It's funny how people think a post-apocalyptic landscape will be relatively flat socioeconomically. At most they think there will be small-scale warlords or Dunbar-scale anarchist communes. No. There will be deathstar billionaires with private armies and narrow-deep tech stacks.
-
-
A traditional "industrial base" has steel, sulphuric acid, power plants etc. at the bottom, and space programs and aircraft carriers at the top. This kind of stack can now be replicated with a *very* narrow footprint. I think you could do it for $3-4 billion in a small city.
Show this thread -
"Nation-state industrial base" has basically been miniaturized to billionaire scale. In terms of civilizational capability, it's the equivalent of mainframes evolving into smartphones (smartphone equivalent of civilization being postapocalyptic billionaire redoubt)
Show this thread -
I mean, I'm larping extended-universe builder in bits form, but with a few billion you can actually do it in atoms space. There are no necessary capabilities of nation states that cannot now be maintained by a small-scale billionaire.
Show this thread -
If there is to be a broad-based, inclusive, participatory form of civilization to succeed the nation state, it cannot be based on atoms-tech. It has to be based on software-tech that billionaires can neither replicate, nor compete with.
Show this thread -
Putin vs. oligarchs, and China vs. its oligarchs are probably the last chapter of the ancient conflict between wealth clans and impersonal nation states that the latter have a decisive advantage in. If the nation states weaken by say another order of magnitude, the oligarchs win.
Show this thread -
I'm an ideologue here. I like some billionaires, dislike others. If there's no broad-based civilizational condition, I'd be willing to pick among billionaires rather than being out in the wilderness in some sort of ratty indie survivalist camp full of starving people in henleys.
Show this thread -
In many ways, this is already happening of course. I've called it a 4th world condition. And the gated communities are underwritten by billionaire developers, not by states. A lot of us live in one billionaire bubble, earning and spending in other billionaire bubbles :D
Show this thread
End of conversation
New conversation -
-
-
Curious to understand what would constitute an “industrial tech stack” in this scenario.
-
Interestingly, in 'The Animatrix' of all things, humans banish all the bots and relocate them to an isolated island nation. But the 'bots exports are so technologically ahead of anything humans can make they end up bankrupting all their competitors and summarily enslave them.
- Show replies
New conversation -
-
-
The economics might be stable but will the politics? Why will the security guys not shoot the billionaire and take over? The fracturing of power/wealth has been in constant tension against the ambition to expand/consolidate for all of history.
-
Billionaires exist because there are many stable nations which protect their assets. They are the most fragile peak, the people *most* dependent on the existing social order.
- Show replies
New conversation -
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.