Oddbean

I agree a parallel economy, in the narrow sense, is not enough. I see developing and negotiating decentralised protocols to replace centralised statist monopoly functions as the key preparation we can make here. "Shadow self-governance", by analogy with revolutionary shadow governments. Yes, that's a gargantuan undertaking, but a lot of good work we can re-use has already been done by people who lived outside the grasp of a modern state.

Shadow self-governance is a good way to frame it, albeit that’s probably a better description for where it’s headed than how we get there. We need to Elmer Fudd this shit and think like the rabbits. Telling the midwits they’re going to have to govern themselves will scare the shit out of them and would be easily capitalised upon by incumbent parasites to sow FUD. That might be the reality but it’s not how the war will be won. But both need the mindshare - how does it work in practice and how does the transition happen because they’re distinct things as any revolution from history can teach us.

I think its safe to say the transition will be ugly, disorderly and involve both bangs and whimpers. "Slowly then suddenly" applies to institutional bankruptcy as well as personal bankruptcy. Civilised mid-wits will panic if dumped head-first into freedom, true, but that's why we need decentralised protocols NOW as institution replacements, so that the midwits have many points of contact with systems that work even before other systems finally fail. Bitcoin is one. Nostr is another. Mesh networks. Have given thought to "aostr", "arbitration and other stuff transmitted via relays", but need to write a lot more notes and some code proof of concept.

Protocols don’t replace people. When it comes to money and an economic system, we want that out of the hands of people. When it comes to how society is organised and the socio-political system, that **will** remain in the hands of people until/if AGI happens. Economics can exist in a machine only world as a means of allocating resources, but there is no society without people. The institutions which govern what is acceptable in society are still going to need to be replaced/changed. People are not going to for example stop needing massive water treatment systems just because the government can’t insert themselves into the money flow. Humans still need that, and even if we want the free market to deliver solutions the reality is the current systems need to be picked up or else they’ll be co-opted and used against us or outright fail which will also be used against us. How long does it take for a parallel system to establish water governance at a population level? I have no idea, but I know it needs people to put their heads together to figure out options and what the tradeoffs are and how we might propose to handle such a thing and whilst I see shitloads of talk about crab markets and how incumbent parasitic systems are treating our economy, I see next to none about how we subsume water mgmt and all the other shit that is going to need to be transitioned roughly or smoothly into a new system. Protocols will form the backbone but they only matter if there are people to “organise”. What form and depth that organisation takes is up for grabs in a new system but rather than simply dream about it, I’m trying to be the change I want to see and start talking about it with people who understand the very real possibility of being thrust into a role as new economic elites when we’ve got excellent brains and plenty of money but none of the organisation capacity needed to succeed.