Never really got into the Civilization games but one aspect that made a deep impression was how inefficient money was compared to directly generating science & culture and using production. The inefficiency seemed a tradeoff for the flexibility of instant "bursts" of activity.
E.g. with enough money you could wage a surprise war without mobilizing a huge obvious army but even that as bottlenecked by logistics.
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It seems that anything that grows exponentially must grow via the natural exponent. Anything else is 'external' and unnatural. E.g. injections of money.
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Even something growing unnaturally is probably being injected with money that is growing naturally. Or that money pool is fed by smaller streams that themselves are growing naturally.
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Plants for example sometimes seem to just start growing really fast. Yet that growth is often supported by a lot of root growth that was invisible. The 'burst' of life energy traces back to much more slower and natural (yet still exponential) hidden growth.
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Success and habits work the same way I think. Good habits compound over time and invisibly support the 'bursts' of success.
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This natural exponential growth seems very "vegetarian". Something more carnivorous would feast on the carcass of an existing body of energy. Either as a parasite or a predator.
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Living in the "now" moment seems to be about becoming a plant. You absorb your environment, doing the little things that compound over time until you become a mighty oak tree.
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A predator has to always think about the future as well as other larger predators. A parasite has to always worry about jumping to a new host. Both are always anxious. Plants are content, even as they are eaten.
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I wonder if every human conflict basically boils down into a plant vs carnivore conflict. From a plant's POV a carnivore is bloody and violent, like a zombie or a vampire. From a carnivore's POV a plant is boring and dumb.
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Where it gets kind of twisted is when you consume like a carnivore while being disconnected from the actual hunt. Imagine chimps creating a system where alpha chimps could butcher and sample different meats of various animals while weaker one chewed plants.
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Feels kinda of twisted... Exploiting others and cannibalism seems connected to this somehow. Slavery as indirect cannibalism.
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Money is like meat in a way. If you have a whole stock of it it's useful for directing attention the same way you can throw meat at people to sick a pack of wolves on them. That's how meat/money grows. This is how meat/money grows.
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Within a self-contained system money is just a token. It represents contribution to a system. It's a useful token to increase the diversity of every individual's lives as well as create innovation from that increased diversity.
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But when money from one system interacts with money from another system it becomes more like meat. I can throw some dogeCoin at catCountry and maybe there will be some blood spilt. Once that taste of meat is acquired I can start converting catCoin into dogeCoin.
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This sort of 'violence' can only be done with a surplus of meat and energy. A neighbor with a giant freezer full of dead deer carcasses way beyond an individuals ability to consume is kinda creepy.
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"Nice guys come in last." -> "Carnivore's must eat meat" "Money is not the greatest wealth" -> "Plants bear the greatest amounts of fruit"
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End of conversation
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