The article defines care "scarcity" rather narrowly, almost tautologically
> In any given moment, you can only really care deeply and individually for one person
Yes, but there are many moments in a day / one's life, and care is needed and appreciated at various levels of "deepness". Further, how much care (and what type) is needed depends enormously on what society has managed to scale with the right organizational patterns etc.
So in the end the question is: how much of this type of exclusive (and scarce) caring capacity does society really need? Mathematically, there are 8 billion exemplars of the species roaming the planet and 1:1 caring takes care (pun) of the 4 billion.
Well, everyone's a kid for the first few years of their life, and children require a lot of care. The elderly require care. The unwell require care. Everyone wants care some of the time.
We do have cultural institutions to do much of this work. Parents care for kids. Adults care for aging parents. Romantic partnerships exist so that people can reciprocally care for each other. Still, we have to fill in the gaps for kids without parents, seniors without kids, and sick people. The demand for therapy and sex work proves that people will pay a lot of money to be cared for, even when they don't need it to survive.
> So in the end the question is: how much of this type of exclusive (and scarce) caring capacity does society really need?
The comment comes from reading the article, then wondering how can societies make things scale? We make things scale by delegating our concerns to people who know and care more about specific outcomes, and helping them to make the differences that are required. Scale comes from people learning that things around them matter and that they are responsible for making them good.
In that case i'll ask for a clarificaiton on the link. From the article it seemed quite a clear cut case about activity types that dont scale.
Outsourcing the responsibility doesn't mean it scale, which seems contradicted by what you are saying. People learning that things matter and that they are responsible, doesn't change this does it?
The article noted that, when you care for someone, you give of yourself and your attention and you cannot spread this to a significant number of people. If you outsource the activity, then whoever you outsource it to has to pay attention in the same way. But the world is full of people that were cared for, and mostly quite well. So in that sense, care scales.
I am only really suggesting that scalable care schemes might be those that help people to support those they already have a connection with, and that organisation/coordination be managed on that level.
The article had a very specific circumstance it built upon - how much human time time it takes to help kids.
This doesn’t scale, in the context of the article.
Your statement would translate into a point on economics and organization, than individual care.
This still obscures the fact that many critical functions don’t scale.
I would add that these tend to be under resourced in favor of things that do scale.