Saving the economy by turning water into a luxury item. The op-eds basically write themselves.

There are overwhelming examples of people who continue to work when all of their basic needs are met. Some work because they love to, some work because they have to; we, collectively, should be trying as hard as possible to make work optional (automation, etc), because the point of life is to live, not to work. Some combination of Abundance [1], Solarpunk [2], etc. The entire planet will eventually be in population decline [3] (with most of the world already below fertility replacement rate), so optimizing for endless growth is unnecessary. So keep spinning up flywheels towards these ends if we want to optimize for the human experience, art, creativity, and innovation (to distribute opportunity to parity with talent).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_(Klein_and_Thompson_...

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/nov/12/supply-b...

[3] https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~jesusfv/Slides_London.pdf

(think in systems)

There’s an equilibrium. If no one worked, housing and food would not be super cheap.

Or people would do things they were genuinely interested in rather than from desperation

If people were broadly socialized for collaboration and collective good, people could and would achieve as much with many fewer hours of work, and with the many more hours available for personal creative pursuit and play. There is no innate human nature that prevents this, only a prevailing social order which reinforces individualism and competition at the expense of the many.