The Ragnarök Project
The foundations of this project come from a synthesis of various aspects of human development over the past several thousand years. Taking the most attractive parts of each civilization, each development in human history, and combining them into one concept, the system is designed to be entirely self-replicating, cutting costs consistently until they reach an absolute minimum. The basic goal is to replace a material capital marketplace with something infinitely sustainable, which can theoretically reduce cost of production to zero. One of the key aspects in this is allowing humans to actualize their potential, exchanging feeling of value from accumulating material belongings for feeling value from being able to pursue passion and share growth with others. This is a significant alteration of the way that humans think, but it is not impossible; why not be the generation to logically process our own evolution?
To begin on this journey, we must first highlight the end goal. As a race, our goal is existence. Furthermore, our goal is the best possible existence, and for the most amount of people possible. This is something we can see in the past and present; we constantly measure ourselves against others for quality of life, population, birth mortality rates, and more. With the goal of the best possible lives for the most people in mind, we must then assess the best way to get there.
Rational analysis of our current global system tells us that it is terrible. There is no cohesion, no balance, no peace. Instead, small fractions of the planet fight over smaller fractions of resources, space, and for empty displays of imagined power. This is clearly not the best way for humans to exist, certainly not for most people. Yes, our life expectancy is longer than it was a thousand years in the past, we have eliminated smallpox, and we have developed the Internet. On the other hand, however, we still cling to the same barbaric rituals of war and political posturing for dominance that keep us rooted savagery. We have eliminated a huge percentage of the world's living creatures in the blink of an eye on the time line of the planet. We are rapidly pushing ourselves towards extinction.
What if we could do things another way?
The most ideal situation for every person on this planet is if we all worked together for the best quality lives possible. "Thats ridiculous," I hear your mind shout; remember, this is the goal phase. The goal should be for every person on this planet to only exist as a positive, or at least a neutral, for others. That is the structural framework for good law; prevention of infringement on rights of others, but freedom within that to do as one pleases. What if, in addition to individual freedom as long as one caused no negative impact on others, we never had to go to work again? Imagine only doing whatever you wanted to do every day when you wake up. That sounds like a good goal as well; absolute freedom. The combination of those things is the theoretical aim of this project. People should be able to all live, all live well, and all live free.
Nothing about that seems ridiculous at a theoretical level. However, how can we possibly get to that point?
The only way to finish that journey is to start it.
The vast majority of human history has seen development along lines of a scarcity economy. From the earliest of the hunter/gatherers to the corporate capitalist world we live in today, everything has been built off of a supply and demand concept centered around common forms of exchange, or currency. As technology progresses, the specifics of that system have changed, but the system as a whole is still the same as it has been since the beginning (with a few notable exceptions, like the Inca Empire). A small fraction of the people in charge of distribution of resources dominate the globe, with the rest underneath doing their best to survive on the remaining scraps, as dogs at a medieval table. Instead of looking at ways to lower costs, we look for ways to regulate costs, maintain the status quo, and keep things stable. We make more jobs for more people to make more money, of which the richest continue to accumulate a greater share while the poorest continue to grow in population and fall in quality of life. This system cannot be replaced overnight; those at the top see no reason to change it and those at the bottom see no way forward but surviving day to day. However, there is a way to make things better for both the poorest people and the richest people without any lower quality life for anyone at any point; only progress.
Continuing with theory, the way to allow people to only be a positive on the system is by removing the base costs of living, similar to Elon Musk's plan of a Universal Base Income, but with elimination of income altogether. Instead, base needs are provided for without cost. Theoretically, if there are no costs associated with you that are different from everyone around you, that sets the threshold for "you" at zero, along with everyone else, with zero being life without worry about day to day survival. In that system, every day that you wake up and do anything at all, you are only possibly a positive (unless you go about killing people, but we'll talk about that later).
The beauty of this idea is that, again, theoretically, if people are allowed to do what they love to do without worrying about going to a job 40+ hours a week to make enough money for food so they can maybe work on their passions on the weekend if they aren't decompressing from the week or working even more (and this is just in my global north privileged life), then they will unlock their potential in whatever their chosen field(s) may be. Being able to chase dreams without hindrance would allow people to realize their dreams, which would spur an incredible surge in growth and development in every field. Every single thing that can be done has someone that loves to do it; allowing them to do it essentially alters the "job" economy from a material idea of 'do this work you might not want to do but have to so you can live' into a human capital idea of 'this is something I want to see exist, or make happen, and I have nothing stopping me from achieving it and allowing others to also benefit from it.'
I still hear the voice in your head calling me a fool and denying the very possibility of any of this, but we can actually get there. The trick is to start small, work together, utilize our incredible intellects to actually analyze our current systems for positives and negatives, and then steadily remove all negatives, all blockades on achieving the maximum potential of humanity.