From the Mayans to the Greeks to the Romans, we’ve seen history repeat itself time and time again — civilizations rise and fall, except now things are different because we have exponential technology.

One of the root causes of societal collapse is the presence of and our participation in rivalrous or “zero-sum” games.

Anti-rivalrous games are the opposite; they’re “positive-sum” — either we both win together, or we lose together. These games are anti-fragile since everyone’s incentives are aligned

A rivalrous good is valuable because it’s scarce, like gold or Bitcoin. An anti-rivalrous good is valuable because it’s abundant, like language.

Abundant things become economically worthless, even if they’re foundational for life. Scarce things make people rich, even if they’re meaningless.

When things that should be positive-sum become zero-sum, bad things happen.

If you make a law that says it's illegal to do X, but it's still profitable to do X, companies and governments will still do X.

We know there has to be a structure whereby actual innovation is rewarded in proportion to its value in a way that rent seeking is eliminated entirely and the reward takes into account externalities produced by innovation.

We need a change in consciousness that acknowledges the interconnectedness of our fates. When we identify as interconnected parts of an interconnected universe (rather than separate discrete things) we inherently become more positive-sum. In effect, we stop thinking there is any definition of success for oneself that isn't also success for the whole.

understanding the interconnectedness of our society helps solve the rivalry problem, because zero-sum games require a separate sense of self, leading to rivalrous competition for some scarce asset.