This didn't make any sense until I read the part between these two quotes. The point is that incentives have become even more important as global communications and literacy have arisen.

Since reading SovInd, I've become more accepting of the chaos of the world. Incentives are just more cogs in the emergent chaos of the whole thing, as are individual actions, as is access to energy and money. The question is, knowing the importance of incentives, what incentive would you like to change to what end?