The Awesome Science of Chinonomics

Social Capital , simply put, is what makes civilization go . At the neighborhood level, it's what makes you feel at ease with crossing your street to ask your neighbor for that specific wrench you need to tighten that one hinge you're trying to fix. The trust you have in your neighbors --the comfort of knowing your car tires won't be slashed at night or that your house won't be broken into-- allows you to focus on things that are different from security and survival to (hopefully) be more productive. Sure, you can also spend all your time  doomscrolling  and brainrotting , but at least you have the optionality to do something good with that extra time. When it works in harmony, the social contract we tacitly (sometimes expressly) enter into allows us to develop our human capacities.  After all, what is art and the pursuit of knowledge if not just the leisurely, luxurious activity that's permitted only when those with the capacity, the interest, the means and intent ...

The more you want to get away from it, the easiest it finds you. Bad news and ominous signals have an inexorable way of powering their way to your skull. Regardless of how badly you want to get away from them. Our loss aversion makes us more attentive to bad news, because not acting on negative risk meant literally dying when we were apes.  Wanna know the saddest part of all this? This is still very much true in the year 2022.  I remember telling myself once and again when I heard nonstop reports on Russian amassing troops on the border with Ukraine before the invasion:  "Enough already! This whole 'will-he/will-he-not invade' non sense is getting tiresome. Of course Putin won't invade! I'm sick of this media alarmism. I mean, the costs are massive. Ukraine is too big a country. It's not Syria. It borders NATO, for God's sake! All Putin has to do to win is retreat, don't invade, and say 'See? I told you! Biden's a warmonger. I told you all along...

There used to be a time when the internet was not a winner-take-all mad dash for world dominance. Steven Johnson taught me that.   In the beginning, developers of the foundations of the interwebs created open protocols for the benefit of all, free of charge. Many times under the auspices of the government. That internet still lives on in the guts of what we all experience online nowadays. You just don't realize it, because you pay no licensing fee for the use of the HTTP protocol. No company profits from your use of email protocols POP, SMTP or IMAP, either. They're just there. Built for your benefit by someone who was not tying to hit the next unicorn and become a billionaire (or trillionaire ?). Johnson calls it "InternetOne": the layer of the internet created by distributing its benefits to everyone who cares to join. Cryptocurrencies are an example of it. They distribute the benefits among those participate (through mining) so the network grows. Capitalis...