Usually as a critique of idealistic communists, socialists, or some other lefty with a big idea involving lots of tax dollars and government coercion, we've all heard the sage advice of Voegelin and Buckley cautioning us not to immanentize the eschaton. And well, that got me thinking about North Korea and YouTube.
While not remotely an apples to apples comparison, the two are similar and different enough to suggest an approximation of what and what not to do, if one is seeking power, profit, or paradise. Despite every communist state's flaws, they seek eschaton, and forever fall further and further short. Basically, North Korea is doing it wrong.
But YouTube is doing something right (mostly, kind of).
In short, one tried to immanentize and the other monetized.
I think probably any human effort to usher in some kind of grand paradise is doomed to spectacular failure. However, we're really good at making lots of little paradises, and we're pretty darn good at spotting those little oases.
Your inner socialist is probably telling you to copy from those little paradises and have the government provide it to everyone.
But don't listen to your little Marx, that way lies suffering (it's been tried, ad nauseam).
Instead, listen to that scrappy, greedy little goblin, and find ways to profit from little paradises. Better yet, find ways to profit off of helping people make little paradises.
When you've done that, you've just incentivized a lot of paradise. YouTube has done that. And several other web companies providing solid platforms for the masses.
For many of you, this is so obvious it's cliche. It's capitalism 101. Yet the struggle continues, since we can't help ourselves from erecting barriers to new and old markets.
What's probably less obvious, is that with the rise of mostly boundary-less platform economies, and with regulators' collective lateness to the tech party, there's a lot of room for optimism. I don't think we're even close to reaching the potential there.
Just thinking out loud.
While not remotely an apples to apples comparison, the two are similar and different enough to suggest an approximation of what and what not to do, if one is seeking power, profit, or paradise. Despite every communist state's flaws, they seek eschaton, and forever fall further and further short. Basically, North Korea is doing it wrong.
But YouTube is doing something right (mostly, kind of).
In short, one tried to immanentize and the other monetized.
I think probably any human effort to usher in some kind of grand paradise is doomed to spectacular failure. However, we're really good at making lots of little paradises, and we're pretty darn good at spotting those little oases.
Your inner socialist is probably telling you to copy from those little paradises and have the government provide it to everyone.
But don't listen to your little Marx, that way lies suffering (it's been tried, ad nauseam).
Instead, listen to that scrappy, greedy little goblin, and find ways to profit from little paradises. Better yet, find ways to profit off of helping people make little paradises.
When you've done that, you've just incentivized a lot of paradise. YouTube has done that. And several other web companies providing solid platforms for the masses.
For many of you, this is so obvious it's cliche. It's capitalism 101. Yet the struggle continues, since we can't help ourselves from erecting barriers to new and old markets.
What's probably less obvious, is that with the rise of mostly boundary-less platform economies, and with regulators' collective lateness to the tech party, there's a lot of room for optimism. I don't think we're even close to reaching the potential there.
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| chart from Visual Capitalist |
