| I get you. Your image at the end is hauntingly vivid. This is what government is for. Should be for: should be doing. I don't mean at the micro-level of regulating website loading times: that would be ludicrous. I mean at the macro-level of guiding society away from harmful equilibria. I can't suggest policies which will accomplish all of these, and reasonable people can disagree about implementations. That's OK: so long as we are aligned on that purpose we can iterate on attempted solutions. With that said, here are some harmful equilibria to address, and at least a top-level approach to take, or goal to set: - Carbon (and other pollution and waste) taxes which internalize costs that are currently born by everyone, in order to profit a few. - Privacy protections which make business-models built around surveillance and micro-targeted advertising impossible. - Corporate governance and financial market models which discourage short-term "line goes up" thinking. - Tax structures and business regulations which encourage research and development instead of stock buy-backs, and increasing workers' wages instead of executive compensation. I'd bet that at least a couple of those would improve website loading times, too. |