[sdwr]

The social graph described in the article is what you see in a high school or small community or anywhere material productivity is not important. Relationships and attention are the source of value.

Ironically, those places are the most communist. Everybody enters on a relatively even footing, and there are strong norms against directly profiting off your peers.

[wakawaka28]

Have you ever been to a high school? Nobody is on equal footing, socially speaking. The authoritarian nature of high school is about the only communist thing about it.

[causal]

I think that's the point - high school is a microcosm of OPs ideas and it is not something we want to scale up.

[wakawaka28]

Maybe I misread it now that I'm looking again. I'm so used to pro-communist stuff online that ambiguous takes look pro-communist.

[sdwr]

Everyone is on an equal footing materially (basically), which opens the door to the social layer being all-important (and wildly unequal).

[wakawaka28]

Kids are not materially the same. Some kids are on foot, some have cars, some have nice cars. Same for clothes, vacations, basically everything. I think uniforms may be common these days but even with uniforms you can tell who has money, drugs, popularity. Their bodies are radically different from each other.

I get what you're driving at I guess (and I initially misunderstood and thought you were pro-communist). All that happens if you take money and talent out of the equation is, the most attractive and connected people get ahead. Being unattractive is what makes a lot of people develop other positive qualities within themselves such as talent. If we are entering a talent-free world then there will be a lot of people with no prospects to have a satisfying life because there is nothing else they could do systematically to increase their value to society.