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While in a low trust society, which you obviously already have, people are most productive when they're at perpetual risk of starvation.


No, you simply are unable to reap the benefits that are available to high trust societies.


Reap 'em? I'm unable to even conceive of them!


"productive"


Simplest way to increase total absolute output is always to stop providing intake.

Obviously, this fails almost immediately; operative word "almost". Definition of "almost": longer than a moment. Definition of moment:

As it happens, high-trust societies have just spent the better part of a century teaching their constituents to "live in the present", atop half a millenium of teaching them that time is a thing linear, discrete, and properly scaled for decision making.

Ergo: if the time between doing something stupid and realizing you did something stupid is longer than your attention span, you're a perpetual motion device.




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