What are you worth when nothing is scarce?
For most of human history, economic value came from what you could do and how fast you could do it. If the machines end up smarter, faster, and stronger at every task, what's left? @alexolegimas wrote a great piece arguing that in the world the only thing left to price is human presence itself.
Which raises a set of questions I couldn't stop thinking about. What skills do you actually need when being human is the product? Does everyone end up competing on one likability leaderboard, or does status fracture into a thousand fields with their own hierarchies? Is a market in warmth coercive or any less of a meritocracy than the one it replaces?
New essay on Girard, Versailles, meritocracy, and the revenge of the jocks: https://juliawillemyns.substack.com/p/at-least-youre-likable
