Which may be why I didn't mention stock ownership originally under "The
meta-invisible hand." The invisible meta-hand these days is the free
market being hampered by those who don't want to be subjected to it full
blast. The spontaneous order of democracy and redistribution rising
from people's fear of the spontaneous order of the free market. The
free-market is _not_ the most productive of all systems in the event of
provoking its own riots. We've been here before: "But the poor are
richer than under any other system! If people were just rational, and
paid attention to absolute rather than relative wealth, they'd stop
whining!"
Guess what? The more extreme Singularity projections are the best
rational justification for people to worry about the gap between rich
and poor. Higher absolute standards of living are meaningless if the
rich are so far ahead that they can turn upon the poor with impunity,
and if nanotech makes it positively attractive to do so. Conversely,
John Galt speeches about "not asking any man to live for me" won't
impress a frightened mob who think you're the next Dr. Frankenstein or
Strangelove whose dream will endanger their children.
P.S. on stock ownership... I estimate $200,000 capital per person,
for a minimal income. 5 billion people. Total capital: $10^15, one
thousand American trillion dollars. World GNP (ha) is estimated at $17
trillion. Are there any estimates on world capital? Not that these are
absolute numbers, I'd expect the economy to change as education and
capital spread around, and GNP is a lousy metric at best.
Merry part,
-xx- Damien R. Sullivan X-) <*> http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~phoenix
"The analysis of strategic behavior is an extraordinarily difficult
problem. John von Neumann, arguably one of the smartest men of this
century, created a whole new branch of mathematics in the process of
failing to solve it." -- DDFR, _Hidden Order_