What We Should Design Societies For in the 21st Century

The Challenge of Choosing Liberation Over Exploitation

Here’s a tiny question. What should we design societies for in the 21st century? I ask because, if you take a glimpse around the world, the way that we designed them in the 20th doesn’t seem to be working too well.

I think that we are going to have to design societies for the maximization of the potential of all — not the profit of a tiny few, at the expense of everyone and everything else’s possibility to realize itself. I’ll come to all that — and if you want the takeaways, skip to the end, because this is going to be a dense read.

In the last essay, I discussed why the 21st century demands a new mindset — one that transcends exploitation. For the simple but unforgiving reason that we are out of things to exploit, except ourselves. And that way lies regress, violence, folly, hatred, and ruin — the American path.

So what’s the opposite of exploitation? If we can answer that, the we can answer the question of what to design societies for in the 21st century. (And if you’re the kind of person who thinks a society isn’t designed, then you should probably stop reading this, and send me a postcard from the nearest failed state.) For that matter, what’s exploitation? Is it just what…