That's an interesting piece of writing, but just a quick SPOILER ALERT for anyone clicking the link for the first time: It isn't a story. It's just a device for painting a picture of one person's concept of a techno-utopia.
Libertarians often recommend Ayn Rand novels, because fiction is a useful medium for showcasing their utopian (or dystopian) ideals. However, at least Ayn Rand novels have intricate plots, and more or less fleshed-out characters.
"Manna" does not. The narrator, speaking to us from the near future, describes the endgame of technology advances within the capitalist order we now know. At the outset of the "story", the narrator is destitute in this order. He meets people from an isolated utopia, who have built a different order. A speaker from that group explains this alternative order to the narrator.
The end.
I still think that "Manna" is recommended reading, but I just want to give people proper expectations going into it. I was actually a bit angry the first time I finished it, because it was presented to me as something it wasn't. It is an essay presenting one possible alternative order for human civilization. While interesting in its own right, it isn't a real "story".
Libertarians often recommend Ayn Rand novels, because fiction is a useful medium for showcasing their utopian (or dystopian) ideals. However, at least Ayn Rand novels have intricate plots, and more or less fleshed-out characters.
"Manna" does not. The narrator, speaking to us from the near future, describes the endgame of technology advances within the capitalist order we now know. At the outset of the "story", the narrator is destitute in this order. He meets people from an isolated utopia, who have built a different order. A speaker from that group explains this alternative order to the narrator.
The end.
I still think that "Manna" is recommended reading, but I just want to give people proper expectations going into it. I was actually a bit angry the first time I finished it, because it was presented to me as something it wasn't. It is an essay presenting one possible alternative order for human civilization. While interesting in its own right, it isn't a real "story".