World 4 of 7 · Collective human systems

Civilization

How strangers manage to cooperate. Civilization covers money and markets, enterprise and ownership, and the laws, institutions and histories that make collective life possible, or difficult.

  • economics
  • business
  • finance
  • history
  • society
  • institutions
  • governance

Identify → Validate → Build → Own → Compound

  1. Economics and moneyHow people produce, trade and keep score, from Adam Smith’s pin factory to a $112 trillion world economy.
  2. Ownership and capitalWhat it costs to own a thing, how shared resources can be governed, and what stays scarce when making gets cheap.
  3. History and institutionsLaws, states, markets and the agreements that let eight billion strangers cooperate.

Projects here

  • DEVRIM HoldingsBuilding

    The home for the ventures: a small portfolio run by one person, with AI agents doing much of the research, building and monitoring.

  • TakeInBuilding

    Own-brand online ordering for independent takeaway restaurants: orders arrive on the restaurant's own site and print in the kitchen.

  • MyLifeConsultantLive

    A personal plan for work, housing, money, healthcare and everyday life for people moving to the UK, in Turkish and English.

  • GoodEatPaused

    A healthier-takeaway marketplace concept: choose local kitchens by what is in the food, not only by price.

  • UK Settlement HubIdea

    A broader home for practical knowledge about building a life in the UK. MyLifeConsultant is its first working piece.

Writing here

How Civilization connects

Symbolic correspondences

Interpretation Older traditions mapped the cosmos through planets, metals, chakras and the Tree of Life. These pairings are this site’s own map; what each one means comes from its tradition, not from science.

  1. Hermetic principle

    Cause and Effect

    “Every cause has its effect; every effect has its cause.”

    Nothing in a society happens by chance alone; incentives, rules and history leave marks.

  2. ♃

    Planet · metal

    Jupiter · Tin

    The king of the gods rules law, growth and fortune. Its metal is tin, the ingredient that turned copper into bronze.

  3. Chakra · base of the spine

    Root Muladhara

    The four-petalled lotus of foundation: safety, shelter, belonging, the ground a life is built on.

  4. Tarot · Tree of Life

    Wheel of Fortune · Chesed

    The Wheel is the turning of fortunes; Chesed, “Mercy”, is the sphere of order and generous rule.

  5. Sacred geometry

    The cube

    In Plato’s Timaeus the cube is the shape of earth: the most stable solid, the one that stands.

  6. 1776

    Science 1776

    Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations

    Smith showed how division of labour and exchange let strangers build more together than anyone could alone.