Post scarcity

post scarcity is not “everyone gets a yacht” lol.
its more like: people stop living in artificial shortages for basic stuff.

i keep coming back to this: we don’t have a resource problem on many civic issues, we have a coordination / incentive / legibility problem. im hoping ai will solve a lot of it in the future…

if i had a city wallet, id spend it on things no one can reasonably hate:

• potholes. just fix them fast.
• free parking in places where people actually need to park (or at least heavily subsidized)
• guaranteed food for homeless ppl
• insulin coverage for anyone who gets screwed by the insurance maze
• repaint + repair kids playgrounds regularly
• powerwash + restore old cemetery tombstones
• sewage systems
• clean drinking water + filtration
• soap in every public bathroom, all the time
• vaccines + antibiotics + anesthesia access
• seat belts + smoke alarms everywhere they should be
• public libraries that stay funded
• right to an attorney
• standardized measurement (mL, $, time) so systems interoperate
• telephone communication + satellite cellular so no one is stranded
• live translation so language isnt a service lock
• glasses / lasik so ppl can literally see
• birth control access, obvious reasons

boring list, yes. thats kindaa the point.
these are high-trust interventions.

what i actually want though is not just “spend better”, its make spending legible. like if opengov was open

public dashboard, realtime:
- what was funded
- where
- by who
- for how much
- with what before/after outcome

how we can track a burrito on doordash in real time but not municipal spending? cmon lol

inspo:
https://blog.jacobtrefethen.com/footnotes-to-10-tech/