A Diagram of Upward Motion
June 25, 2025
Multiple worlds with people embedded from multiple places
There is something about the nature of the modern world that is the following:
- If you are a specialist career (software, physics, finance, medicine, research, basically almost every category of career) there are conferences which take place in different cities or even countries. For example, NeurIPS, Gordon Research Conferences, VueConf, APS Global Physics Summit, International Carotenoid Society. If you have high mobility and know how to travel easily, then your chance of connection increases at conferences.
- Even though many fields are specialized, some specialist jobs do not pay well, such as introductory college lecturer.
- Even though trades may make money, the culture and types of people will differ from specialized fields (That being said, trades in wealthy California may significantly differ compared to Mississippi). Operational subsistence roles have significantly different culture and low pay.
- There is high transportation so people try to move to developed areas.
- Therefore for those in a specialist field, their main path is to keep moving forward, start their own business, marry someone financially stable, or move to a decent locale to work a simple operational role.
What I see more or less is that the above is the scene for the federal or global economy. In places such as the American South or Midwest, it seems like there is a strong feeling of people feeling like they are from those places, so even though they might not be competing in a specialist economy or leading in their field, they do the templating for local businesses such as a local marketing firm, local software shop which may serve the local university, hospital system, car dealerships, airport, etc. of which connection is more important than skill.
The rough explanation for how American society got into this position is likely a combination of the internet (increased communication), increased transportation, and the large population size.
Economic Hierarchy and Upward Motion
This is a rough diagram generated with Claude.
Blocking Factors that prevent movement from Imitation to Leading Economy:
- Limited cognitive ability from birth
- Family conditions & background
- Lack of educational opportunities
- Insufficient money/resources
- Geographic isolation
- Social connections
┌─────────────────────────────────┐
│ LEADING ECONOMY │
│ (Creates worlds & rules) │
│ • Scientists & Labs │
│ • Corporate Executives │
│ • Political Leaders │
│ • Curriculum Writers │
└─────────────────┬───────────────┘
│
┌───────────┼───────────┐
│ │ │
▼ ▼ ▼
┌─────────┐ ┌─────────┐ ┌─────────┐
│Templates│ │Templates│ │Templates│
│& Rules │ │& Rules │ │& Rules │
│ │ │ │ │ │
│Software │ │Account- │ │Engineers│
│Engineers│ │ants │ │Lawyers │
│Doctors │ │Analysts │ │Consult- │
│Police │ | │ │ants │
└─────────┘ └─────────┘ └─────────┘
│ │ │
▼ ▼ ▼
┌─────────────────────────────────┐
│ IMITATION ECONOMY │
│ (Students in their youth) │
│ (Aspires to Leading Economy) │ ▲
│ │ │ Wants to
│ ┌─────────┐ ┌─────────┐ │ │ move up
│ │College │ │Graduate │ │ │ but most
│ │Students │ │Students │ │ │ can't make
│ │Young │ │Young │ │ │ the jump
│ │Professionals│Academics│ │ │
│ └─────────┘ └─────────┘ │ │
└─────────────────────────────────┘ │
│ │
▼ │
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ REPEATER ECONOMY │
│ (Follows templates) │
│ │
│ Specialized Repeaters: Basic Repeaters: │
│ ┌─────────────────────┐ ┌─────────────────────┐ │
│ │ • 3rd/4th Tier │ │ • Retail Workers │ │
│ │ Colleges │ │ • Service Staff │ │
│ │ • Specialized but │ ──────▶│ • Enlisted Soldiers │ ───┘
│ │ not leading roles │ │ • Warehouse Workers │
│ │ • Distribution of │ │ • Food Delivery │
│ │ leading ideas │ │ • Subsistence Ops │
│ └─────────────────────┘ └─────────────────────┘
│ ▲ ▲
│ │ │
│ │ ┌─────────────────────┐│
│ └────────│ POPULATION ││
│ │ (Largest) ││
│ │ ││
│ │ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ││
│ │ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ││
│ │ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ││
│ │ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ││
│ └─────────────────────┘│
│ │
│ Informal/Gig Economy: │
│ ┌─────────────────────────────────────┐ │
│ │ Home Bakers, Rideshare Drivers, │ │
│ │ Subsistence Farmers, Local Services │◄┘
│ └─────────────────────────────────────┘
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘Upward motion is natural given our present state
Many humans naturally leave high entropy areas and seek to join low entropy areas. The perennial question is whether those moving to the high entropy areas are capable of recreating it, maintaining it, or destroying it.
Given that we have high mobility in the society and economy, people are crowding into cities. They will find that cities are often not the destination, but it was better than where they came from. (I suspect the really good neighborhoods are hidden away somewhere local and not on the internet).
Exit, voice, and loyalty gives a good model. People may believe their current place is unfixable and they have the ability to leave, so they exit. Or it will take too long to fix: their current skills and the place they could join are significantly better than their origins.
Or those around them simply don’t understand or are unwilling to change things. (This is why quality food is important, it increases our adaptive and understanding ability, but some limits from birth are not fixable).
It is difficult to create loyalty if for example, a person comes from a place where there is no running water or toilets, yet the people there see no problem with it, so this is why a young person may leave the countryside because they will come to see their former countrymen as crass and rude.
The location of a college is highly underrated because many of the people you know will come from that specific area and end up settling there. Just look at the LinkedIn alumni locations.
Existence as connection
People’s connections are a gradient and not absolute. Someone may be affiliated to a top school, yet they lack the money to rent good housing near their town. Someone may be a wealthy business owner, yet still blue-collar and not in a social world. Some people lack all of the aforementioned, and can only work simple repeater jobs. One might be in a small and insignificant town all things considered, but they have community and do well.
For example, being in a certain city affiliates you with: people from certain industries and colleges, a Costco, an IKEA, a specific airport, etc. While being out in a very remote area affiliates you with very little. In the Muqaddimah, sub-Saharan Africa and Russia were known to be poor because of their distance away from areas of trade such as the Mediterranean.
I’ve listed what I believe to be the most significant factors from most to least: your cognitive ability from birth, your family conditions (unless you separate from them such as going to a top boarding school on scholarship), your educational experiences and intellectual milieu, money, the city your family lives in, the country and passport you have, friends.
One and two are a bit interchangeable. In the long term (1) should do better. All of these factors are also tightly coupled to each other. You need contrast in life to experience what you do have. Friends become more important later in life. In the beginning everyone has to do their own career.
Repeater Economy
We must clarify the two types of “repeaters” in the economy. The first type is subsistence operational roles of low skill, such as working in a supermarket, warehouse, security guard, or food delivery. The second are “repeaters” but in a specialized role or industry, who might aim to lead in their field (though it is competitive) but in general terms are doing better than the subsistence operational roles.
The specialized repeater economy such as your third or fourth tier colleges, despite not being original work, actually serves a use. Distribution of the ideas of the leading economy.
Basic Repeater Economy
Those in a Home Depot, a Target, or other stores are in a “repeater” role, where the headquarters does the mental templating of the stores while those working operationally are living in their worlds. This might also include your enlisted soldiers (as opposed to NCO/officers).
We are reaching a point where those local are increasingly less independent, for the lack of connection to neighborhood and people. A local grocery store owner knows the people, a Walmart worker does not. A person may know doing something is reasonable, yet the laws do not permit this discretion.
As a general rule in the United States, people who do these positions live for their emotions, have present preference, tend to be consumptive, and may not really care about how they do in their jobs.
A contradiction exists when people have college education and awareness of their position in life, and potentially the ability to do well if they had a sufficient job opportunity, but the only jobs available for them are Subsistence Operational Roles, yet the majority of the people in these roles are the type of the previous paragraph.
If there was less of a difference in attitude, culture, and remuneration, I see no reason why I couldn’t work in a grocery store or gas station. They were quite nice in certain places I visited such as Cologne or Taipei, and certain parts of the United States. However, virtue, competence, quality, and excellence, however, do not stand out in these positions.
Moreover, a second contradiction exists when certain jobs and colleges that should select for those with the adaptability and conscientiousness to run things well actually select for those who merely appear such due to the prevalence of factors such as increased college expenses, grade inflation, cheating, etc.
Even though students may come from good families, their own temperament and ability may not suit them to achieve the same level of career renown, social connection, and remuneration as their expectations may hope.
Leading Economy
This allows you latitude in creating worlds and experiencing them. You have the mobility to do things. These include your leading scientists and labs, executives at the major companies, those in the political world, and so on. This includes the people who write the AP curriculum and standardized testing, rather than the teachers who grade to a standard.
Even if you are a highly remunerated white collar role, you may still have to do the templating of others’ actions for a while before reaching a place where you have some ability to create your own decisions.
Informal/gig
The informal economy is the taxi scalper at the train station, the person who bakes food at their home and sells them, the person living off of subsistence agriculture or selling their vegetables at a farmer’s market, or someone who offers local cleaning services or dog walking.
The gig economy is a formalized version of the informal economy that seems to arbitrage the decline in community and trust due to the internet age. Rideshare drivers, handymen, delivery drivers, and so on.
I don’t think we see as much subsistence agriculture these days because the world is more “built,” so working these informal and gig jobs provides better material condition than remotely living in wilderness and growing your own food. Furthermore, agriculture’s benefits historically scaled with population: it’s unlikely that you’d find multiple willing to join you in this activity given our present day and age.