There are historical accidents that have severe consequences.
Think of the word "growth". If the market was not defined by this
word, it might be more sane. Imagine if it was "speed" instead.
You get the idea of something that is moving towards something
or away from something, and it is going ever faster. You get
the idea that if something moves, it needs to be directed somehow.
You get the idea of gravity, friction and centrifugal force.
You are not going to just accelerate all the time.
Growth does describe one aspect of the market very well, but in
an inverse way than it was originally intended: What they thought
about growth is that it is like a garden growing, or a wheat field
spreading over the horizon. And after that, another horizon. But
in fact it is more like something growing inside a glass jar.
There is no horizon. And the space that is left for us individuals
is shrinking as this thing takes up all the space.
There is this doomsday scenario of "grey goo". The idea is that
once you get a replicating nanotechnology, you are in danger of
creating something that eats out everything.
It's already happening, but what it ate was your free choice.
Free as free beer. There is no free beer anymore. There is no
free nature in large parts of the world. There isn't free public
spaces. I hear of hellscapes you can't even move around without
a car.
There are a few countries that have the pedal to the metal with
whatever their flavor of progress is. The individual is being
herded into smaller habitats. They are turning the world into
a large zoo for people. These are the so called superpowers,
of course, plus a few aspiring and retiring superpowers.
The logic is pretty simple, really. What has been defined as
growth is the number of transactions, basically. So, if I give
you something, it doesn't show up on the radar. But if I sell
it to you, it does. The value of this object or service (to you)
is not (severely) lessened by it being free but it's value on the
society wide meter is very different. So, it always makes sense
to sell things rather than give them away. I predict very
soon pregnancy will be defined a job. It's one of the biggest
growth hacking opportunities left.
