Welcome back to the Deep Dive. If you have been
riding shotgun with us for the last few months,
you know, we have been absolutely obsessed with
a very specific, very massive roadmap of the
future. We really have. We're talking, of course,
about the Reed Multiplex series. You have 5 ,000
days. And today involves a... Pretty significant
milestone. It's a huge one. It feels like we've
been on a long journey with this material from
Brian Rommel. I mean, we've dissected the de
-skilling of the workforce. We've analyzed the
rise of the voice -first revolution. And we spent
a considerable, I mean, a lot of time on that
incredibly heavy, almost suffocating concept
he calls the dark night of the soul. Right. That
moment where AI essentially just strips away
the job part of your identity. It was pretty
bleak stuff to get through. It really was. And
honestly. Looking back at the last few discussions
we've had on this, it's been a little dark. Enlightening,
absolutely. Brian Remmel is nothing if not thorough.
Oh, unbelievably so. But it has felt like watching
a storm front move in. You know it's coming.
You know it's going to change the landscape.
But you don't necessarily want to be standing
in the rain. That is a very fair assessment.
I think a lot of the early parts of the 5 ,000
Days Theory are, by necessity, about disruption.
They are about the end of the world as we know
it. Right. But today, today feels different.
We are looking at part 13 of the series. And
just the title alone, it gives me a little bit
of hope. It's called The Gilded Age, Reclaiming
Human Craft in an Age of Abundance. The Gilded
Age. I love the play on words there. It's not
the Gilded Age of the robber barons. It's the
Gilded Age. With you. So set the scene for us.
Where are we in this grand narrative that Rimmel's
been building? This is the pivot point. This
is absolutely the turn. You have to remember
that he structures this entire massive analysis
around Joseph Campbell's hero's journey. We have
had the call to adventure. We have crossed the
threshold. And we have been in the belly of the
whale. That's the Dark Knight. That's a good
way to put it. The belly of the whale. Today,
we finally reached the return. The hero has survived
the crisis, faced the dragon in this case, the
existential threat of AI and automation, and
is now coming back home. But he is not coming
back empty -handed. He's bringing something back.
He is bringing an elixir. And, spoiler alert
for everyone listening, the elixir isn't a new
iPhone. It's not some fancy brain implant. It's
definitely not a universal basic income check
from the government. No, not at all. The elixir
is a blueprint. And what I love about Rommel's
work here and what makes it so different from
so much futurism is that this isn't just theory.
It's a practical architectural plan for society.
A new economic operating system. That's the perfect
term for it. He is arguing that the solution
to a world where robots do all the drudgery isn't
to just sit around and wait for a handout. It's
a radical return to a system we abandoned over
150 years ago. The guild. The guild. Okay, so
before we get into men in robes and secret handshakes,
because that is definitely where my mind goes
when I hear guild. Mine too, or like a video
game or something. Exactly. World of Warcraft.
Let's set the stage chronologically. Romul is
talking about a very specific time window here,
right? He calls it the abundance interregnum.
Correct. We are looking at the window roughly
from late 2025 to 2039. That is the 5 ,000 days.
Right. The core thesis here, and this is the
thing that truly bends your mind if you sit with
it for a minute, is that AI and robotics are
going to fundamentally break the link between
human survival and human toil. Say that again.
That's a big statement. For all of human history,
you didn't work, you didn't eat, or you didn't
have shelter. That was the deal. The basic contract
of what? The basic contract. But in this coming
decade, he argues, the cost of basic goods, food,
shelter, generic manufactured items, is going
to drop to near zero because the labor cost,
the human component, drops to near zero. Which...
On the surface, sounds like an absolute utopia.
It does. Until you ask the obvious question,
which we have been asking for weeks now. If I
don't have to work to eat and a robot can do
my Excel spreadsheets and my legal briefs better
than I can, what am I for? What is the point
of me? And that is the existential wall. That's
the crisis we talked about in The Dark Knight.
And Romel's answer in this installment of Read
Multiplex is the guild economy. Okay. But I want
to be really, really specific here, because Guild
sounds like a Renaissance fair thing. It sounds
quaint. He is describing a hard -nosed... practical
architectural plan to restructure society. Not
a hobby club. Not a hobby club. It's about shifting
from an economy of scarcity, where we pay for
things because they're hard to get to, an economy
based on what he calls human rarity. I love that
term, human rarity. It just reframes everything.
It implies that we become the scarce resource.
We are the scarce resource. Our creativity, our
touch, our story, that's what's rare. So to understand
where we're going with this, Rummel actually
drags us way Way back into the past, like deep
past. We're going back to 1724. Yes. And this
is the part that's just so brilliant. It turns
out the economic model that might just save us
in 2035 looks suspiciously like Philadelphia
before the Civil War. Now, hold on. When I think
of the 1700s, I think of dysentery, churning
butter, no air conditioning. Right. Not exactly
a high tech paradigm. I don't think economic
superiority. So why? Why is Brian Romell pointing
to this specific era as the blueprint for our
hyper -advanced future? He's looking at the structure,
the decentralized nature of it. Between the early
American settlements and roughly 1863, the economy
operated on a completely different logic than
what we have today. What do you mean by a different
logic? Well, think about our system. Every transaction,
more or less, flows through a central point,
a bank. A credit card company. Middleman. Always
a middleman. Back then, there was no Federal
Reserve. There was no massive centralized banking
system acting as the clearinghouse for every
single transaction. It was a credit -based, reputation
-based economy. Okay, so that makes sense for,
you know, trading chickens for shoes. But how
did they build anything massive? I mean, we look
at Independence Hall in Philadelphia. It's still
standing. It's beautiful. You can't build that
on IOUs and handshakes, can you? Actually, you
can. And they did. This is where the concept
of the master craftsman comes in. Rommel does
a brilliant job of breaking down what a master
actually was in 1750. This wasn't just a guy
with a hammer and a saw. Not even close. A master
builder was the architect, the engineer, the
general contractor, and this is the crucial part,
the financier, all rolled into one person. The
financier. That seems like a stretch. How does
a carpenter finance a state house? He carried
the risk. he would front the costs for materials
and labor and he'd carry that debt on his books
and to manage that risk and to ensure absolute
top -tier quality they organized into guilds
into guilds Rommel focuses heavily on the Carpenters
Company of Philadelphia, which was established
in 1724. Okay. They created something that is
the technical unlocking mechanism for this whole
theory. If you can understand this one document,
you understand the Future Guild. It was called
the rule book or the book of prices. The book
of prices. Okay. Let's unpack this because today
if I hire a contractor to redo my kitchen, I'm
usually paying for materials plus labor, you
know, hours worked. Right. X dollars per hour.
Or maybe a fixed mid. Where I secretly suspect
they're cutting corners to make their margin.
Right. Time is money. That is a classic industrial
age concept. It assumes that the value is in
the clock. That an hour of your time is worth
a set amount. Which seems logical. It does now.
But the guilds rejected that entirely. They used
something called unit pricing. Explain the difference
for us. This feels important. It is the absolute
key. Unit pricing means they charged by the output,
not the input. So if you were laying flooring,
the book of prices had a set rate for a square,
which was a defined unit, 100 square feet, or
for a linear foot of wainscoting. It didn't matter
if it took you two days because you were meticulous
or two weeks because you were slow or two hours
because you were a genius. The price was the
price. The price was the price for that unit
of finished quality work. That actually changes
the incentive structure completely, doesn't it?
Completely. In an hourly model, the incentive
for the worker can be to drag the work out to
get paid more. Or get it done as fast as possible,
quality be damned. Exactly. Or, if it's a fixed
bid, the boss pushes you to rush, use cheap glue,
and hide the mistakes behind the drywall to widen
the profit margin. We've all seen that. We have
all lived that. In the guild model, the incentive
is mastery. You want to do it efficiently, sure,
but you have to meet the standard to get paid
for that unit. There is no benefit to cutting
corners because you simply won't get paid. But
who sets the standard? That's the big question.
If I lay a crappy floor really quickly, do I
still get the unit price? Who is the referee
who says this is good enough? That is the genius
of the system. And this is the part I found most
fascinating in Rommel's research. They had a
role. They had measurers. Measurers. Yes. These
were sworn members of the guild. They had to
be highly experienced, usually with decades of
work under their belts. They were the most respected
masters. What did they do? When a job was done,
the master builder didn't just send an invoice.
Two measurers would go to the site. They would
physically measure the work. They would check
the joinery. They would check the plumb lines
against the specifications in the rule book.
And they would determine the final value. So
no haveling. I can't argue, hey, I tried really
hard or my material costs went up unexpectedly.
No haggling. It was equitable. It was a three
-way protection system. It protected the client
from being overcharged. It protected the craftsman
from being underpaid. And it protected the reputation
of the entire guild. The price was the price.
And this rulebook. You said it was the key. Yes.
And it was semi -secret. Ah, OK. Here comes the
secret society aspect. I knew it was coming.
It wasn't secret because they were, you know,
hiding a conspiracy to take over the world. It
was intellectual property. It was the collective
knowledge and standards of the guild built over
decades. And you had to earn the right to access
it. You had to. Brian Rommel shares this absolutely
great anecdote in the text about Thomas Jefferson.
Now, you have to think about Jefferson. This
wasn't just a politician. He was a brilliant
architect. He designed Monticello. He designed
the Virginia State Capitol. He was a serious
player. Right. If anyone deserves access to the
architectural secrets of the day, it's Jefferson.
You'd think so. Well, in 1817, Jefferson basically
knocks on the door of the Carpenter's Company
and asks to see a copy of their rulebook. He
wants to know their pricing standards, their
methods. And they say. They politely told the
former president of the United States to get
lost. Denied. They denied Thomas Jefferson. Flat
out, because he wasn't a member. That knowledge,
the standard of value, belonged to the collective.
It ensured that only people who had put in the
work, who had gone through the seven -year apprenticeship.
Seven years. Only they could operate in that
market. It was a quality control mechanism that
was incredibly strict. We don't do anything for
seven years anymore. We barely do anything for
seven months. A university degree is four. And
that's the tragedy Rommel is pointing out. That
apprenticeship wasn't just learning to saw a
straight line or mix mortar. It was learning
the ethics of the trade. It was learning to live
in a web of mutual obligation. What do you mean
by that? You literally lived with the master.
You ate at his table. You became part of his
family. You learned how to be a member of the
community, not just an employee. Let's talk about
that obligation, because you mentioned earlier
that there wasn't a lot of cash floating around
in 1750. So if I'm a carpenter and I build a
barn for a farmer, how do I actually get paid
if there's no national currency in my pocket?
You get credit, and I don't mean a credit card
swipe. I mean a literal entry in a ledger book.
Farmer John owes me for one barn framing, and
that debt might sit there on the books for five
years. Five years. That requires a massive amount
of trust. Our entire economy would collapse if
payments took five years. It requires reputation.
That's the currency. Eventually, Farmer John
pays you back in pork or corn, or maybe he helps
you clear a field next spring, or maybe he gives
you lumber from his woodlot for your next project.
Or you trade the debt itself. Exactly. You could
take that debt from Farmer John and use it to
pay the blacksmith for new tools. It was a relational
economy. If you were a jerk or if you did bad
work or if you stiff someone, you were exiled
from the economy because nobody would trade with
you. Your name was your bond. Your reputation
was everything. So we have this historical baseline.
High trust, high skill, unit pricing, decentralized
credit. It sounds pretty great, actually. But
then 1863 happens. What went wrong? It's not
that it went wrong exactly. The Civil War required
centralization. The North needed to fund a massive
modern war machine. You can't fund a war on barter
and local ledgers. You need cash. You need cash.
So the government passed the National Banking
Acts. They centralized the currency, created
the greenback, and established the national banking
system we more or less have today. And slowly,
over decades, that industrial model of labor
took over. We stopped being makers and started
being employees. We traded mastery for a wage.
And Rommel isn't saying that was bad per se.
It built the 20th century. It built the skyscrapers
and the highways and put a car in every garage.
It was necessary for that era. Exactly. It was
necessary for scaling the industrial age. But
Rommel's core argument in this gilded age deep
dive is that the industrial model is now obsolete.
The industrial model is an operating system for
scarcity. It's for rationing resources. But we
are entering the abundance interregnum. Let's
pivot. Let's get into the return. Why do we go
back to guilds in 2030? If a robot can 3D print
a house, why do I need a guild master? It seems
totally counterintuitive to go back to a system
from 300 years ago when we have super intelligent
AI. Because of one word. Value. This is the hardest
concept to really grasp, and Brian Rimmel spends
a lot of time on it. When AI drives the cost
of mass production to near zero, when... A robot
can print a perfect plastic chair for a penny
or generate a perfect legal contract for free.
That chair has no economic value. It has utility.
You can sit in it. It has utility, but it has
no trade value. If you can get one for free,
why would you pay for it? Right. If everyone
have it, nobody pays for it. Basic supply and
demand. Exactly. So traditional cash, which is
a tool designed to ration scarce resources, becomes
kind of... Irrelevant. Marginal is the word Rommel
uses. Cash becomes a vestige of a bygone era
of scarcity. So when all the material necessities
are cheap, what becomes expensive? What becomes
the new scarcity? Us. Humans. The things the
robot can't do. The human unique stuff. Precisely.
Human unique labor. The intuitive touch. The
relational depth. The connection. The story.
Romel's insight is that we aren't going back
to poverty. We are using this old guild structure
to manage plenty. We're building a new social
operating system around the things that actually
matter when survival is guaranteed. OK, so paint
the picture for me. How does this actually work?
It's 2032. I'm not joining a union. I'm not punching
a clock. What am I doing? It's much more grassroots
than that. Romel describes it as voluntary and
local. So imagine six or seven friends gathering
in a living room or a local makerspace. They
trust each other. They have complementary skills.
They decide to form a guild. Okay. Step one.
Get six friends you trust. That might be the
hardest part. Ah, true. Step two. They draft
the new rulebook. It's modeled directly on that
1786 original from Philadelphia. But instead
of pricing floorboards. They define their own
unique units of value. And this is where it gets
incredibly creative. It's not just square feet
of wood. For a storytelling guild, it could be
emotional depth hours. For a software guild,
it might be complexity units. For a piece of
code. For a chef, sensory innovation units. You
define what you value as a group. You define
your own economy. And then you have the ledger.
Are we talking blockchain? Probably. Seems like
a natural fit. Roemo suggests blockchain is the
logical tool for transparency, but he's clear
that the tech isn't the point. The point is the
transparency. Everyone in the guild sees the
ledger. You know exactly who has contributed
what and who owes what. There are no secrets.
And there's a ritual to it. I like this part.
The monthly ritual. The pricing committee meets.
Just like the measurers of old, they review the
work done by members that month, they assign
credits based on the rulebook that they all agreed
to, and then payment is instant. Credits just
appear in your personal account on the guild
ledger. Ronel gives a really specific, concrete
example in the text. Sarah the Potter in the
year 2032. I think this really helps ground it.
Can we walk through her day? Yes. This is the
day in the life of the future economy, and it's
a great illustration. So Sarah makes a set of
12 dinner plates. Now, we have to remember that
in 2032, a robot and a factory could probably
3D print. 10 ,000 plates in an hour that look
mathematically perfect. Absolutely. But Sarah
doesn't mass produce. She uses a specific glaze
that was inspired by her grandmother's recipe.
There's a story. There's soul in the object.
She hand turns them. So each one is slightly
unique. This is the human rarity part. This is
it. So the guild's pricing committee visits her
studio. They don't just count the plates. They
measure the surface area. They assess the complexity
of the glaze. They consider the story. And they
award her, let's say, 240 guild points. Right.
And here is the magic of the direct exchange.
She doesn't take those points to Bank of America
and cash them out. No need. She turns around
and instantly spends 80 of those points with
another guild member, a guy down the street who
hand forged some beautiful kitchen knives. Okay.
Then she spends 60 points on a musician in her
guild to come play live music at her daughter's
birthday party next month. And the rest. She
banks the rest. She's saving up for a big project,
a cabin renovation, that another member of the
guild, a master carpenter, is going to do for
her. And the key takeaway here. is no invoices,
no waiting 30 days for payment, no transaction
fees, no middleman skimming 3 % off the top.
Just a direct exchange of value between people
who know and trust each other. And because it's
local and reputation -based, the trust is inherent.
You know Sarah. You know the guy who made the
knives. You aren't trusting a credit score algorithm
from a faceless corporation. You're trusting
the relationship. This sounds idyllic, but Rommel
gets very specific about how this applies across
all of society. He lists 10 specific examples
of future guilds. I think we should walk through
these because they really show the breadth of
this vision. It's not just for potters and carpenters.
Absolutely not. It covers the full spectrum of
human activity. He breaks them into a few groups.
Let's look at the physical crafts first. Okay,
so example number one, custom home construction.
This is the direct descendant of the 1724 carpenters.
In the future, as he lays it out, an AI will
do all the heavy lifting on the structural engineering.
It will ensure the house doesn't fall down. It
will optimize the material usage down to the
last millimeter. The machine handles the how.
Right. But the guildmaster adds the soul. The
carved details on the mantelpiece, the ergonomic
flow of the kitchen that fits a specific family's
lifestyle, the way the window perfectly frames
the morning sun. You aren't paying to the drywall
on the two -by -fours. You're paying for the
artistry. That's what's valuable. And the payment
might be in guild credits, or the text mentions
it might be in heirlooms. Trading an old family
grand piano for a new handcrafted staircase?
It's a very intimate economy. It really is. Then
there's number two, bespoke furniture. Again,
the focus is on the object becoming an heirloom.
An oak table isn't priced by how many hours it
cooked to make. It's priced by complexity units.
So you look at the joinery. Exactly. What kind
of joinery is it? Is it a complex dovetail, a
mortise and tenon? The furniture becomes a store
of value, not a disposable commodity like we
have today with fast furniture from a big box
store. That makes so much sense. I also love
example number nine in this group, small -scale
farming. This is so crucial. AI can and will
optimize crop yields on mega farms. It can give
you a perfect calorie -dense red round tomato
that can ship 3 ,000 miles. But it tastes like
cardboard. It tastes like water. But the farmers
in these guilds are cultivating unique heirloom
varietals that an AI can't originate. They trade
based on what Rommel calls flavor profile units.
Flavor profile units. That is such a cool concept.
You're not buying a pound of tomatoes. You're
buying a specific sensory experience, the taste
of summer from your childhood. Exactly. You're
buying a story. Now, look at the second group
he outlines, the service and social crafts. This
is where the guild model expands beyond the purely
physical. Example number four, culinary and fermentation.
This is the farmer's market on steroids. Here,
the valuation is on sensory innovation. You go
to a guild dinner. The ingredients are hyper
-local, from the farming guild. The recipes are
generational, passed down through families. You
aren't just eating, you are participating in
a story. And how do you pay? You might pay the
chef with unique spices you grew yourself, or
with guild credits you earn from your own craft.
It returns dining to a communal ritual, rather
than just fueling up your body. And then there's
example number six. Community dispute resolution.
This one struck me as really profound, because...
Our current legal system is, well, it's a nightmare.
It is. It's adversarial by design. It's incredibly
expensive. It's designed to produce a winner
and a loser, which often fractures communities.
Right. In the guild economy, he envisions a guild
of elders or trained mediators. Their goal isn't
winning. It's achieving relational harmony. And
they are paid in credits for the facilitation
effort. It's about healing the community rather
than dividing it. Imagine resolving a fence dispute
with your neighbor, not by suing them for $50
,000, but by having a respected mediator facilitate
a solution where everyone saves face and you
can still have a barbecue together next weekend.
That's a world I'd like to live in. And it's
similar for example seven, holistic healing and
elder care. This is a perfect human AI partnership.
The AI does the diagnostics. A machine can analyze
your blood work or your MRI scan better than
any human doctor. It can tell you what is wrong.
But the human provides the care. The human does
the empathic listening. They provide the touch.
They hold the hand. They help you navigate the
fear and the uncertainty. That's the valuable
part. And the text specifically mentions that
widows and orphans are automatically supported
in this system. It's built into the code of the
guild just like it was in 1724. It's a fundamental
part of the charter. Moving to the arts and innovation
group. Example three is mentorship. Romel talks
about reviving the seven -year apprenticeship.
But here, the journeymen, the teachers, are paid
for teaching intuitive techniques. You give that
amazing example of... metal tempering by breath.
Right. And that sounds esoteric, but think about
it. There are things a master blacksmith knows
or a glassblower knows about the material that
cannot be captured in data. It's a feeling. It's
a rhythm. It's a sense. And AI literally cannot
replicate that because it doesn't have a body.
It doesn't have breath. So teaching that human
nuance becomes high value work. Incredibly high
value. Then there's example five, live performance.
This one is about reaction, about being present.
Exactly. An AI can play a piece of music perfectly.
It can generate a flawless symphony. But can
it improvise based on the specific, unique energy
of the room on a Tuesday night? Can it feel the
tension in the crowd and break it with a perfectly
timed joke or a surprising chord change? No.
That's pure human connection. That's emotional
depth. And that's what the Guild prices. Then
you have example eight, symbiotic innovation.
This is the ultimate partnership. Humans provide
the why. The purpose, the crazy idea, the spark
of genius. The AI provides the how. It does the
complex modeling, the calculations, the brute
force work. And finally, he wraps it all with
the safety net. Example 10, crisis mutual aid.
This brings it full circle back to the 1700s.
If your house burns down or you get a serious
illness and can't work, the guild covers you.
Not a faceless insurance company that makes you
fill out 100 pages of forms and then tries to
find a loophole to deny your claim to save money.
It's immediate. It's drawn from the entrance
fees and the collective investments of the guild
itself. There's no bureaucracy. It's just neighbors
helping neighbors because they have a transparent
ledger of mutual obligation. It's insurance,
but it's human insurance. Now, I can hear some
of our listeners screaming at their speakers
right now. This sounds like a commune. This sounds
like socialism. Are we all going to wear gray
jumpsuits and share everything? Right. It's an
easy conclusion to jump to. But Brian Rommel
is very, very... explicit in the text. This is
not a socialist utopia. He is incredibly firm
on this point. In fact, to make the point as
strongly as possible, he explicitly invokes Ayn
Rand. Which is about as far from socialism as
you can get. He calls it the purest form of capitalism.
And the distinction is vital. Socialism or collectivism
generally involves forced redistribution, a central
authority, the state taking from one person to
give to another, whether they want to or not.
This is different. Romel argues the guild system
is based entirely on voluntary association. You
choose to join, you choose to trade, you can
leave anytime you want. Nobody is forcing you
to do anything. And it honors rational self -interest.
That's the objectivist angle. The craftsman offers
their skill not because they are forced by some
committee to serve the community, but because
they enjoy the act of creation and they want
to trade that creation for other valuable things.
They want the best knives, so they make the best
plates to trade for them. Exactly. It's intensely
meritocratic. If you make bad plates, nobody
trades with you. You fail. There is no tenure
in the guild. Your reputation is earned every
single day. Rommel also contrasts this very sharply
with UBI universal basic income. A lot of futurists
say, well, the robots take the jobs, the government
sends everyone a check, and we all sit around
playing video games. Rommel hates that idea.
He argues, and I think this is a really powerful
psychological insight, that UBI fails because
it separates reward from effort. And for human
beings, that is a disaster. It strips away dignity.
It strips away dignity. We need to feel that
our effort produces our reward. That our contribution
matters. That link is essential for mental health,
for self -worth. And the guilt system keeps that
link. It preserves that link perfectly. You don't
get credits for breathing. You get credits for
mastery. You get credits for contributing something
unique and valuable that other people want. That
leads us perfectly into the final section of
our deep dive today, the psychological return.
Because this whole series, You Have 5 ,000 Days,
it hasn't just been about economics or technology.
It's been about the soul. Deeply. The dark night
of the soul, which we discussed in our previous
sessions, was fundamentally a crisis of identity.
The question was, if I'm not my job. Who am I?
If a robot can write my reports, do I even matter?
And the Guild is the answer to that identity
crisis. It is. The shift is profound. You move
from an identity based on employment to one based
on vocation, from jobs to mastery. So my identity
isn't, I am a mid -level manager at Corbex. No.
Your identity is, I am the one who makes the
impossible joints, or I am the storyteller who
can make a room of adults weep, or I am the one
who bakes the bread that reminds everyone of
their grandmother. It's about being known, known
for something real. Being known and being needed.
Roemily talks about the joy of direct exchange.
There is a profound emotional weight, a real
psychic reward, to handing someone a custom cabinet
you built and seeing their eyes light up. You
can't get that from a direct deposit slip. You
cannot get that from a direct deposit slip. You
cannot get it from a performance review or a
bonus check. That is a human -to -human transaction
of gratitude and value. He uses the word eudaimonia.
Can you break that down? It's Aristotle's concept.
It's often translated simply as happiness, but
that's too weak. It really means human flourishing.
It means exercising your highest human capacities
in service to others and to yourself. It's the
feeling of being fully alive and actualized.
And this guild economy is designed to maximize
that. It's designed to maximize eudaimonia, not
GDP, not quarterly earnings. Human flourishing.
So we move from what he calls scarcity anxiety.
where we are always worried about not having
enough, hoarding our resources, competing with
our neighbors. So abundance gratitude to realizing
we have enough of the material things. And now
we can focus on building lives rich with meaning
through those micro exchanges. Fixing a chair
for a loaf of homemade bread. It sounds small.
It sounds maybe even primitive to our modern
hyperscale ears. But Rommel's argument is that
a life is built out of those moments. That is
where meaning resides. We realized the meaning
was never in the machine. It was never in the
efficiency. It was always in the human touch.
Always. So to recap this whole amazing idea,
we have the blueprint from 1724. We have the
new tools, the AI, and the coming abundance.
And we have the destination, the guild. The guild
economy is the elixir we bring back from this
5 ,000 -day journey. It is. And the most exciting
part for me is the call to action. Rommel doesn't
say, wait for the government to pass a guild
act in 2035. No. He says, start now. don't wait
for 2039 he says gather six friends today draft
a rule book for yourselves experiment with unit
pricing start trading your skills and your favors
using a shared ledger not cash create the lifeboat
before the ship sinks paint boldly That's the
phrase he uses. The next 5 ,000 days are the
canvas. It's a beautiful, empowering sentiment.
True wealth has always been one another. The
machines just clear away all the clutter so we
can finally see that clearly again. I have to
say, looking back at this entire series from
Reed Multiplex, Brian Rommels has really mapped
out something extraordinary here. It's not just
doom and gloom about robots taking over. It's
a hopeful, practical, and deeply human vision
of the future. It absolutely is. It's a roadmap
that honors the wisdom. of the past to build
a future that is actually worth living in. It's
been a privilege to analyze it. And honestly,
I think this Gilded Age concept is the most important
part of the entire series. It turns the existential
threat of AI into an opportunity for a true human
renaissance. And that is a wrap on our deep dive
into the Gilded Age. We want to thank you for
listening. And we want to leave you with one
final thought to mull over. Go for it. If your
job disappeared tomorrow, if the corporate title
vanished, if the paycheck stopped coming. What
is the one thing you could make or do that is
so unique, so you, that a neighbor would trade
their most precious heirloom just to have it?
That's the question. Finding that is the work
of the next 5 ,000 days. Thanks for listening.
We'll see you in the next deep dive. Take care.