There are some important distributed systems he overlooks: the ones found in nature. Gas Laws, photosynthesis, and radiant energy are pretty great, it means I always have air to breathe. No one is regulating that, and to do so would only make things much worse.
The challenge is that humans suck at designing distributed systems. Nature is exquisitely designed (or, if you want, evolved). The solution then, is to root ourselves in nature rather than desperately, constantly trying to replace it. Bitcoin is the only new tech I can think of that does this (not sure if that's the 'most obvious horrifically misguided recently-popular "decentralized" system' the author refers to). Everything else: farming subsidies, AI, Keynesian economics, plastic surgery, vaccines, desk jobs — are all hopelessly out of touch with reality.
That's not to say technology is Bad, but it needs to be real, not manufactured.