Normally if you told me there was a five plus minute static shot of a woman eating pie I’d tell you to fuck off, not my kind of movie. But goddamnit I loved A GHOST STORY.

The slow, roaming, long (long!) shots that open the first half of the film lull you into a sense of dreaminess that make the cuts and bursts of dialogue that come later feel like an exciting, meaningful, and gripping splash of cold water to your mug.

It’s a haunting, perfectly (slow!) paced tragic love story that makes you feel angst the same way Radiohead does — it stirs something in your gut that’s like making your insides turn into a teenage meringue of bitterness that you can’t help but continue to eat. Mixed metaphor that makes no sense? I don’t care. Neither does A GHOST STORY or Radiohead’s guttural effectiveness, but they work and they make you feel angst.

My friend Ben described the movie as a indie ghost story Tree of Life, which felt pretty spot on — without the cutaways to universe expansion or domestic abuse. It has the same emotional, hanging, long beautiful frames that make you less concerned about the plot than the experiential nature of the movie. It’s about how we experience love an time and what’s meaningful. It’s good in an abstract emotional way.

The use of cutting and time is really what this movie is about, both thematically and in execution. We go forward and first, then backwards, then start over again. It’s cyclical and linear and feels effortless and never feels boring though you’re aware of the slowness. It’s slow then it’s, well, it’s never fast but it feels fast. It’s liquid and smooth and slips forward through centuries and decades and moments.

I wonder if Casey Affleck was under that bed sheet the whole time? I feel like he was. I BELIEVE HE WAS.

Watch the movie in the dark. Give yourself over to it, and be patient. It’s the type of movie that’s really hard to get people to watch and sit through, but if you do you’ll love it and get to be all cinephile and pretentious about it. But not just because, because it’s a refreshing take on story telling and shows a restrained, confident, mastery of the form.

Also you get to see Rooney Mara eat a pie for a long time. And somehow it works. It’s beautiful, it’s tragic, it’s lovely, it’s funny, it’s trance inducing. Loved it.

There’s also a kick ass song in it that’s part of the story — it’s called ‘I Get Overwhelmed’ by Dark Rooms. It’s my favorite kind of moody.

Star powered actors aside, supposedly this movie was made for $100k or so. Which in it’s own right it impressive. It’s like the quiet kid in the cafeteria showing up to baseball tryouts and has a mean curveball. Against the odds, unexpected, and that much more fun when it’s successful.

One of those inspiring-if-you’re-trying-to-make-movies movies.

It’s fun to see a niche community represented in a movie almost always. It provides some patois that’s excited and educational.

The film moves nicely with some heartfelt moments, but unfortunately you’re not sure if the character’s hearts are the right place.

It sort of felt like the story should have been the exact same, but everyone in the movie should have been 10 years younger. Not only would the story make a bit more sense, but the immature behavior of the characters would make more sense. They all seemed a bit selfish, which is excusable (see: Seinfeld) but what I struggled with is some of their motivations.

In particular, they all seemed a little naive. Naive in the sense that the naivete was written into the story to drive conflict. Each character is a sort of less savvy version of a friend you’d find in your own life. You get the dream writing gig? Hey here’s my script.

There are a few moments like this that seem a little under-developed and make me wish the characters were portrayed a bit smarter.

In that way it felt a bit sketch-y. Characters acting how they needed to serve the story rather than who they might have been as people. It’s a tough problem to crack given the tone — somewhere between comedy and drama. Though I think this is the problem with a lot of modern comedies, the inclusion of characters acting to serve the plot over themselves — it leads to a weird tone and rings as untrue simultaneously.

What the movie did have going is some nice charming moments. The pace and cinematography felt appropriate, and some nice moments captured of their improv (although obviously scripted in this case).

In the end they all seem to reside to doing improv in a small theater in Philly. This was ultimately unsatisfying because it was the final departure from any heart or realism that was left. In reality, each of these characters should have moved on — in the end it actually seems like they’re back where they started — together, broke, not famous. Rather than chase the dream of success they seem to have resigned to continue with improv in obscurity. Nice as a tribute to the art form of improv but leads to some head scratching as far as character development.

For a movie about characters I just wish I bough into these a bit more.

Hmm. Ok. Maybe my expectations of what a Star Wars movie could be and what it is are not aligned.

With the new Rogue franchise I was hoping there’d be a tonally or structurally different approach to the Star Wars story — nope. Just more of the same.

On one hand it makes plenty of sense — people love it and the box office reflects that. On the other, here we are in an endlessly vicious cycle of basic hero-quest-redemption story lines.

It all just seems so predictable. Like there are only a few possible types of stories in the Star Wars universe and they all play out and compliment each other. I find it uninteresting.

Also the premise of this particular story lacked a lot of drama. We can’t upload the plans to the satellite? It reads more like a Dropbox syncing issue than the driving plot for a Star Wars film.

The direction also felt loose and lacked a certain empathy I was expecting. In human moments where Felicity Jones may be scared or hesitant, rather than resting for a beat on her face to show us, they simple move fluidly through the action. She jumps onto the server tower and up through the deadly fan in a blur. No hesitation, no concern for her safety. Not only do we lose a moment with the character but we lose significant tension in the scene.

Some great special effects, but some terrible CGI characters. The main bad dude looked plastic. Not only did it ruin those scenes, it scares me for the future of movie making. Are we going to let CGI humans play alongside real humans? We’re going to lose the nuance and empathy. There will no longer be actors making choices but directors and animators. Bad news for the industry. Granted these were special cases of reviving dead / aged actors, but still huge thumbs down.

Overall it felt like a new skin on an old dog. Fine to look at but you already know its tricks.

Also Deigo Luna does nothing for me. I just don’t get him as a lead.

Something about modern comedies makes you feel like they should always be 15–30 minutes shorter. Not because comedies need to be shorter or because they’re any less valid of a genre than others, but it feels like they often phone in several chunks of the story.

Office Christmas Party falls into this same trap. Why are we watching a dance party for several minutes? There isn’t gags or jokes so lets save us all the time and establish the energy in the room and move on.

The movie has some charming moments but never hits a laugh out loud moments. Not surprised but just a simple reminder of how tough the modern comedy has become.

They often lean on overly dramatized characters. Jennifer Aniston here is so mean that it borders on absurd. Kate McKinnon is similarly over the top but on the doofus end of the spectrum. The result is characters that feel like plot devices or bad jokes rather than people. Too often comedies like OCP rely on wacky dialogue and heighten characters to try for laughs but never really give the characters any emotion. What made Dumb and Dumber so effective is all the characters cared SO MUCH. We need our characters to be real, emotional, goal oriented people to be able to laugh with and at them.

My last point of beef was that the love story between Olivia Munn and Jason Bateman was thin at best and far too easy. They essentially said “I like you” “I like you too” and kissed. No drama, no complexity. Total after thought.

Would love to see a tighter edit, more relatable characters, and more attention to pacing.

One of the most gripping films I’ve seen — for the first 90% of it.

Sexy, dark, beautiful, mysterious, tense — FUCKING TENSE — and complex. Unfortunately the payoff wasn’t there. Or I didn’t get it. But either way is that my fault or the filmmakers? Hard to tell. Regardless it was working for me but didn’t meet at the end — like watching beautiful ribbons dance in the wind then instead of a beautiful flowery ribbon they tie together in a square not. That’s it?

The performances were noir-esque but more grounded. Dark, quirky, with more than a few moments of melodrama. The characters — while unique feeling and flawed, never really became humans — perhaps another loyal nod to noir.

The look of the film is clean, bold, contrasty, and sexy. Makes sense that Tom Ford is behind it. Dark blacks and bright reds. Sharp. Saturated. Well composed and at times striking images. Not afraid of simply having a head and a solid color background as a composition — simple but effective.

A bit reliant on the shot reverse shot for conversations — locked into medium close ups for most of the exchanges. That can be ok but when the dialogue comes off as repetitive (it often does) you really feel it. I think the editor could have lost a lot of the dialogue in the conversations — it felt often like we were hearing things twice. A sharper knife would have made the film feel smarter and shorter — and I think the audience could have kept up.

The content was a bit low brow but presented in fashionable high brow — murder, rape, cops and derelicts, revenge, abortion. An interesting contrast to the highbrow art world that it echoes. The subject matter is engaging if not particularly fresh or novel. The subjects listed are dramatic low hanging fruits but everything looks so good it comes off as fresh.

The ending, unfortunately, is what lost me. I didn’t get it. Was it a twist, an underscoring of the theme? I’m unsure. Normally I can guess or contrive the meaning but here I’m left a bit befuddled. Maybe I missed something. Maybe it’s open intentionally.

To come back to that ribbon analogy — it was almost like the two ribbons were just laying next to each other, they didn’t tie together at all. Gorgeous and intriguing, but of little lasting power or use. Too bad — they’re so pretty!

NOCTURAL ANIMALS (2016) was originally published in Applaudience on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

LA LA LAND (2016)

Fun, quirky, and a nice blend of novel and nostalgic that together feels fresh.

The only main criticism I have of La La Land is that it thematically feels a bit light. Some statements and ideas about professional ambition over love and for what cost are prevalent throughout — and thus the movie ends on an emotional down note — but I wish there was a bit more to chew on conceptually.

Other than that, a great ride. Fun song and dance, amazing chemistry and charisma from both Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, and ambitious storytelling and camera work. Surprisingly, a lot of the camera work had significant moments of soft focus, but I suppose with long takes and shooting on film with an ambitious schedule, sometimes you’re left in the camp of what you get is what you get. It’s nice in a way to see a major Hollywood production have some obvious technical production flaws.

Loved the occasional moments of comedy and LA commentary, even if they felt well worn at times (we’ve already heard the joke thousands of times that LA peeps drive Prius’s). There’s even a charm in the well tread parts though, as if through heightened musical this film is codifying that culture — making it classic by surrounding it with song and dance.

The color and choreography were show stealers and the performances carried the movie. A fun love-torn whirlwind that’s a fun watch. The film nicely portrayed the bushy-tailed optimism that’s necessary in LA, as well as the relationships that you don’t settle in, but that still very much define you. The “one that got away” may be better traded out for the “one I loved before I was famous.”

The concept resonates with the modern ambitious romantic in myself I think — the balance between self actualization and love are often at odds. Which do we pick? If there a right answer? La La land seems to tell us to pick love, but acknowledges that happiness and success can happen either way. So it matters, but at the same time it doesn’t because all it takes is that one nostalgic song to remember what you had and what you could have had. It’s the imagination and optimism that’s baked into show business that keeps us coming back.

Music holds all the promise of love — exciting and fleeting and unfortunately short lived. La La land does a nice job of compressing the appeal of show business and the difficulties of love and reminding us that love and life stings but that’s why we sing.

Too syrupy of a take? Possibly. But that’s the movie. It’s optimism even through bitter turns.

Image is everything.

An interesting look at Jackie’s manipulation of the post-death events that led to her not only establishing her husband’s legacy but also her own. I loved the theme and messages of the movie but somehow it didn’t resonate with me.

Maybe too many close ups of Natalie Portman’s sad eyes for too long. Maybe it was the stilted accent of Jackie or the plastered smile. While all accurate (I assume) I couldn’t help but be constantly reminded of the construction of the film itself.

Given the themes of ‘image is everything’ and acting in one’s own self-interest, maybe the audience’s self awareness was intended but I have trouble thinking that was the intent.

There are some brilliant moments, no doubt. Jackie and Bobby exchange some caustic words — out of personal grief and brandished at each other but backed in truth. Jackie also has some nice moments with a priest where we get some of her more honest, if still robotic, moments.

Thematically, the idea of self-promotion-as-preservation rang loud and clear. JFK’s ideas around his presidency being more inspiring than the action he took in office, and Jackie’s interest in making a large dramatic procession, the new television camera’s and presentation of the whitehouse. It’s all brilliantly woven. Jackie herself as the first great “marketer” of ideas to a mass market. Her central question: Will anyone remember my husband and I? She decides yes, they will. I will make them. It’s an interesting choice and one that feels both noble and empty.

Timely theme too — with Trump as a classic example of marketing and message of substance and content. Own the screen time and own the history. Jackie makes an interesting comment about history need no longer be written, because now we have television.

The story and the themes work — if a bit heavy handed at times.

I think where the movie falls flat is the acting and dialogue. The acting maybe as a result of the dialogue — often, and especially towards the end (when Jackie and the priest are talking before burying her kids), the dialogue begins to feel overtly philosophical and like a spoon with which to feed us the themes. In its defense, death and burials are the times when the ‘meaning of life’ conversations tend to emerge, yet the philosophizing back and forth felt read-off-the-page and lacked a reality that the moment called for.

Structurally bouncing between the newspaper interview, the tour of the whitehouse, and the period immediately around the assassination all reinforced each other and provided enough respite. The interview felt a bit dry at times and could have been a bit tighter.

Whiffs of greatness but a looser interpretation of her persona may have lead to a more dynamic performance. I wanted her angrier, a bit less controlled. Her isolation was portrayed well and I think the extreme close ups reinforced that. Even when she was surrounded by people she’s alone.

Stilted and stiff performances. Sexy but isolated. Image over content. Manipulative and smart but self serving. Maybe the movie echoed Jackie as a person and that’s the point?

if diversity is the key to survival on the macro level, unification and gentrification is making us as whole less fit and more susceptible to getting wiped out. if we had diversity, maybe there would be survivors.

there’s been no beehive loss in cuba because they’ve been unable to import pesticides due to the embargo. so their cultural vacuum actually allowed their bee population to survive. said another way, their culture was ‘more fit’ for bees. so the more diversity of culture we have in the world the more likely we have a variety of ‘fitnesses’ that will help our species survive.

the question: is there an existing ‘pesticide’ among us that we’re unaware of today that will wipe us out? and is that “pesticide” fully globalized? to use a concrete hypothetical: perhaps the next generation of cellphones gives each owner incurable cancer. then, only those without cell phones would survive — they were more fit, not physically, but culturally.

if we’re still on board with this logic, then the history of humanity can be seen as ironic. from our time as apes we’ve been constantly learning and communicating about the world — trying to decipher methods of living and tool making that made us the most fit. more example, the way Facebook reimagined human socialization and went viral was likely very similar to the way the bow and arrow became popular (granted over different timelines). “have you heard of this thing that lets you kill food without chasing it? it’s way easier to get meat. it helps you meet girls.” i can’t be that far off.

another concerning antievolution consideration stemming from globalization is the homogeny of thought and experience. the lack of diversity of thought stemming from a homogenous pool of instantly available and centrally located information (think your Facebook feed) leads to — not group think — but ‘species think.’ So if we understand the benefits of biological diversity (Darwin’s fitness of species), and cultural diversity (the cuban honey bees) then what about intellectual diversity?

Let’s consider the potential lack of diversity of collective human thought over time as a result of globalization (i.e. global access to the internet). The more Japan and the US and India and others become similar, our thought processes and perspectives become homogenous. The less different we are, the more similar our ideas will be. The more People Magazine we read, the less Tolstoy. (I’ve never read either, haha).

When brainstorming how to save our species in a hypothetical dooms day event in thousands of years, we probably don’t want to be a large group of (i guess tan-skinned) people who all have all similar life experiences likely inhabiting our sustainable hydroponiclly farmed high-rises. We’d probably want a diverse group of thinkers tackling the problem in different, creative ways. A homogeny of ideas and communication of ideas leads to singular ideas (or at least those within a narrow track). We’d likely arrive at a local maximum rather than a global maximum (pun!).

If we start from the idea that all of life emerged from a single evolved prokaryote (my biology is rusty), and spread out from there, like a fire work, then it feels like that firework, at some point, may collapse in on itself. we go from singularity to diversity back to singularity.

it’s like we as a species are all, biologically and now culturally, searching for the highest ground. once we find it, we’ll gather there and rejoice on the peak. all of us together. but what, then, if lightning strikes that peak? will there be “lowlanders” to carry on? or maybe humans go the way of dinosaurs. maybe the dinosaurs saw the comet coming, but they didn’t have the intellectual diversity to solve the problem.

evolutionary fitness and intellectual similarity seem to be at odds.

a sad but rationale thought from this line of thinking is that racism is actually evolutionary instinct to preserve our diversity. why do some people fear or hate other races? it surely isn’t from a place of sound logic.

looking forward — how do we preserve variety of ideas while continuing to find the best path for our cultural and social evolution? can we? does it make sense to embrace a schism of ideology on a high level as a means of human preservation?

imagine if all trump supporters or all clinton supporters moved to different halves of the US and embraced their beliefs moving forward in isolation. fast forward tens of thousands of years — perhaps one group is more fit than the other. not unlikely.

cultural homogeneity and globalization seems to be at odds with survival of the fittest. thinking down that path we can pick a couple easy examples like ‘educated people have fewer children’ and ‘lesser educated are more racist’ — maybe the smartest among us are the least promoting of diversity and procreation? the most “sophisticated” are the least “fit,” in this example. ironic.

lots of open questions here but human existence as one long twisted joke with a beginning, middle, end with a dark punchline feels pretty spot on to me. primordial soup leads to biological singularity leads to biological diversity leads to intellectual diversity. globalization brings is back to intellectual singularity. then back to primordial soup?

what’s the point of life, then? there is no point, life is joke! lighten up. and, like a joke, it’s just supposed to be entertaining and funny.

Every episode follows 4 co-leads as they deal with their own personal issues, with the main driving force being the search for a missing classmate.

The acting absolutely carries the show. Charismatic and pointed — almost to caricature levels — the four friends’ banter and interactions are simply delightful. They feed into each other’s fun and neurosis, and are selfish people that you can’t help but love to watch and root for (reminiscent of Seinfeld, here). Their selfish motives are just because, well, they’re all selfish. It’s sort of like what I’ve heard about lining up in China — it’s not rude if everyone’s pushing to the front, it’s just the way it is. Fair is fair.

The clan of 4 lives in their own ultra-dramatic bubble, with the outside world sometimes providing a grounded foil to their hijinx and sometimes escalating them. You never know which it’ll be, which keeps the show both fun and leaning enough into realism that the plot and social commentary feel real and justified.

Maybe because I’ve been watching more ‘real-life’ / mumble core based comedy lately, but I found the occasional network style punchlines refreshing and often hilarious.

On a thematic level, the show seems to be attempting to both portray the self absorbed, apathetic millennial and justify their existence in the same breath. By the end of the season, we have the full picture: we’re all just self absorbed and creating meaning out of nothing. There’s nothing bigger than what we see, so we might as well do right by ourselves, who cares if some people get hurt along the way.

It’s honest in a dark way — which makes the comedy hit harder and deserve that much more attention. No one learns from their mistakes, and even though there are striking emotional moments, the characters seem to rebound from them with little more than scratches or a good natured guffaw. Of course the last episode is an exception, but the tone remains — it all seems like it’ll be fine in the end.

Crossing my finger for more seasons. In season 2, maybe Dory opens her own PI firm? The actors are so charismatic and fun — characters without quite hitting cliche — that I could watch them for a long time.

Search Party seems to highlight the modern outlook that everything matters and nothing matters, everything is serious and nothing is serious. Great show. I want more.

—

I’m not sure if the entire system is broken and we should throw it out or if it’s primarily the election process. We have a situation where only picking between two parties seems insufficient — not inherently, but because they don’t fully (or even adequately) represent constituents’ views.

Speaking in silly analogies, if we think about a political party as a mixed fruit basket, the electorate are only given two fruit baskets to choose from. And unfortunately there are a few fruits in each basket (ie agendas or policies) that you may not like. Instead of providing the electorate the ability to switch out the fruits and create their own fruit basket, we act like there can only be two baskets.

We need more baskets to choose from. More fruit baskets. You get it.

So how do we better elect candidates that are competing based on issues that constituents care about and not competing based on who’s a sexist bigot and who is corrupt with private email servers. It’s mud slinging and a failed opportunity to focus on issues. The schism between the two parties is so big that elections can be nothing but insult filled exercises in psychology and rhetoric (with Trumps experience in reality TV, he’s right at home and scary good. He essentially speaks in tongues and it works).

The President at this point has started to feel like an unnecessary middle man in a world where I can inform myself on issues that need deciding on. Sure, he or she as President should have the nuclear codes but for Supreme Court justice why is the President our guy? Can’t we take more ownership of the decisions and process?

Our current system — namely the representative vote and the electoral college — is pre-internet. I have a supercomputer in my pocket I don’t need to give my vote away to someone in a room in Washington who by definition has other interests in mind.

This line of thought makes me want to dissolve the government almost entirely and replace it with a software program that allows constituents to vote, pay taxes, see where their taxes are going, and get healthcare.

A system like this could allow you to vote on issues directly, or even align with a party rep that you “follow” — the way they vote, you vote also. Simple and powerful.

So imagine a system where you can be as involved as you’d like, and the “representatives” can represent any number of people — from their small group of friends to their local community to an entire state. You’re busy and you think your friend Shirley is up on the issues? Let her be your rep (and your votes align with hers).

What are the flaws in this system? Not sure there are any at it’s core but plenty of operating concerns. How do you make the platform secure, free, and unbiased? Maybe it’s financed by taxes the same way our government is.

So in broad strokes we replace our government with a software program that’s financed through taxes.

But we need people to build and maintain this software. Definitely. So we use the software itself to elect people to work on the software.

So the software enables a democracy and the democracy enables the software to be managed by a representative group of people. Those who’d work on the software wouldn’t actually be responsible for legislation, they’re responsible for maintaining the system that allows for legislation. Stewards, sort of. We’d pay them tremendously and could have it be a term-limit position. We’d compartmentalize the work they do so they can manipulate the system from the inside.

What makes this idea strong is that it abstracts the “government” (in this case software) from the issues while bringing the issues closer to the people.

Once we have the electorate voting directly for issues, the question of regional legislation emerges. Do we need states? Do we need a country? How do we define shared infrastructure and national interest? Highways seem like a national issue along with trade. Does healthcare and reproductive rights need to be? Can they be local to states or counties or even cities? Is population density actually an indicator of different outlooks and lifestyles and therefore should be the dividing line?

Would it be possible to split the nation by urban and rural and have those two “factions” live in harmony? I don’t really know. Eliminate that friction by dividing those interests. However, this maybe a dangerous separation between the wealthy elite and the middle class. Would need to know the urban / suburban economic make up to know the viability. Perhaps the economic and social ties between cities and their suburban and rural surroundings are too strong or lines too blurry to separate. On the high level dividing the governing lines along social and “lifestyle” lines (rather than geographic) seems to make sense.

The key question? How do we align the ideology of the people with the ideology of the system within which they live? How do we create a government that truly caters to its constituents? Government should be active, effective, reflexive, and participatory.

Or in rebuttal to that, is it even the solution? Maybe what happened in the latest election is what’s supposed to happen. The educated elite were apathetic and complacent and were overtaken by the angry and disenfranchised (but passionate!) Are we supposed to swing back and forth and over decades head the right direction — like a sailboat heading upwind that has to tack east and west when heading into wind from the north. Maybe this is democracy working.

And here we get into ideas of individualism vs populism and whether my self interest is best for me or whether the collection of self interests is better.

Intrinsically tied into our society are businesses and institutions — employers more generally speaking. Aren’t they some of the primary drivers of both social and economic livelihood of the population ( i.e. Having direct control of the economics and lifestyles of their employees)? It seems they have a unique opportunity and responsibility here to be deeply ingratiated in whatever governing system is optimal.

If we assume work and maximizing your skills and utility is fundamental to happiness, how do we lean into that using corporate entities. Already they’re linked to taxes and healthcare and geography and housing and social impact. Could full employment by micro corporate “nations” result in the right social economic climate at large? Corporations are already relocating employees and sponsoring meals, healthcare, continued education — what’s the logical extreme of that?

In this thought experiment, where you work can define your lifestyle and governing body. Companies become the levers by which policy is implemented. There are lots of interesting questions here. Do you work for a company based on your role or the company’s policies (policies = company’s politics)? Interestingly, I believe the companies that will continue to be successful are those that are truly mission driven, what if we gave them the tools to more fully govern employees? What if you work at a pro-choice company or a pro-life company? It’s not a geographic one but an employment one. The companies who want to have a certain culture will define their politics accordingly.

In this way there seems to be a bit of clarity and purity. Let companies govern on the micro and let the software govern the companies on the macro. Or maybe these are two separate governmental options.

The checks and balances are established because the employees set the rules under which businesses can operate (by voting on a national and state level) and then the business manage the employees social rights, healthcare, etc. The same rules that apply to business — in the competitive sense — then apply to the rules they implement socially. The companies that want to retain the best employees with continue to implement the best policy. This feels messy and lot would have to be worked through.

The danger is each company becomes a homogenous subculture — but I suppose that’s already the case in many ways.

If people love their work they’re happy so how do we more strongly align that with our system of government.

So in this model we’d want stricter control over companies, who then define civil liberties. The companies are then policed by laws and regulations that are voted on by their employees in some sort of regional sense. There are still lots of open questions on regions or territories of governing here. But maybe it could be as simple as the company? A company is a governing entity whereby the employees have direct control over policy and leadership? The employees that take advantage of the system then drive their company into the ground and eliminate themselves. Could this be a way to both maximize profit and happiness and quality of life? The model may shatter for smaller companies — they may not have the infrastructure. Small companies could band together as coalitions to provide infrastructure and benefits. That could work.

Maybe this is a version of the coop / kibbutz model. Ideally keeping upward movement as real tangible possibilities (as well as preventing cohabitation and pooled income) prevents the downfall here.

Public infrastructure is an open question — but perhaps private companies could fill those gaps. Then they’re competing for the business of the other companies. Roads are always an interesting example — maybe they could all be toll roads? Or some amount of government is preserved for infrastructure and public safety. Taxes go there. Or perhaps more in the vein of public utilities. Private companies with strong regulation providing infrastructure level services.

Definitely lots of open question but fun to rethink things from the ground up. Need a longer subway ride.