> Rule of law, functioning government providing services
Jokes on them, without rule of law and functioning government to enforce it there is no ownership.
Jokes on them, without rule of law and functioning government to enforce it there is no ownership.
In the absence of effective laws to align people in the direction of the society they want, and constant effort to realign in response to pressure, we will fall back to tribalism and all of the attendant forms of feudalism and government that came before it. Ownership then reverts to might (or those with the resources to buy might) makes right.
A pity that so many people in SV only read what flatters them.
While I think these guys have an addiction to wealth, I also think they are even more addicted to having more than anyone else.
I’m like 80/20 on if these guys would take living in the medieval era but we’re the king or emperor vs being a regular citizen in a Star Trek level of technology and post scarcity society.
Rather rules over ashes and all that.
This feels a bit like those rich survivalists who think they are going to fix bomb-collars to their bodyguards to ensure loyalty in the apocalypse... stock certificates aren't worth a whole lot in a world where the rule of law has broken down
Not when he has to compete for them with Zombie Steve.
Society won't break down (in the chaos sense) and resources will still be allocated. Power abhors a vacuum as they say. It's just that resources and power will controlled and distributed in an openly feudal way.
Technology's egalitarian objectives will be replaced by overtly oligarchic ones.
Tech fandom will be replaced with other identities constructed to gain access to real resources owned and controlled by the few.
What’s an example of such a real resource?
And you think the vast majority of people do not have access to the overwhelming majority of those things? The evidence suggests the opposite. The only item in your list I would agree with is "proximity to influence", but it is also the one thing that is totally different from the others in the list.
The comment I responded to asked:
> Is the Apple fandom strong enough to get Tim Cook his own private army of zealots when society breaks down?
I didn't say we are there now.
Responding to the parent's question about a dystopian future scenario, I said that those are the resources that will become controlled by the few if "society breaks down" due to technofeudalism.
Imagine what one could do with an infinite Charisma, propaganda generating machine.
I don't care much about the 2nd amendment absolutists, and the myth of the American heroes who will stand up to tyranny, because so far the only thing they appear to have stood up for in the last hundred years are gun rights, religious fundamentalism, and in 2020, a demagogue.
American exceptionalism and gun culture are important to Americans, but are pretty much viewed as narcissism and with skepticism outside of the US. YMMV, but like another comment I made recently, this isn't an anti-American sentiment, it's just a perspective from one of your neighbours to the north who has lots of Canadian and American friends and family living in the US.
In the absence of effective laws, one of the biggest threats to rich people would be their own hired thugs. If the thugs decide that they don't respect you and they would make better rich assholes, they will kill you and take your property. Historically, societies like that were often ruled by the biggest and the most charismatic thugs, who could command the respect of lesser thugs. Or warrior nobility, if you want a fancier term. Today's billionaire nerds would not be among those.
you can be the boyar and punch down, but you get uppity and challenge the Tsar you end up in a cage
Russia is 15 slots lower than Nigeria on government corruption. Putin can easily have someone killed but the idea that if he needed money for the war he could get it by e.g. enforcing the law against taking kickbacks for misallocating public funds is so ridiculous that even attempting to do it might be one of the few things that could cause him to be removed from power.
And for a similar reason he can't enforce laws that require any form of localized information, because everybody is just fabricating the numbers.
The trouble with running a kleptocracy is that there's no honor among thieves.
Then I could make a move whenever.
But thinking more, things are different today. Wealth is international on a qualitatively different level than it was a hundred years ago. If you’re the richest of the rich in revolutionary Russia a century ago, you'll probably lose all of your wealth if not your life. If you’re very lucky you might end up in exile, struggling to survive.
Now imagine something similar happening today in the home country of people like Zuck and Musk. It’s unlikely there would be any threat to their life. They might lose a chunk of their wealth, but they’re sufficiently diversified that they’ll still be among the wealthiest people in the world no matter what happens.