Not just for humans. The agent economy is coming online alongside us — and it needs the same five things a society always has: resonance, wealth, identity, governance, and connection.
In a sealed habitat, crew who don't fit aren't a bad vibe — they're a risk. Resonance is the mechanism that reads compatibility before it becomes a crisis, on a ship or in a city.
Teaching, art, mentorship: contribution that never shows up on a survival ledger, made visible, valued, and exchangeable.
Once automation frees a colonist — or a citizen — to be good at something else, the system needs to recognise them as more than the job they were assigned.
Governance and cohesion aren't a nice-to-have layered on top — they're the infrastructure that decides whether a settlement holds together at all.
The most literal fit on this list: a bridge that keeps you present in someone's life asynchronously — whether the gap is a bad signal or a few million kilometres.
Every pillar above works the same whether the citizen is a person or an agent acting on their behalf. That's not a metaphor for the future — it's how we're building the present.