[coldtea]

>The great strength of markets is their decentralized and dynamic nature. They are the original hivemind and crowd-sourced wisdom.

The problem is that markets optimize for one thing, to the detriment of all others: profit.

Anything else (e.g. more inventions, etc) is a byproduct. If avoiding it will bring more profit, that's totally fine for the actors involved.

And it's not even long term profit (which, because of costs to reputation and such, will require more good behavior) -- quick term profit is equally good a motive under such a market system, human costs and externalities be damned.

Under such a system, if people could sell baby milk mixed with chlorine to make a profit, they would (and they have -- among countless of other examples of putting profit first).

We should create and foster decentralized and dynamic systems that optimize for a better world in aspects that we want -- instead of piggybacking on a naturally occurring decentralized system based on greed like monkeys.