New civilizations are built by barbarians that get tired of being barbarians. Almost any community/coop idea fails when it is missing some part of its mechanism. Gerard points out below that the roads crumble when the ride economy doesn’t contribute to the infrastructure.

Every profit-structure depends on the civil structure, but goes to great lengths not to pay for it. Amazon and WalMart have the government doing the subsidizing that keeps people from using pitchforks and torches.

The sharing mechanisms are patented and separated from the very civilization institutions that they depend on.

What if we got rid of the patent system? What if everyone paid into an insurance fund for vehicles (automated or driven)? What if everyone shared their food raising labors?

Oh, wait….that’s called “good society” and people wouldn’t be afraid of driving the neighbor’s car or sharing a meal.

Why are we so obsessed with putting numbers on everyone’s time and value? The blockchain pattern of shifting trust to strangers comes long after people shifted their trust to money (not actual value from people who produce things, but the colored pieces of paper controlled by numbers on spreadsheets in banks).

Human Usefulness is long gone as a factor, but it will cycle around again.