Great Reset General: A One Stop Shop

Bassoe

Well-known member
So to recap:

We live in a closed system with finite resources essential to maintaining a first-world quality of life. Therefore, eventually, we'll run out of said resources. The whole 'Great Reset' ideology is essentially the elite attempting to hoard a greater share of said resources for themselves and acquire increased totalitarian control over everyone else by essentially recreating a horrific combination of the ages of company scrip and feudalism, where everyone but the elite are debt slaves who owns nothing themselves but subscriptions, from which they can be banned if they fail to obey the elites who run said subscription services.

Even this isn't a stable situation in the long run, because even if only the elites aren't minimizing their resource expenditure by living in pods and eating bugs, any expenditure of resources which aren't renewing will eventually use them up, it'll just take longer than if everyone had a first-world quality of life. Since we've already extracted all the resources essential to building technological infrastructure which can be extracted without preexisting technological infrastructure, the collapse will be permanent and humanity will remain stuck at a primitive level until the sun's transformation into a red giant or some other cosmological Outside Context Problem causes our extinction.

However, as Cherico already pointed out, there is a workaround in which everyone wins, if the system wasn't closed and we had more resources. And the technology to make that workaround exists, has existed since the cold war space race and in the long run, would more than pay for itself.

With that in mind, the only question becomes, why don't we already have asteroid mining and powersats? What are possible explanations for their absence?
  • The majority of the elite are ancient baby boomers whom, no matter how much they literally parasitize the youth, they'll still die of old age before the consequences of ruining the world hit. Just like they've done with everything else.
  • Thanks to corruption and monopolies, the ability to create money for the wealthy and massive corporations has became totally divorced from the ability to create anything of actual value. Rules of the scam being; Step one, create an economic crash, step two, offer to bribe politicians if they'll give you a bailout of money taken straight from the printer or taxpayers, step three, pay off said politician co-conspirators with some of the bailout money they gave you. At no point is actual value generated. In fact, since actually producing and selling products has a higher cost overhead than repeatedly perpetuating said scam, it will be economically selected against.
  • A self-sustaining colony would be impossible for the elite to control, specifically, to prevent it from just declaring independence, repurposing its infrastructure for moving asteroids around into a MAD deterrence to make said declaration have teeth and nationalizing all its infrastructure in the name of their new independent government, leaving the company or nation who funded them with no profit. Worse from the perspective of the elites, it'd mean the creation of outside competitors. In a couple centuries, with functionally unlimited resources and territory to expand in and no single monopolistic ideology meaning constant open or cold war ideological conflict between them to motivate technological advancement, the descendants of the space colonies would outnumber and technologically outgun the descendants of the earthbound elite.
The value of space infrastructure is clear, but the startup costs are so high, only major governments or corporations could afford it, and they're the only ones who'd stand to lose from its existence.

Now with all that in mind, what could we do?
The Mote in God's Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle said:
...it was difficult to work with creatures who might suddenly see an unreal universe and make judgments based on it. The pattern was always the same. First they wished for the impossible. Then they worked toward it, still knowing it to be impossible. Finally they acted as if the impossible could be achieved, and let that unreality influence every act.
 

Abhorsen

Local Degenerate
Moderator
Staff Member
Comrade
Osaul
We live in a closed system with finite resources essential to maintaining a first-world quality of life. Therefore, eventually, we'll run out of said resources.
This is wrong. Or, while technically correct, nowhere near happening. Basically, with innovation, the resources necessary to continue change over time, generally getting cheaper to acquire.

For example, food is nowhere near running out. Farms have gotten dramatically more efficient as a result of the green revolution, and on top of that, are about to get even more efficient once more as lab produced meat becomes a thing, which dramatically reduces the amount of land needed to create meat.

On top of this, most things people like to cite as near running out are nowhere near running out. Consider the idea of peak oil. It's based on a lie that oil reserves are running out, but only proven reserves are. And those are always running out because oil companies only bother proving more reserves exist when there current ones start drying up.
 

LordsFire

Internet Wizard
On top of this, most things people like to cite as near running out are nowhere near running out. Consider the idea of peak oil. It's based on a lie that oil reserves are running out, but only proven reserves are. And those are always running out because oil companies only bother proving more reserves exist when there current ones start drying up.

Let me particularly emphasize this. People have been talking about 'peak oil' as 'a thing we are already at' since at least the 1980's, and they've been wrong every single time. Production has constantly increased, and known reserves on top of that has also consistently increased.

As a reminder, in ~1970, a lot of elites believed that 'The Population Bomb' would have a quarter of the world's population dead of starvation in the 1990's. It didn't even vaguely resemble reality, as we have seen.

The social elite in the modern world has a demonstrated pathology towards inventing existential threats to humanity that require decisive action on their part with dictatorial powers, but said threats never actually materialize.
 

Bassoe

Well-known member
Even if you don't believe in Peak Resources, that doesn't change the other problem which is elites using it as a justification to seize more power. Ironically, the solution is the same in both cases. Space colonization doesn't only mean endless (well, they're technically still limited, but the asteroid belt and sun will last a lot longer than the total resources of earth), but also the creation of competitors outside the elite's control. So long as the elites know that weakening their host civilization puts it at risk of economic and/or military outcompatition by rival civilizations which they don't control, they won't be able to deliberately do it to make civilization easier for them to control.
 

Navarro

Well-known member
However, as Cherico already pointed out, there is a workaround in which everyone wins, if the system wasn't closed and we had more resources. And the technology to make that workaround exists, has existed since the cold war space race and in the long run, would more than pay for itself.

With that in mind, the only question becomes, why don't we already have asteroid mining and powersats? What are possible explanations for their absence?
  • The majority of the elite are ancient baby boomers whom, no matter how much they literally parasitize the youth, they'll still die of old age before the consequences of ruining the world hit. Just like they've done with everything else.
  • Thanks to corruption and monopolies, the ability to create money for the wealthy and massive corporations has became totally divorced from the ability to create anything of actual value. Rules of the scam being; Step one, create an economic crash, step two, offer to bribe politicians if they'll give you a bailout of money taken straight from the printer or taxpayers, step three, pay off said politician co-conspirators with some of the bailout money they gave you. At no point is actual value generated. In fact, since actually producing and selling products has a higher cost overhead than repeatedly perpetuating said scam, it will be economically selected against.
  • A self-sustaining colony would be impossible for the elite to control, specifically, to prevent it from just declaring independence, repurposing its infrastructure for moving asteroids around into a MAD deterrence to make said declaration have teeth and nationalizing all its infrastructure in the name of their new independent government, leaving the company or nation who funded them with no profit. Worse from the perspective of the elites, it'd mean the creation of outside competitors. In a couple centuries, with functionally unlimited resources and territory to expand in and no single monopolistic ideology meaning constant open or cold war ideological conflict between them to motivate technological advancement, the descendants of the space colonies would outnumber and technologically outgun the descendants of the earthbound elite

The current technology for most efficiently breaking out of Earth's gravity well has been voluntarily abandoned since the 70s out of nuclearphobia?
 
Last edited:

Bassoe

Well-known member
The current technology for most efficiently breaking out of Earth's gravity well has been voluntarily abandoned since the 70s out of anti-nuclear fear?
Basically yes. The Outer Space Treaty of 1967 is practically designed to discourage people. No really effective engines, no land grabs, no militarization. If your actual goal was to make sure nobody left the planet, you could hardly do better.
 

Navarro

Well-known member
Basically yes. The Outer Space Treaty of 1967 is practically designed to discourage people. No really effective engines, no land grabs, no militarization. If your actual goal was to make sure nobody left the planet, you could hardly do better.

Hell, it wasn't clear if asteroid mining was allowed by it until 2015 ... and some people are still arguing it isn't.
 

Captain X

Well-known member
Osaul
Until we can effectively generate artificial gravity to simulate 1g, I sure wouldn't want to be on some asteroid or Mars long term.
 

Largo

Well-known member
Let me particularly emphasize this. People have been talking about 'peak oil' as 'a thing we are already at' since at least the 1980's, and they've been wrong every single time. Production has constantly increased, and known reserves on top of that has also consistently increased.

As a reminder, in ~1970, a lot of elites believed that 'The Population Bomb' would have a quarter of the world's population dead of starvation in the 1990's. It didn't even vaguely resemble reality, as we have seen.

The social elite in the modern world has a demonstrated pathology towards inventing existential threats to humanity that require decisive action on their part with dictatorial powers, but said threats never actually materialize.
At least the 1980s?



Here's a US government video talking about tidal power as an alternative to us running out of fossil fuels in 1959.
 

Bassoe

Well-known member
So if I'm getting this right:

Step #1. Use decades of globalism race-to-the-bottom competition with automation and foreign slave labor to annihilate as much independent self-employment and small businesses as possible.

Step #2. Finish off the survivors with a quarantine during which small businesses are forcibly shut down until they're driven bankrupt, while giant corporations are allowed to remain open as 'essential'.

Step #3. Company town feudalism. Giant corporations which pay their employee-serfs just enough money to rent everything from them. Everyone technically still has rights, but functionally, doesn't, so long as the giant corporations can fire or cancel them at any time for any reason, essentially banishing them from civilization.

Step #4. Two possibilities, I'm pretty sure the corporatocracy doesn't know which option they'll go for, they're just waiting for whichever technologies are invented first.

Step #4-A. Automation. As robotics technology improves and robots can do more tasks for less money, competition with robots drives down employee-serf wages and working conditions, until eventually, it isn't possible for a human worker, no matter how mistreated and overworked, to be cost-effective compared to a robot receiving the bare minimum 'salary' required for maintenance. All human employees are therefore now unemployed and any attempts at rebellion, squatting on corporate property, theft to sustain themselves or really, anything but starving in peace while not violating the NAP are met with security kill-drones.

Step #4-B. Biotechnology. Transhumanism technologies reach the point where augmented workers are more effective and therefore, more profitable, than baseline ones. Therefore, effective immediately, being augmented becomes an essential prerequisite for any form of employment like how a collage degree is now, nobody will hire anyone with merely baseline capabilities. However, augmentation is expensive. Companies offer loans to pay for becoming augmented and consequentially, employable, in exchange for labor, which technically aren't slavery, insofar as workers can technically quit any time they want, the company would just repossess their prosthetic organs. And planned obsolesce, so that whenever someone comes close to paying off a debt, completely coincidentally, they suddenly need expensive maintenance or replacement surgeries. And spyware, spam advertisements and remote kill-switches for voluntary musculature to maintain monopoly of force connected to everyone's central nervous systems.
 
Last edited:

Megadeath

Well-known member
The current technology for most efficiently breaking out of Earth's gravity well has been voluntarily abandoned since the 70s out of nuclearphobia?
Uh... From the article you linked: "In 2019, the US Congress approved US$125 million in development funding for nuclear thermal propulsion rockets." So not really that abandoned.

@Bassoe you sound like a crazy person, ascribing sinister intent to perfectly natural market forces, and imagining conspiratorial cabals intelligent and powerful enough to shape the course of human civilisation but incompetent enough that they are easily revealed by internet randoms, with plans so dumb that only those self same could imagine them.

Why aren't we mining asteroids yet? Because space travel is insanely expensive, complex and unforgiving, and almost everything you could want from it you can get quicker, easier and cheaper right here on earth.
 

Bassoe

Well-known member
Uh... From the article you linked: "In 2019, the US Congress approved US$125 million in development funding for nuclear thermal propulsion rockets." So not really that abandoned.

@Bassoe you sound like a crazy person, ascribing sinister intent to perfectly natural market forces, and imagining conspiratorial cabals intelligent and powerful enough to shape the course of human civilisation but incompetent enough that they are easily revealed by internet randoms, with plans so dumb that only those self same could imagine them.

Why aren't we mining asteroids yet? Because space travel is insanely expensive, complex and unforgiving, and almost everything you could want from it you can get quicker, easier and cheaper right here on earth.
Hardly a 'conspiracy theory' when the conspirators literally have their plans laid out on their websites. And why would they care if internet randoms knew their plans, given that internet randoms have no power to actually stop them?
 

Megadeath

Well-known member
Hardly a 'conspiracy theory' when the conspirators literally have their plans laid out on their websites. And why would they care if internet randoms knew their plans, given that internet randoms have no power to actually stop them?
Lol, go ahead and link me to the site where the global conspiracy outlined their plan to "annihilate as much independent self-employment and small businesses as possible." before they "Finish off the survivors with a quarantine during which small businesses are forcibly shut down until they're driven bankrupt". I could use a good laugh. Also, looks like nobody told the people responsible for the tracking tech in the vaccines that they weren't ready to roll out yet, and needed more time to finish establishing company serfdom. Alas, our poor conspirators are hamstrung and their plans derailed by their own haphazard swinging between absolute and non-existent secrecy. :rolleyes:
 

Megadeath

Well-known member
You mock it.

Yet rhats exactly what happened to small business owners and the middle class.

Derp
Really? I know plenty doing just fine, and work for a small business that grew despite covid. Not been a terribly successful conspiracy. Perhaps you could point me to something outlining the coming change to company town feudalism?

I mean, sure some small businesses were negatively effected, and more so than larger businesses. That's hardly proof of some evil invisible conspiracy though, it's a perfectly foreseeable and reasonable result of a global pandemic. What do you think would look different if this was exactly what it's claimed to be, rather than some clever plan by our evil overlords?
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Top