I’ve read far too much Neal Stephenson [1][2]. I genuinely believe the direction of the evolution of our social organization is bee lining directly toward burbclaves. Nation states will disappear because they are unable to compete against large, multinational corporations or criminal enterprises. [Obligatory joke of that being a distinction without a difference here]. The amalgamation of capital into the hands of an infinitesimally small percentage of the population and the barriers to participation it raises for everyone else require the unlucky masses to do whatever it takes to survive.
The incredibly stupid “War on Drugs” has, for decades now, led to an escalating arms race between nation states and, for lack of a better phrase, narco states. Now we are presented with a criminal enterprise so equipped as to be able to stand toe-to-toe with just about every nation in this hemisphere. And for the ones it cannot yet match up against, it is more than capable of waging asymmetrical warfare on a level that the remaining nations will quickly find demoralizing.
There once was a time where the goals were arming and equipping to stand against competitors and nations. Now they’ve progressed to the point of building out their own parallel communications infrastructure. And kidnapping skilled IT professionals to make it happen [3]. They use even more barbarous [4] techniques [5] to recruit foot soldiers and hit men. They’re building a parallel social organization. One based on fear, projected power, and feudal control of the means of survival.
Once upon a time I thought this situation could be deescalated. That if we stood down, decriminalized, and treated addiction like the medical problem it is the other side would lose their reason for existing. That their funding would disappear and the need for secrecy and loyalty would seem ludicrous to their recruits. I don’t think this can happen any longer. We created a niche for a new social mutation and that mutation may out compete us in the end.
Oh, and the other half of the burbclaves? The corporate side? Yeah, I’m pretty sure we’ve lost the ability to appreciably govern them as well. Hell, we just wrote a nearly trillion dollar check to the multinational financial industry a few years ago. This same industry received large payouts from many other nation states because the pain of letting them fail was greater than the pain of rewarding gambling by socializing the debts. Did we extract a plan for winding down those corporations so this wouldn’t happen again? Nope. And they’re playing the very same games now with basically zero-interest loans from the public treasury.
So, yeah, I’m going to try to get in with Mr. Lee’s Greater Hong Kong [6] on the ground floor [7].
This is the depressing crap that has been running through my head this Friday. How has your Friday been?
[1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/830.Snow_Crash
[2] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/827.The_Diamond_Age
[3] http://motherboard.vice.com/en_ca/read/radio-silence
[4] http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_San_Fernando_massacre
[5] http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_San_Fernando_massacre
[6] http://www.everything2.com/title/Mr.+Lee%2527s+Greater+Hong+Kong
[7] http://www.cryptogon.com/?p=17044