaptation. The perfectly matched, uniform-genetics species will go extinct the instant conditions change. The less-efficient, less-uniform species will move into that niche.

It is the power of shareholders, whether those seeking direct dividends, or those seeking higher market price, that drives companies to the bottom of marginal profits, eking out profit from tiny advantages of reduced health coverage or lack of overtime pay, or skimping on materials quality/safety, or other relentless price pressure, that makes us so vulnerable to these recessions. (Well, not the only thing, I guess.) Agricultural subsidies that allow domestic farming to survive competition from low-priced imports is an example of imperfect adaptation but a more robust system,. If the source of the imports suffers a freeze or other weather disaster, no problem to the home country.

Too much free trade, low-tariff business means all go down together. Humans learned a while ago to build large boats with watertight compartments. But that is not as "efficient". It is worth it to save the ship, though. Even naval vessels are worth saving, rather than being a little faster in top speed, or longer range with their fuel stores.

I said we need more individual action to be robust, but I distinguish businesses as not exactly individuals. They are a different kind of entity, not people really, as long as their food is immediate profit. The genetic drive of corporations is increased wealth, all other considerations irrelevant. Money makes the decisions, not caring if the future means no money. It only wants to aggregate now.

I continue to think that taxes that rise steeply on large profits, or on short-term cap gains, as well as inheritance limits, will reward long-term income over windfall wealth, and would encourage a less volatile economy. But as long as we expose ourselves to external competition, especially from countries with lower living standards, we will suffer the same fate as lakes that get invaded by foreign species that lack evolved competition. It is a mismatch of ecologies, as much as economies.

I'm saving the links for later. But the thanks is coming now! Thanks for your tireless efforts to get the word out and provide lots of relevant reading.

Peace.