In reply to ...
https://starbreaker.smol.pub/soylent-society
I very much agree with the sentiment, and my hope was to try and tease out the validity and the scope of some of these concepts (and more importantly where the break down and why). Although abstractions are never entirely correct, but they are crucial to reason about the world.
I guess the "feeling" I was unable to express (and you picked up on), is that any big endeavor requires central planning in order to coordinate many resources to a goal. Who dictates the endeavor is what changes under different systems---given some different notions of legitimacy.
With this in mind, while I agree that society does not have a plan (there is no divine direction we are following), it can be organized behind a goal which drives policy, incentives, investments, etc.
Importantly, I would argue, any organized government imposes such plan (whether is it willingly or not). Being transparent and having a discussion about what that plan is something that feels like it is lacking from public discourse.