Decentralization Versus Organizing Together to Accomplish Great Things

Decentralization Versus Organizing Together to Accomplish Great Things Centralized organization is a distinctive human development: people gather around ambitious goals, from Egypt’s pyramids and Europe’s cathedrals to NASA sending people into space and to the Moon, and American–European cooperation putting Webb into solar orbit. Without NASA, could a decentralized structure have built rockets, sent astronauts into space and lunar orbit, landed a lunar module, returned to the spacecraft, and used the Moon’s gravity to head home? This happened in 1969. I find it hard to imagine. Without American leadership and European organizations’ cooperation, could JWST have reached its Earth–Sun orbit 1.5 million kilometers from Earth, unfolded advanced imaging equipment for remote operation, withstood extreme heat, cold, and continual micrometeoroid impacts, and returned pictures revealing the universe over thirteen billion years ago? If we must organize to accomplish great things, what ambitious vision do decentralized organizations pursue? Could an anarchic utopia spontaneously advance humanity?