"It’s the mystery of money, she said. Numbers that people trust; unlikely from the get-go. But then, if that trust was lost, boom, it was gone. Meanwhile they were all part of a global financial system that had become so complex that even the people running it didn’t understand it.
...
Which means also people’s trust in civilization. Their faith in a system that no one really understands."
-- #KimStanleyRobinson, The Ministry for the Future
"What’s the monetary value of human civilization? Trying to answer that question proves you are a moral and practical idiot."
-- #KimStanleyRobinson, The Ministry for the Future
"Even when your home in the world feels colder than Antarctica, like in Boston, you still forget that the Antarctic cold is really a true, deep cold, so cold it burns."
-- #KimStanleyRobinson, The Ministry for the Future
" “The AI group is making open source instruments that mimic the functions of all the big social media sites.”
“So people can shift over to this new set?”
“Yes. And it will protect their data for them using quantum encryption.”
..., using these sites means they’ll control their data, rather than it being used and mined. That privacy can then be a resource to them. They can sell their personal data if they want. That plus the security of encryption, and the public ownership of these sites as a commons, should be enough to entice every user on the planet to shift. ...
“How many do you think will shift?”
“Maybe half. After a few years, everybody.”
“So, the decapitation of Facebook.”
“And all the rest like it.”
“Replaced by a system owned by its users, in effect.” "
-- #KimStanleyRobinson, The Ministry for the Future
"I grew so large that I ate the world, and all the blood in the world is mine. What am I? You know, even though you are like everything else, and see me from the inside. I am the market."
-- #KimStanleyRobinson, The Ministry for the Future
"Because money ruled the world, these people ruled the world. They were the world’s rulers, in some very real sense. Bankers. Non-democratic, answerable to no one. The technocratic elite at its most elite: financiers."
-- #KimStanleyRobinson, The Ministry for the Future
"Once some years ago Mick Jagger was spotted dancing by himself to a juke box in the corner; he was bored. But most of the people in attendance are happy just to be there and get seen by all the others.
Davos meets for a week, though few stay for the whole thing. About 2,500 businessmen and political leaders, with a few entertainers added for entertainment purposes; thus Jagger. The days of the conference are devoted to panel discussions and long meals, and all the problems of the day get discussed, mainly variations on the theme of riding herd on an increasingly fractious world by helping those most in need. Charity Inc.!
With immense effort the percentage of women there has gone from six percent to twenty-four percent, we were told, and the organizers congratulated themselves on this progress and promised to keep working on the problem, which was difficult to solve, as most wealthy people and most political leaders are just by coincidence male."
#KimStanleyRobinson, The Ministry for the Future
"Davos is one of my favorite parties. The World Economic Forum, held every year at the end of January. It’s touted as an international gathering of power-brokers, those “stateless elites” who come to congratulate themselves and talk about how their plans for the future will make everything all right, especially for the elites themselves, who sometimes get called “Davos Man,” that newly emergent subspecies of Homo sapiens, eighty percent male and in the top ten percent of the top one percent when it comes to personal wealth among other attributes."
#KimStanleyRobinson, The Ministry for the Future
"Demonstrations are parties. People party and then go home. Nothing changes.
Well, but what about coordinated mass action? That sounds like more than partying to me. The so-called fiscal strike that we hear so much about, leading to a financial crash and the subsequent nationalization of the banks, for instance. National governments would then be back in control, coordinating a complete takeover of global finance.
...
So again we come back to legislatures! These are usually thought to be features of representative democracies. To the extent that such democracies still exist, if they ever did, their legislatures would have to be voted in by voting majorities, by definition.
...
So this seems quite practical! What keeps us from doing that?
People are stupid. Also the rich will fight it.
Again this presumption that the rich have more power than the poor!"
#KimStanleyRobinson, The Ministry for the Future
alice 🪞♥️ 🎩🐇
Casdeiro