🐈

the reason innovation is so important to the market is because money is intrinsically destructive. It boomerangs outwards, changes more of the world into money, and comes back with a Reasonable Rate of Return.

while useful as a coordinating mechanism, money has no ability to change into anything else. No amount of money compressed together can turn into a food, a spear, a tank, music, art, a lover, etc...

the only way to mitigate this King Midas destructive effect is through *newness* that was previously not capable due to the now increased ease of coordination and incentive signaling. This "new" stuff that money enables is "Innovation" or "Technology" etc...

The innovation output HAS to balance the destructiveness over the long term otherwise the world turns into a giant landfill of paper and digital records.

it's difficult to predict and manage this since the destructive effect is very far removed from the innovation. E.g. burning coal or strip mining leads to A to B to C etc.. over say decades or hundreds of years before perfect terraforming is achieved (if it ever does)

Another issue is that while the market does sometime unlock truly new innovations, most of the time it only tessellates two base innovations. 1/ It makes something available when it wasn't. 2/ Or it makes something cheaper.https://twitter.com/a_yawning_cat/status/1341269411638886401 …

So when someone points out. "Hey tiktok and onlyfans don't seem like the kinds of innovations we need." and the reply is "well how about we shoot rockets into space" then that person might reasonably be confused and suspicious of thisInnovation

It is also suspicious that most tools of coordination like global chat are free and that the market actually erects paywalls for things like scientific articles. "hmm..r u guys sure this market thing is realllyyy trying to save us humans."