> And optimization is known to crush anything underfoot that isn't explicitly in it's goals to optimize. Yes, that's exactly the problem, which is why this >

> And optimization is known to crush anything underfoot that isn't explicitly in it's goals to optimize. Yes, that's exactly the problem, which is why this > The way you work around this is to decentralize (make sure there are multiple companies competing with one another) and distribute (make sure everyone has some access to the means of production in order to create more competition). is backwards. The reason competitive markets generally work out better for consumers than monopolistic ones is because they're stronger optimizers, more ruthless, more capable of crushing all competing values underfoot - and those of us lucky enough to benefit from an inefficient, low-crushing segment of the labor market get to collect some of the resulting surplus. Nothing about this is inevitable: it's just the way we happen to be positioned in one particular system at one particular moment in history. There's no reason to expect that we would remain safely un-crushed in a far more competitive environment.