Srsly.<p>Almost every aspect of the world, cultural constructs and the physical realities that underpin them, for the foreseeable future, are going to remain, in effect, zero sum.<p>Right here on Hackernews the top story yesterday was the dead end Japan has reached by virtue of clinging to the fiction of permanent growth.<p>Worse, in domains in which there has been genuine growth of some kind (e.g. increased returns as a result of higher efficiencies), the story since 1970 has been: _zero sum for everyone but the top few percent, who have seized all gains for themselves_.<p>&quot;Zero-sum people&quot; are being minted by the millions by our current economy.<p>When you hoard the upside at historically unprecedented levels, what you get is resentment and an accurate perception that you have been left to fight for scraps.