The Politics of “How Will We Pay For It?” In the polarized world of politics, a curious scene unfolds with metronomic regularity: a liberal policy proposal is made like universal healthcare, climate infrastructure or education expansion, only to be swiftly challenged by a familiar chorus: “How will we pay for it?” The question lands with…
Your share of the nation’s water system is worth over $100,000, while that designer watch costs just $10,000. Which will still have value in fifty years? Your luxury car depreciates instantly, but your stake in national parks appreciates annually. The wealthiest investors can’t match the returns your citizenship already provides.
The rise of AI poses existential challenges to democracy, as algorithms increasingly shape governance and public discourse. The Cambridge Analytica scandal which brought us Brexit and the 2016 US election exemplifies this threat. To adapt, democracy must innovate through citizen assemblies and ethical frameworks, treating data as a collective resource and fostering pluralistic governance to navigate the complexities of the AI age effectively.
The history of human society is shaped by the history of human coordination. Over time, successful societies have evolved beyond the biological limits of unassisted human coordination (the Dunbar number of 150 people) which has necessitated the invention of collaboration technology to coordinate, control and coerce competing communities. It might be possible to map, as…
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